Microsoft released a summary of all the updates to its Teams communications platform in January 2021. Some of the detailed features have already been announced, including the new Approvals app, an offline experience and more. Here’s a look at all you need to know.
Chat and collaboration features
The first major area for improvement is conversations and collaboration. In January 2021, the company introduced several improvements to Teams, including a new tool for managing approval requests. With the Approvals app, users can create, manage, and share approvals directly within Microsoft Teams. It is compatible with all supported platforms including Microsoft Dynamics 365, Power Automate, as well as SharePoint.
In addition, there is a new offline experience with support for queuing messages in chats and channels in Teams. The offline auto-send option will put all messages in the queue when a device goes offline to send it later when the internet connection is resumed. IT administrators can now include up to 10,000 users in an organizational team. The full details can be found here.
Meetings and call functions
With the collaboration platform, the collaboration platform has adopted the ability to add a shared calendar to a Teams channel. The shared calendar provides quick access to all scheduled meetings and automatically sends notifications to the channel as soon as a member creates a new meeting.
Microsoft Teams has also received support for moderating meeting chat, which enables meeting organizers to manage participants’ ability to chat before, during, and after a meeting. The firm has increased the free audio meeting offer until June 30, 2021.
For calling experiences in Teams, Microsoft noted that Cataleya, ULTATEL, Atos, and Patton have joined the list of certified SBCs. This integration will make it easier for Teams users to make and receive calls over the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) in scenarios when connected to Microsoft Phone System. To be sure, check out this page.
Microsoft Teams devices and more
Teams’ devices also have a lot of news, and the company has outlined all the new phones, peripherals and exhibits for the collaboration service. The list includes Logitech Rally Bar, Crestron Flex Mercury Mini, Yealink A30, AudioCodes RXV80 and three Dell video conferencing monitors. These monitors have a dedicated Microsoft Teams button that allows users to instantly join Microsoft Teams meetings. The newly announced Dell monitors will be available in February 2021.
Lastly, there are also some security updates and quite a few new features for Teams for Education, first class workers and government clients. Microsoft Teams has announced a handful of Power Platform and personal development features, which can be found in the blog post.