We’ve just concluded the month of April, and as usual, Microsoft has now published a new blog post highlighting all the new features added to Microsoft Teams this past month. The company has indicated that it added 21 new features to Teams in April, here’s everything you need to know:
Meetings
You might already be conversant with the “Raise Hand” feature in Microsoft Teams that’s designed to help alert the meeting moderator that a meeting attendee has an issue to raise or that they’d like to make a comment.
With that, Microsoft has announced that Teams will now automatically lower a raised hand immediately after the user finishes speaking.
What’s more, the users will receive a notification indicating that the raised hand will be automatically lowered soon. However, if you want to raise another point and would prefer to have the “Raise Hand” feature active, you can click on the Keep it raised button. It is worth noting that this feature is rolling out to the desktop client exclusively.
Additionally, Microsoft has also promised better clarity within Teams meetings especially for users that find themselves in the same meeting virtually and are also in the same room. In such an instance, a feedback loop is created which in turn causes an echo.
This affects effective communication during the meeting but with the new update, the new Ultrasound Howling Detection feature will be able to detect another Microsoft Teams device that’s close by and that’s already included with audio in the same meeting and notifies the users that want to join.
Microsoft Teams will then mute the microphone and speakers for the users automatically. These users can however turn their microphones and speakers back on whenever they want.
The company has also announced the availability of the green screen feature in Microsoft Teams that’s designed to provide users with “an enhanced virtual background effect that improves the sharpness and definition around your face, head, ears, and hair.”
And finally, Closed Captions will now be supported for embedded videos in PowerPoint Live for Teams.
Teams Phone
With the latest update, Microsoft has now made it easier for users to initiate Teams group calls with federate colleagues that are outside their organization, Importantly, it will be possible for users to do this over a stable internet connection, meaning that they’ll not have to incur any PSTN usage charges.
Mobile
Microsoft has added the ability for users to upload files from OneDrive from Teams Mobile chat and channel. What’s more, users will also be able to view recent files and attach their most used files directly from the Recent section.
Teams for Education
Microsoft has also announced that Viva Connections for Education has shipped to general availability. It’s essentially a tool designed to provide students with a unified experience directly within Microsoft Teams to mitigate these issues.
That’s it for the month of April folks. Of course, we only hit some of the key features, we invite you to check out Microsoft’s Tech Community blog post for more information and details such as Teams Rooms and Devices and more.