Upcoming Enhancements to Microsoft Teams Meeting Chat Controls

on
There are many kinds of meetings, and Teams is a great tool to have virtual meetings in. As an example, it is possible to get to the chat of the meeting and start the discussion up front or continue the discussions or ask follow up questions after the meeting is over.  But sometimes, there are scenarios where organizer would want to keep the chat closed for comments outside of the meeting timeframe. And here is a new feature coming our way, to control exactly that behavior. The Teams admin center will soon allow setting up policies that will enhance your control over meeting chats. These new options are designed to give administrators more flexibility in managing how and when participants can interact via chat during meetings. These options will be available across all platforms, including Teams for Windows and Mac desktops, Teams on the web, and Teams for iOS/Android. This update is part of the Microsoft 365 Roadmap   If you are an admin, here is where you can find and contro...

A couple of favorite picks from the Admin Center in August

on

Features in Teams are being rolled out at a really high speed these days, and I am a little behind on sharing my thoughts on them. So here is my summary of what I think are some of the important updates coming soon.

Microsoft Lists in Teams:
The release of Microsoft lists is going to be available on many platforms, and also Teams. The feature will be available by default for all users, channels and teams, unless policies are in place to restrict access. A user will have a mix of lists, both personal and related to different channels and teams. I recommend you share this link with your organization, to prepare for what will be coming in September and October: Get started with Microsoft Lists

New calling and meeting experience:
One of the biggest changes this summer, was the preview release of new calling and meeting experience. This will probably be a default setting (according to earlier posts), but if you want to experience some of the new great features you need to turn them on yourself.

Click on your avatar, and select "settings". Within the settings, you will have to check the box next to "Turn on new meeting experience (New meetings and calls will open in separate windows. Requires restarting Teams.)" and restart Teams.

After you've done this, multiple things will be available:

  • All new calls and meetings will pop out in a separate window, so you can easily access meeting notes or other relevant information in the regular Teams window without minimizing the call.
  • Large gallery view (up to 49 streams, available for selection once 10 participants have joined with video)
  • Together mode. A new mode where you get to see everyone as if they were seated in an auditorium.
  • Meeting controls are moved away from the middle of the video feed to a separate bar at the top.
Read more about these features and more at the TechCommunity These features should already be available in most tenants.

Speaker attribution in Live Captions:
Live caption is getting an improvement that will help identify who said what during a meeting. Rolling out by the end of August, this feature will list the speaker's name in front of the captions printed on screen.