Microsoft announce new Microsoft Teams features at Ignite 2021

Today at Microsoft Ignite 2021 Microsoft announced a number of new features coming to Microsoft Teams.

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Interactive Webinars

Microsoft Teams supports a spectrum of communication needs, from small internal meetings to large virtual events. Now with Teams, you can easily organize and conduct interactive webinars for people inside and outside of your organization with up to 1,000 attendees. Webinars include end-to-end experiences—like custom registration, rich presentation options, host controls such as the ability to disable attendee chat and video, and post-event reporting. And if your webinar grows to over 1,000 attendees, Teams will seamlessly scale to accommodate a 10,000-person view-only broadcast experience. Plus, during this time of increased remote work, take advantage of even larger 20,000-person broadcasts through the end of this year. These new event capabilities are included with many of the Office and Microsoft plans your organization uses today.

Coming soon, new integrations will bring together Teams events with the robust attendee management experiences from Microsoft Dynamics 365 Marketing. Managing attendee information across Microsoft Teams and Dynamics 365 Marketing to nurture attendees before, during, and after the event is now easier than ever before.

Microsoft Teams Connect

Microsoft announced Microsoft Teams Connect, which allows you to share channels with anyone, internal or external to your organization. The shared channel will appear within an individual’s primary Microsoft Teams tenant alongside other teams and channels, making it easy for everyone to access it in their workflow. In the shared workspace, you can leverage Microsoft Teams rich collaboration capabilities: chat, meet, collaborate on apps, share, and co-author documents in real-time. Admins have access to granular controls, allowing their organization to stay in control of how external users access data and information. Microsoft Teams Connect is available today in private preview and will roll out broadly later this calendar year.

Microsoft PowerPoint Live in Microsoft Teams,

Presenters often share their desktops in virtual meetings, creating an inconsistent presentation experience and limiting the ability of the audience to interact. Today, Microsoft is announcing Microsoft PowerPoint Live in Microsoft Teams, which will enable presenters to deliver more impactful and engaging presentations. Presenters will now be able to lead meetings more confidently with notes, slides, meeting chat, and participants all in a single view. Meanwhile, attendees can personalize their experience by privately navigating the content at their own pace or using the screen reader to make content accessible. PowerPoint Live is now available in Teams. Learn more about PowerPoint Live.

Presenter Mode

The new Presenter mode empowers presenters to customize how their video feed and content appear to the audience. The first mode, Standout, shows the speaker’s video feed in front of the shared content. Next, Reporter will show content as a visual aid above the speaker’s shoulder, just like during a news segment. Third, Side-by-side will show the presenter’s video feed alongside their content as they present. Presenter mode will be available soon.

Dynamic View

Today, Microsoft is also announcing Dynamic view, which intelligently arranges the elements of your meeting for an optimal viewing experience. As people join, turn on video, start to speak, or begin to present in a meeting, Teams automatically adjusts and personalizes your layout. We’ve also added a new option to place the participant gallery at the top of the meeting window, helping you maintain a natural eye gaze. Dynamic view will be rolling out soon.

New Gallery views

Microsoft is bringing new gallery views to Microsoft Teams Rooms, including Together Mode and large gallery, to make it easier to see everyone in the meeting. And whether the room has one screen or two, you’ll be able to see meeting content, along with everyone joining from home, at the same time.

Microsoft Teams Intelligent speakers

Microsoft is also announcing new Microsoft Teams Intelligent speakers that can identify and differentiate the voices of up to 10 people talking in a Microsoft Teams Room. These speakers were created in partnership with EPOS and Yealink, and allow attendees to use the transcription to follow along or capture actions, by knowing who in the room said what. Whether you are working remotely or following the meeting in the conference room, you can effectively see who said what during the meeting. To enable privacy and security, users are in full control and can turn attribution on or off at any time.

Microsoft Teams certified monitors

Microsoft is expanding their portfolio of devices that users can choose from when building out their home offices. Today, Microsoft is announcing the first monitors certified for Microsoft Teams, the new Dell Video conferencing monitor, and the Poly 21. These new monitors integrate critical conferencing hardware like a microphone, speaker, camera, and light right into the monitor, so employees can simply attach their PC via USB to get started on collaboration and maximizing productivity. The new P15 video bar from Poly is an easy-to-mount peripheral that transforms an existing monitor into a high-quality Teams endpoint. Lastly, the new Cam 130 by Aver integrates lights as well, allowing users to present their best selves in video meetings.

Microsoft Teams end-to-end encryption

To further address their customers’ security and compliance requirements, Teams will support end-to-end encryption (E2EE) for one-to-one Microsoft Teams calls, providing an additional option for conducting sensitive online conversations. IT will have full discretion over who can use E2EE in the organization. E2EE for Microsoft Teams one-to-one ad hoc VoIP calls will be available to commercial customers in preview in the first half of this calendar.

Microsoft Viva in Microsoft Teams

Last month, Microsoft launched Microsoft Viva, their new employee experience platform built to empower people and teams to be their best from anywhere. Powered by the full breadth and depth of Microsoft 365, it is experienced through Microsoft Teams and other Microsoft 365 apps that people use every day. Learn more in their Microsoft Viva announcement blog.

Their first module, Viva Connections, gives you a?curated, company-branded?experience that brings together relevant?news, conversations, and other resources. Today, Microsoft is announcing that the desktop experience for Viva Connections is now generally available. Viva Connections will be available to all customers as part of their existing SharePoint license.

Viva Insights, now in preview, gives individuals, managers, and leaders personalized and actionable privacy-protected insights that help everyone in an organization thrive. Starting next month, the virtual commute experience Microsoft announced last year will begin rolling out as part of the Microsoft Viva Insights app to help you mindfully wrap up your workdays. The new Home tab will also be available next month, providing a seamless way to stay on top of pending tasks, reflect on your feelings, send praise to your colleagues, and take a breathing break anytime during the workday—all without leaving Microsoft Teams. Learn more in their Viva Insights blog.

Finally, Viva Learning provides a central hub in Microsoft Teams where people can discover, share, recommend, and learn from best-in-class content libraries across the organization—including LinkedIn Learning, Microsoft Learn, third-party content providers, and an organization’s own custom content. The Viva Learning app for Microsoft Teams will be entering preview starting in April, and Microsoft expects to make it generally available later this year. Microsoft encourages users to sign up to learn more about Viva Learning, including further details about new experiences, partner APIs, and preview as they become available.

Microsoft 365 Multi-Geo

To help customers meet data residency requirements, Microsoft 365 Multi-Geo allows customers to provision and store data at rest in the geographic locations they’ve specified. Microsoft is announcing that Microsoft 365 Multi-Geo will be extended to include Microsoft Teams, allowing organizations to specify where their Teams customer data is stored down to the team and end-user. Microsoft Teams support for Multi-Geo will be rolling out in Spring 2021.