Description

Annotation—powered by Microsoft Whiteboard—helps you collaborate on things, like a design or presentation, while sharing your screen in a Teams meeting.  

Flighting status

Started flighting. Available to everyone in public preview by June 3, 2022.

How to enable

Turn on and use annotation 

While you're sharing your full screen in a meeting, select Start annotation  in the meeting controls at the upper-middle area of your screen. 

The red outline around the shared screen will turn blue and all participants will see the Microsoft Whiteboard toolset at the top of the shared screen. Everyone in the meeting can begin annotating right away, and the red pen tool is selected by default. 

To begin annotating, choose one of the tools in the Whiteboard toolset--like Sticky notes--and start typing or drawing on the screen. 

Note: You can take screenshots during the meeting if you’d like to reference the annotated content later. The ability to screenshot annotation for Mac is coming soon. 

Annotation settings 

Collaborative cursors show the names of every participant in the meeting by default. Anyone in the meeting can turn them off. To turn them off: 

1. Select Settings
2. Turn off the toggle next to Collaborative cursors.  

Turn off annotation 

As the presenter, you can turn off annotation for all participants by selecting Stop annotation  in the meeting controls at the upper-middle area of your screen. 

Note: If you need information about enabling the public preview itself, see “Enable the public preview for Teams” below.

Microsoft 365 workloads and dependencies

⁺ For whiteboard to be enabled, please ensure -IsWBFluidEnabled is set to $true from Set-SPOTenant cmdlet https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/sharepoint-online/set-spotenant?view=sharepoint-ps

Supported clients and platforms

* Web users can view and annotate but cannot start annotations when sharing their screen
** iOS and Android users can only participate in an annotation session started by another presenter

Supported scenarios across Teams client endpoints

Known issues

• Public Preview release does not have the ability to save annotated content in-app. You can take screenshots during the meeting if you’d like to reference the annotated content later. The ability to screenshot annotation for Mac is coming soon.
• Recording doesn’t capture annotated data.
• You cannot use annotation in window sharing (only available in desktop sharing)
• If you don’t see the option to use annotation in a meeting, you may have "Disable GPU hardware acceleration" enabled. In a future version of this feature, we will be removing this limitation. For now, please use the steps:
  • In the upper-right corner of Teams, select Settings and more > Settings > General. 
  • Under Application, uncheck the box next to Disable GPU hardware acceleration (requires restarting Teams).

Enable your Teams client for the public preview 

1. First, IT admins need to set an update policy that turns on Show preview features. Learn how at Public preview in Microsoft Teams - Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Docs.  
2. Users then choose to join the public preview individually. See Get early access to new Teams features - Office Support (microsoft.com) for instructions. 

Send us your feedback 

Got feedback on features in the public preview or other areas of Teams? Let us know straight from Teams via Help > Give feedback.  

Thank you,

Preview Team, Emily Kirby 

Quality & Customer Obsession, Microsoft Teams