Microsoft 365 Copilot: New Navigation, Voice, and Context Enhancements Arriving Soon

on
Here are three new updates to the user interface of Microsoft Copilot. These releases improve usability, expand interaction options, and streamline how users incorporate work content into prompts. All three of these features were actually announced "a long time ago", and the initial release started almost 6 months ago. But I guess the setup is complicated, as the rollout hasn't completed yet. This only proves the importance of paying attention to the official roadmap and the tenant message center in order to understand when features are being implemented for your organization. Timelines may continue to evolve as deployments progress, and this summary includes the official reference IDs and documentation links for verification. Refreshed Navigation Experience There is a redesigned navigation experience for the Microsoft 365 Copilot app heading your way, delivering a cleaner, more efficient layout. The update flattens the menu structure and groups related components to help...

Microsoft Teams: One-Way Lobby Chat

on

Being able to communicate with meeting participants in the lobby has been a long awaited feature. And finally it seems it is on it's way. Coming in the June-July timeframe, the one-way chat to users in the lobby is being released to Teams. 

Once this feature is released, both Organizers and co-organizers of a meeting will see a new tab in the chat window. The new tab will be named Lobby, and is where messages can be sent to attendees currently in the lobby. The waiting attendees can not reply, and the message is not sticky. Meaning it will not be available to someone who enters after the message has been sent.

As with most features, also this can be controlled through the global meeting policies. The new setting will be called "Organizers can chat with lobby participants" and can be set to "On for everyone" or "On for everyone but anonymous users".

As an organizer of many meetings and user groups calls, I am really looking forward to this feature. It is always great to be able to acknowledge that you are aware of their presence in the lobby, and at what time you will let them in. 

This feature is related to the Roadmap ID 480716

As always, thank you for reading. Feel free to subscribe to my blog or following me on LinkedIn for more updates.