Microsoft plans to roll out an updated meeting experience, which will enable users to have conversations and calls in separate Windows during Teams meetings. In a Microsoft 365 Roadmap document, Microsoft confirmed that the feature is now timed for roll out beginning in June:
Multi-window experiences are coming to Teams meetings and calling. Users will have the ability to pop out meetings and calling into separate windows to help them optimize their workflow. These experiences can be turned on directly within Teams for PC and Mac clients.
In addition, Microsoft says that the upcoming Teams update will allow you to pin meeting controls such as mute, video, chat, leave, and others to the top of your screen. With this change, the Redmond giant aims to ensure that the meeting and call controls never block the underlying content.
Besides the new meeting controls, Microsoft has also announced that “this new experience will also include recently announced features such as 3×3 video, raise hands, and custom backgrounds.” According to an email sent out to Office 365 subscribers, Microsoft indicated when the feature starts rolling out, the updated view will set to “off” by default. Microsoft listed a couple of steps to turn on the new experience:
- Click on Avatar on top right of Teams and click Settings.
- Check the Turn on new calling anD meetings experiences check box and then restart the Teams client.
While the existing current meeting experience will be retired later this year, Microsoft has provided a timeline as to when we should expect the new experiences to be enabled:
- June – New experiences are available and users can enable through settings.
- July – Experiences are enabled by default and users can disable through settings.
- August – Experiences are enabled by default and user controls are no longer available.
Do you think that the new meeting controls at the top will eventually improve the user experience? Let us know in the comments down below.
