Preview exited, now GA: Expanded Emoji Picker

[Kaushal Mehta (LYNC)]

Description

The expanded emoji update brings users the fun and expressiveness they love from other platforms into Teams. It also introduces a far wider range of diversity and representation in our fun content - a necessity for our diverse and widespread user base. These features are just the tip of the iceberg in empowering user expression and we're excited to get this out to users!

These are the specific changes:

• 85 emojis expanded to over 800!
• Category selector
• Skin tone selector
• Shortcode picker

Category Examples

Skin Tone Selector

To select a skin tone please right click on emojis with the dot in the top right corner. Your choice will be saved for that login session.

Category Selector

Smilies	Hand Gestures	People
Animals	Food	Travel and places
Activities	Objects	Symbols

Shortcode Picker

• Available today only in desktop pop out chat and meetings.
• Type parentheses then characters to auto complete available emojis.

Flighting status

Available today on Desktop and Web. Additional emojis and mobile support coming soon.

How to enable

Enabled by default for tenants configured with emojis on.

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

 

Microsoft 365 workloads and dependencies

Product, workload, or area	Dependency (Yes/No)	If yes, version requirements and other dependencies
Exchange	No
Sharepoint, files	No
Skype for Business	No
Outlook add-in	No
Azure AD	No
OneDrive	No
Office	No

Supported clients and platforms

Windows 10	macOS	iOS	Android	Linux	Chrome	Firefox	Safari	Edge	IE
Yes	Yes	-	-	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	-

 

Known issues

• Dark emojis are less visible in Teams dark theme
• Some copy/paste scenarios are not fully supported yet

Known limitations

• Skin tone selection is reset between logins
• Skin tone selection is distinct between platforms
• Shortcode picker is only available in pop out chats and meetings on desktop
  • Coming to other areas in future updates

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. 

 

Summary of public preview features

For a history of features in the Office and Teams public previews, see Release Notes Current Channel (Preview) - Office release notes | Microsoft Docs.

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 @ Jason Schumacher

Quality & Customer Obsession, Microsoft Teams

[#2]

I believe typing opening parenthesis and something after that is a common pattern that most of the times does _not_ indicate the wish to insert emoji. Why this cue was chosen to open shortcode picker? Was there any telemetry or user data that suggested that this is a common pattern?
Also, how this would be handled in the languages that have full-width version of parenthesis (e.g., Japanese) or do not have parenthesis on their usual hardware keyboard layout?

[#3]

Another feedback: I noticed that the last two "hand gesture" emoji (heart mark and fist bump) are not Unicode standard. How would they be displayed of I copy and paste the text from Teams to another app (on Windows or otherwise)?

[#4]

Hello,
in the text, you mention how to enable this feature. Could you, please, add instruction, how to disable it?
I use Thumb Up emoji quite often, which has code (y). Now every time, I write (y), emoji picker comes up and automatically selects first emoji in the list, which is for some reason Fingers Crossed, which has code (ys). So if I write (y) and hit Enter, I will automatically select Fingers Crossed emoji instead of Thumb Up emoji being sent.
Not even the order of the emojis in the picker - which should react on what emoji code user is typing - does not make any sense as it is not in alphabetical oder by emoji codes.
If it cannot be disabled, could you, please, at least let us know, how to change order of those emojis?
Also, as was written by @anzhyg: Who has decided to force open emoji picker every time open parenthesis is typed?

[#5]

Maybe they're stylized versions of 🤟 and 🤜/🤛? I would hope so, at least.

[#6]

You have a Pride Flag and Diverse Couples? 🙂

[#7]

Why doesn't MS use the internal standard library for emoji by unicode?

Also, it doesn't look like there is an option to add custom emoji's which this pertains the resolve (Add more/custom emoji/memes/gifs/reactions) - please update on this or do not mark it resolved.

[#8]

Apparently, these are not displayed as Unicode characters, but as PNGs or GIFs.

[#9]

@  the thinking face is missing now, it was available befor that change. 

I am using this emoji multiple times a day.

[#10]

Thank you for the feedback! The parentheses pattern was selected to improve discoverability and to avoid conflicts with common emoticons like 🙂 and :P. However, our team is taking alternative shortcode patterns into consideration.

[#11]

Thank you for the feedback! The Teams emojis will appear as a static version of the emoji when pasted outside of Teams.

[#12]

Thank you the feedback! Our team will look into improvements for the ordering and selection of these results.

For the thumbs up emoji, entering (y) should automatically convert it to the thumbsup emoji.

[#13]

The heart hands emoji and the fist bump emojis are actually unique and custom-made!

[#14]

Thanks for the feedback! Our current emoji set does not include the Pride flag or emojis of couples. However, we will continue to bring future updates that gives users a broader choice of emojis.

[#15]

Thanks for the feedback! The new emoji set is a curated, custom-made set of emojis. Using this set allows us to bring more expressive, animated emojis to users, many of which are unique to Teams and Skype. However, users can find equivalents to most common unicode emojis in this new set.

After the emoji set is released, we will still continue tracking the custom content asks on that UserVoice item - it will not be closed after this update.

[#16]

Thanks for the feedback! Teams uses a custom set of emojis which includes some which are animated.

[#17]

Great feedback. You found something we can improve.
The emoji is there, but is only coming up under "think" in the search so we'll need to add "thinking" as a keyword.

[#18]

@Jason_Schumacher : (y) is only translated as Thumb Up emoji if I write it fast enough, so emoji picker would not show up, which requires quite a lot of luck. If emoji picker shows, it selects first emoji in list (yn) - Fingers Crossed Emoji.

If I close emoji picker by pushing spacebar, the emoji is not translated at all and recipients receives "(y) " message.

The same happens, if emoji picker is closed by Esc. recipient receives "(y)" message.

It would be very OK for me, to just have option, to disable emoji picker.

[#19]

Honestly, after playing with it for some time I would prefer that there are NO emoji shortcodes, like in Skype of yesteryear, but that there is a keyboard shortcut that opens up the emoji picker where I can type the name of the emoji or choose it with the keyboard cursors.

[#20]

@Kaushal Mehta (LYNC) 

Hello!

I just noticed that the :thinking: emoji for a "thinking face" is no longer functional while it was only yesterday. Has this been removed? The emoji in question:

B.R,

Mathias