Welcome to the September 2023 edition of What’s New in Teams! This month we are bringing you 52 new features and devices for the month of September.
We have a great line-up of new features to announce. My personal favorites are Shared Calling which allows admins to make and receive calls using a shared phone plan and Create up to 1,000 channels per team so organizations that have no virtually limits on the number of channels that can be created for side projects and ad hoc meeting groups.
And every month we add new devices that certified and ready to use for Teams. Find devices that are certified for Teams for all types of spaces and uses at aka.ms/teamsdevices.
Please read about all the updates and let me know your thoughts! I’ll do my best to respond and answer questions as they come up.
Frontline Workers and Vertical Solutions
Webinars
On-demand recording
Once a webinar ends, organizers can publish the video recording and automatically send an email to attendees with a link to watch the video on-demand. The published video will be hosted on the online event page. A recording can be published from the recordings section within the webinar setup and management experience.
Teams Phone
Shared calling
Shared calling allows admins to easily enable groups of users to make and receive PSTN calls using a shared phone number and calling plan. Users enabled for shared calling will be equipped with the full set of Teams Phone features and experiences. This new Teams Phone feature provides an alternative way to enable calling for users that connect with external contacts less frequently. Shared calling is available to users with a Teams Phone license through either E5 or Teams Phone Standard. Learn how to deploy and manage shared calling for Teams Phone.
Teams Phone Mobile now available in Denmark and UK
Teams Phone Mobile enables organizations to integrate mobile calling with Teams for flexible, productive, and secure mobile communications. Teams Phone Mobile is now available in Denmark through Telia and in the United Kingdom through BT. Learn more about Teams Phone Mobile.
SIP Gateway is now compatible for more analog devices
Analog devices from Cisco, Poly and AudioCodes are now able to connect to Microsoft Teams via SIP Gateway, allowing organizations to preserve their investments in existing SIP devices. Learn more about benefits, requirements and compatible devices.
Chat and collaboration
Create up to 1,000 channels per team
Now, you can create up to 1,000 standard or shared channels in new and existing teams. This enables a team to have a channel for every project or topic without worrying about running out of space or about managing an additional team for the same workgroup. Private channel support will become available later. Learn more about limits and specifications of Teams.
Teams Cross Cloud guest access
We are extending existing guest access functionality, allowing guest to participate in rich collaboration experiences in chat, meetings, channels and teams between tenants across Microsoft clouds. Guests can participate in a full collaboration experience including audio/video, screen share, file share and both 1:1 and 1:many chat. Admins can establish trust between tenants and across the Microsoft clouds via Entra B2B and Cross Tenant Access Settings.
Teams Cross Cloud Authenticated Meetings
You can now join a meeting hosted in another Microsoft cloud while signed in to their account in their home tenant - no tenant switching required. When the meeting starts, the host validates the identities of the participants. You can rest assured that meeting participants don’t have access to other data from the hosting tenant.
Video clip messages enhancements
You could already record and send video clip messages in one-on-one and group chats. Now, you can also blur your background, record your screen, and record audio-only clips.
Record your screen:
Record audio-only clips:
Learn more about recording video and audio clips in Teams.
Teams Rooms and Devices
Microsoft Teams Rooms, Display, and Panel solutions
Find devices that are certified for Teams for all types of spaces and uses at aka.ms/teamsdevices.
DTEN Mate Touch Console for Microsoft Teams Rooms on Android
The newly certified for Teams DTEN Mate (PoE) offers a professional and user-friendly solution for meeting room control as Microsoft Teams Rooms console. Its intuitive touchscreen operation allows you to easily launch meetings, manage participants, schedule room resources, and more with a simple tap. Installation is a breeze with networking and power provided through a single Ethernet (PoE) cable, ensuring a hassle-free setup and a clutter-free system design.
Learn more about the DTEN Mate Touch Console for Microsoft Teams Rooms.
Aver CAM570 Camera for Microsoft Teams Rooms on Windows
The CAM570 is a PTZ conferencing camera, with premium-grade features that enables you to deliver in-person meeting experiences to remote participants. The CAM570 features a 4K dual-lens camera with 36X total zoom and an AI lens with 95-degree field of view. Aver's beamforming technology guides the PTZ camera to focus on the most relevant activity in a meeting, meanwhile eliminating unnecessary audio with mouth and human voice detection. The camera includes three pairs of built-in voice sensors with beamforming technology and two 4K lenses to track speakers up to 10 meters away. Learn more about the Aver CAM 570 for Teams Rooms.
