Microsoft remains committed to Teams as the platform for combining office and telecommuting. To this end, it continues to introduce new features and improve existing ones to better meet the needs of the user community. Here is a summary of the main enhancements and upcoming developments in Microsoft Teams:
Improvements introduced in April
In meetings
Improvements are introduced to reduce distractions during meetings on iOS. Notifications appear at the top of the screen during meetings, so users can preview them and have a button to clear them.
On the other hand, web users can now include audio when sharing a screen. For example, when sharing a video that everyone will be able to see and hear without echo or synchronisation problems. This feature can be found in the Share Content settings.
A new feature has also been introduced for the presenter mode which can appear on the right or left side of your presentation content.
In calls
Outlook contacts with an associated phone number can now be selected for calls. This functionality is available for users with an associated phone number in Teams.
In addition, administrators will be able to inform users about emergency calls via a customisable disclaimer banner that will appear within the call app.
In the chat
Text prediction features are also enabled for Teams mobile. That is, when replying or typing in Teams, the app will anticipate the typing and display suggestions to users. In the same vein, suggested chat responses have been added for desktop users through assertive AI that creates three responses based on the context of the previous message.
In addition, Teams joins Microsoft 365 and Windows updates with emojis and reactions in the new Microosft Fluent emoji style.
Check out what's new in Teams for the month of April here .
News for the coming months
One of the major announcements is that Teams will soon be available in the Microsoft Store.
In addition, a number of new developments have been announced for the meetings, which will be launched in the coming months:
- The transcription function will be extended to cover virtual desktop users as well. This feature is very useful for reviewing conversations after the fact, catching up with people who connect late to a meeting or those who can't attend at all. The goal of this feature is to make the Teams meeting experience consistent for all users of the app.
- Live captioning will also be enabled for all users invited to the meeting, regardless of whether they use Teams or not.
- Improvements to the meeting experience have been announced from Mozilla Firefox.
