The SMART business team has virtually attended the annual Microsoft Ignite event, where the latest updates to Microsoft products and services are presented, and is now ready to share with you what’s new to Teams in 2021.
If you are interested in functionality that’s already available on the platform, we invite you to familiarize yourself with the following materials:
So, here are the new features of Teams that will appear as early as this calendar year:
Meetings
Dynamic view
Dynamic view intelligently arranges the elements of your meeting for an optimal viewing experience. As people join, turn on video, start to speak, or begin to present in a meeting, Teams auto-adjusts and personalizes your layout.
Dynamic view is rolling out soon.
View switcher
The new view switcher in the top bar of your Teams meeting allows you to control how you see the meeting content. You may prefer to interact naturally with your colleagues and without visual distractions using Together mode. With Gallery at top, all video feeds display at to the top of your meeting window, making it easier to have a more natural eye gaze with others. Focus hides video feeds and puts the attention fully on the shared content and Full screen can help remove other desktop distractions.
View switcher will be available soon.
Presenter mode
Use Presenter mode to step up the production level of your presentations and customize how your video feed and content appear to your audience. Our first mode, Standout, shows your video feed as a silhouette in front of the shared content. Reporter places content as a visual aid above your shoulder just like a news story. Side-by-side displays your video feed next to your content. Presenter mode will be available soon.
PowerPoint Live в Microsoft Teams
As a presenter, you can now lead meetings with a single view of your notes, slides, meeting chat, and participants. Attendees can also personalize their experience by navigating the content at their own pace.
PowerPoint Live in Teams is available now.
Live Reactions in Microsoft Teams meetings
All attendees can now use emojis to react during a meeting. These reactions help promote inclusivity in meetings and keep things upbeat and interactive.
Live Reactions in Microsoft Teams meetings is now available.
Webinars
Attendee registration and email confirmations
Soon, setting up and running webinars will be just as easy as meetings in Teams. Easily add a custom attendee registration page to your meeting or webinar to manage attendance before and after any engagement. Following registration, attendees automatically receive an email confirmation for a simple join experience.
Attendee reporting
Following your webinar, you can use reporting to understand attendee participation such as who attended and how long they participated. Download an attendee report to review or use data to produce your own custom reports. Attending reporting will be available to download this month, and additional reporting capabilities within Teams will be available next quarter.
Chat and Collaboration
Microsoft Teams Connect
Teams Connect makes it easy to share channels with anyone, internal or external to your organization. The shared channel will appear within an individual’s primary Teams tenant alongside other teams and channels, making it easy for everyone to access it in their workflow. In the shared workspace, you can leverage Teams rich collaboration capabilities: chat, meet, call, share and co-author documents in real-time. Admins have access to granular controls, allowing their organization to stay in control of how external users access data and information.
Teams Connect is available today in private preview and will roll out broadly later this calendar year.
Teams and Dynamics 365 business process experience
Stay in the flow of work with new Dynamics 365 Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, Field Service, and Teams connected experiences. Take advantage of Teams capabilities like chatting, sharing documents, and managing meeting and webinar invites without leaving the Dynamics 365 workspace.
These features will be rolling out in April.
Approvals app updated with templates and attachment capabilities
Approvals in Microsoft Teams enables you to easily create, manage, and share approvals directly from your workflow. Starting in April, new out-of-the-box and customizable templates will provide a repeatable structure for common approvals — like requesting time off or paid leave.
Coming later this month, you’ll be able to attach files directly from Microsoft OneDrive and SharePoint, as well as attach a generic link for content that is hosted outside of Microsoft 365, so your request will always have the latest content.
We hope you manage to catch up with the new functionality of Microsoft Teams and implement it in your teamwork. The SMART business team experiences the effectiveness of this tool daily, so it will be happy to deepen your knowledge of using the Teams platform.