During the quarantine, working in remote access mode for many became a commonplace thing, and not an exception to the rule. Companies solve the issue of teamwork in different ways: some create huge Excel spreadsheets with shared access, some multiply Telegram chats, and some buy new software.
Microsoft provides seamless teamwork with Microsoft Teams, and the platform is constantly evolving. In this article, we invite you to learn about the product updates that became available this fall.
Meetings & Calling
Invite guests without limits
Now you can see up to 49 video call participants at the same time! All you need to do is enable this feature in Teams and make sure all ISPs are running smoothly.
Meeting for 49 participants in Teams
Live subtitles
You can not only hear conversations, but also see them. Microsoft is adding real-time subtitles to each speaker. The feature is so far only available for conversations in English, though.
Transliteration from Microsoft
Spotlight
If you expect one person to speak the vast majority of the time during a meeting, “put the spotlight” on them. That is, pin the video with the leading speaker in the center of the screen by clicking on the “focus” option. This is now possible on PC, Mac, mobile (View only) and Microsoft Teams Rooms on Windows.
Speaker in the spotlight
Unite with Together mode
Let’s unite! Using AI technologies, Microsoft offers to place attendees in the same meeting room, creating a sense of being present. Currently only one meeting room is available, but by the end of this calendar year you will be able to hold meetings even at the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall!
Daily meeting of marketing specialists using Together mode
Add stickers straight on the monitor
Have you been missing the lively discussions and brainstorms in the meeting room? We have. Microsoft is trying to bring the virtual space as close to real life as possible and suggests using whiteboards during group meetings. You will be able to use all the tools that you can use on a regular board: take notes, draw illustrations, add stickers (both editing and read-only modes are possible). All participants in the discussion will happily join the brainstorming session.
Discussion of the current marketing tasks on the board
More control in meetings
Organizers can prevent attendees from muting during meetings, or they can only let them unmute when they raise their hands. This feature does not encroach on the sacred right of freedom of speech, but only makes it possible to make large conferences more organized.
Control of the unmute feature for meeting participants
Save meeting recordings on OneDrive and SharePoint
From October 2020, videos can be stored on your OneDrive for Business or SharePoint. These files have all the capabilities of working with documents: you can set access rights (including for external users), find files faster and set up security rules. To do this, IT admins must update policies using PowerShell.
New capabilities for storing video
Collect data about meeting participants
Find out who joined your meeting and when by selecting the “Download attendance list” option.
Upload member information
Manage all video streams
Microsoft has updated its meeting policies to allow blocking not only the outgoing video stream, i.e. your image, but also the incoming stream.
Chat & Collaboration
Find out about the sentiment among subordinates
You can become a better manager for your subordinates! Now you have a simple and quick way to check how your team is doing, in general or in relation to a specific topic, be it work-life balance, project status, or innovation within your organization.
To get started using the feature, IT admins must install the Reflect extension from GitHub and make it available to their users in the messaging extension menu.
The Reflect feature. Track sentiments of your colleagues
To get more information on updates, refer to the Microsoft’s September and October digests.
In conclusion, we want to share a webinar recording where you can learn about the capabilities of holding online meetings with more than 200 colleagues at the same time, online events with up to 4,000 participants, and carrying out project work in shared teams and chats within Microsoft Teams.
Enjoy your teamwork!