Yamaha ADECIA Wireless Solution for Microsoft Teams Rooms on Windows
The ADECIA wireless solution, now certified for Teams, simplifies the challenges of implementation, configuration, and room acoustics. Designed to work seamlessly together to reduce set up time, costs and complexities, it ensures the easiest set up for the best audio experience thanks to features like auto-detect, auto-setup, and auto-tuning. With automatic speaker tracking, HVAD (Human Voice Activity Detection), and the latest DECT technology, the certified for Teams microphones come in four form factors to fit almost any environment, Plus, it requires just one PoE+ network cable connection for control. Say goodbye to wiring hassle and configuration updates when your room layout changes. This wireless solution bundle includes a processor (RM-CR), wireless access point (RM-WAP8), omni-directional microphone (RM-WOM) and a wireless charging base (RM-WCH8). Learn more about the Yamaha ADECIA Wireless Solution for Microsoft Teams Rooms on Windows.
Poly TC10 certified for Microsoft Teams Panel on Android
The Poly TC10 is now certified for Microsoft Teams as a Scheduling Panel. As a two-in-one touch panel for room scheduling and meeting control makes it remarkably easy to schedule collaboration spaces and join video meetings. As a dual-purpose device, it can be used inside the room to control video calls or outside the room to book meetings instantly. The flexible installation options and single Power over Ethernet (PoE) cable provide a clean, simple, and professional set up. Whether you mount it on a wall or set it on a table with its flexible, multi-angle stand, you’ve got the tool for true meeting productivity. Learn more about the Poly TC10 panel for Microsoft Teams Rooms on Android.
Frontline Workers and Vertical Solutions
Format text in tasks in Teams
Rich text notes are now available for Planner tasks in Teams. You can paste formatted content into the notes field, and use common keyboard shortcuts for formatting, like CTRL+B to make text bold. As part of this update, formatted notes are now also enabled in task publishing for frontline organizations. When authoring a task, you can apply rich text formatting using a toolbar that appears in the task notes field. Formatting includes styling like bold, italic, underlined text, text color, and font size. Bulleted lists, rich text links, indentation, and tables are also available.
SOTI and VMware Workspace ONE support shared device mode on Android
Organizations using SOTI and VMware Workspace ONE as their third-party unified endpoint management solutions for Android can also enroll devices in Microsoft Entra ID with shared device mode. Customers will be able to use the applicable Microsoft 365 Android apps that support shared device mode.
IT Admin and Security
Configuration of hotline phones via the Teams Admin Center
Administrators can now configure hotlines for Teams certified phone devices through the configuration profile on Teams Admin Center. Hotlines enable Teams phone devices to directly dial a pre-configured phone number or contact, such as emergency services in a manufacturing plant or help desk in your organization. Learn more about setting up Hotline phones.
Configuration of virtual front desk via the Teams Admin Center
Administrators can now configure virtual front desk settings for Teams displays, through the configuration profile on Teams Admin Center. Virtual front desk helps you interact with and provide personal assistance to customers and colleagues who are on-site through a video call on Teams displays. Learn more about setting up Virtual Front Desk.
Mobile
Remove Teams call and meetings details from mobile device call logs
You can now choose if they want to keep or remove their Teams call and meetings history details in the call log of their iOS device. You can set their preference in Calling settings in the Teams mobile app.
Platform
Auto install approved apps
Uses intelligent signals from your users to install and surface the apps that the admin has already allowed for the tenant. An admin can enable it to help users naturally discover and use apps that are highly relevant to their needs within Microsoft Teams. Learn more about Auto install approved apps.
New collaborative apps
Ambr
Ambr is designed to proactively identify burnout risks within your organization or team. By analyzing anonymized employee calendars and sending out a daily one-question survey, it effectively detects signs of burnout. With a combination of qualitative and quantitative data, all aggregated to ensure employee privacy, Ambr offers leaders valuable analytical insights and actionable recommendations to address potential burnout issues before they become critical.
Gloat
The Gloat app is an AI-powered talent marketplace that matches you with internal opportunities based on your skills, experiences, and aspirations. It allows employees to discover open roles, projects in need of support, learning courses, and new peers and mentors across their organization. Gloat also helps managers and leaders create a more agile workforce by spinning up cross-functional teams, backfilling critical roles, and launching new projects and gigs.
Lucidchart for Microsoft Teams
This app from Lucidchart lets you create, edit, and collaborate on diagrams from Teams. The updated app provides an improved user interface, faster loading and rendering, and real-time co-editing, commenting, and chatting. Now you can also use Lucidchart to create org charts from your Microsoft 365 data or mind maps from Teams conversations.
VioletLMS
Unlock the future of corporate learning seamlessly through VioletLMS app within Microsoft Teams. The VioletLMS integration equips you with an unparalleled, real-time learning ecosystem that bridges the gap between training and execution. Users can launch courses, share announcements and resources, attend virtual trainings, and much more. Administer courses, allocate user journeys, and track learner progress—all without ever leaving Teams.
Collaborative app updates
GiveBack
Unlock the power of giving with GiveBack’s revolutionary app for Microsoft Teams. The easy-to-use app harnesses the power of AI to find relevant, localized team activities, automate giving initiatives, and helps create a purpose-led culture. With GiveBack, you can engage your staff, enhance your ESG profile, and gain a competitive advantage within your market – all in one simple app.
Limeade Well-Being
The Limeade Well-Being app infuses well-being into the flow of work making it easy for you to access your Limeade well-being program - such as well-being activities and resources —in Teams. The new version provides improved notifications, team challenges to help motivate colleagues, and a personalized dashboard to show participation and progress toward goals.
Streamline
Streamline uses AI to analyze the meeting context, participants, goals, and provide relevant suggestions and insights to improve the meeting outcome. The Teams App latest update leverages AI to generate agendas. This is done by analyzing the metadata of your meeting and suggestions of users. The interactive chatbot – providing personalized feedback on your meeting habits and most importantly automated follow-up – with just a press of button it suggests follow up tasks based on your last meeting and adds them to your “to-do” tasks. Streamline harnesses AI to optimize the meeting schedule and duration, by considering the availability, preferences, and workload of the participants, and by sending timely reminders and follow-ups. All of this is based on the Teams AI Library as well as Azure OpenAI Services.
Workday
The Workday app allows you to access important information and tasks right within Teams. The app supports single-sign-on and multi-factor authentication for logging into Workday from Teams. The new update also includes a new notification system for important updates or reminders, along with many quick actions such as view my tasks, requesting and approving time off, anytime feedback, view payslip and a new enhanced co-worker lookup.
Workday Peakon Employee Voice
Workday Peakon Employee Voice helps organizations gather, analyze, and improve employee sentiment. It helps engage and retain talent while supporting belonging and diversity. With the Workday Peakon app in Microsoft Teams, employees can confidentially share their sentiments with their organization, by taking surveys from their natural flow of work. The updated application now supports Microsoft's app setup policy for large enterprise customers.
Robin
As businesses continue to navigate the flexible work environment, the Robin app allows you to manage your office workspaces and meeting rooms from Teams. Robin offers customizable booking policies for different types of areas (desks, meeting rooms, huddle spaces), the option to filter by different criteria (capacity, location, availability), and a streamlined check-in and check-out process with a simple button or QR code scanner.
Mentimeter
The Mentimeter app is a powerful tool for creating interactive, engaging presentations. The app now includes live reactions so your audience can use emojis. With the new presenter view, you can see your notes, upcoming slides, and audience responses while presenting. In Teams, you can also create and launch quick polls, including multiple choice, word cloud, and scales.
Teams for Education
New Updates in Assignments
Mark your student as Excused from an Assignment – this new functionality allows educators to mark one or more students as excused from any assignment anywhere you can currently Return or Return for Revision. This will help simplify the process of managing student assignments and ensure greater flexibility in addressing individual student needs.
Importing your Grade and Assignment Settings – We've recently introduced new settings to Assignments and Grades like Grading Categories and Alternative Grading Schemes and now we're making it easier to reuse your settings across different classes with Import Settings, which will automatically analyze your source class and replicate all relevant settings in your destination class.
Updated Insights Reports for Alternative Grading Schemes – With the introduction of the new Grading Schemes feature, we have made corresponding updates to both the Insights Reports for Assignments and the trend reports accessible to both educators and students via the gradebook.
New Updates in Classwork
OneNote Section Support – Educators can now add a whole Class Notebook section to their module instead of just individual pages. Sharing a section instead of individual pages will help save valuable space in modules and make a simpler experience for students.
OneNote Page Previews – In both Classwork and Assignments, users will now see a preview of a OneNote page before adding, ensuring that teachers are sharing the right content with their students.
New Updates in Reflect
New student homepage in Reflect – We are excited to introduce a new homepage for students in Reflect where students can respond to check-ins, explore and reflect on their mood trends over time, and take a brain break with our curated collection of short, inclusive activities designed to promote mental fitness, refresh the mind, and refocus.
Improved experience for Staff Team – We've enhanced the Reflect experience for your Staff team, providing greater control over privacy settings when checking in with your colleagues. With Reflect in the Staff team, you can take the temperature of your school ecosystem and ensure that educators' own needs are being met so they can invest the best of themselves in teaching.
Government
These features currently available to Microsoft’s commercial customers in multi-tenant cloud environments are now rolling out to customers in the US Government Community Cloud (GCC), US Government Community Cloud High (GCC-High), and/or the United States Department of Defense (DoD).
Microsoft Teams Admin Center: Manage apps, App details pages, and Custom app management for GCCH & DoD
Teams Admin Center is adding Manage apps and App details pages to GCCH and DoD. Admins can get a list of all apps present for their tenant from the Manage apps page, review app details, allow and block apps, as well as upload and update custom apps from Teams Admin Center.
Certified Teams Phone device release for DoD
The first certified Teams phone device release is now available to DoD customers. Administrators can remotely manage the entire lifecycle of Poly CCX 500 phones directly from Teams Admin Center. DoD roll out for other JITC certified Teams phone device models is in progress.