Top 10 Teams News

During Ignite 2020, Microsoft announced plenty of Microsoft Teams news. Going into 2021, we now have a lot more to tell you with this blog post. This is a summary of the top 10 features, while for others like the Home site app – we’ve crafted a separate piece for you to catch up.

1. Large gallery view and Together Mode for web meetings in Edge and Chrome browsers

This new Teams feature allows users to change layout to Together mode or Large gallery during a meeting conducted in Edge or Chrome browsers. This release will improve the experience for users who join Teams meetings in Edge and Chrome browsers by positioning up to 50 invitees into a virtual space by removing each individual background people have and replacing them with a common background.

• When: The roll-out starts at late-January and is expected to be complete by late-February.
• What: Once the feature is available, all new and existing teams will be able to grow and host up to 25,000 members.
• Next Steps: Turn on Large gallery/Together mode from uBar.

2. History menu

Microsoft is introducing a history menu in the Microsoft Teams desktop clients that displays a user’s recently visited locations.

• When: The roll-out begins in early February, and it is expected to be complete in late February 2021.
• What: By hovering over the backward and forward navigation buttons, users will be able to see recently visited locations in Microsoft Teams. The history menu makes it easier to navigate to previous locations, such as nested tabs and documents.
• Next Steps: You might want to notify your users about this new capability and update your training and documentation as appropriate.

3. Channel calendar

With this feature, users can add the Channel calendar app to a Teams channel when using the Teams desktop app. This makes it easy for members to see scheduled channel meetings.

• When: The roll-out begins from mid-January through the end of January 2021.
• What: Teams automatically creates a new post when a channel meeting is created. It will appear in the activity feed and/or in a banner notification depending on users’ notification settings. Any user who has notifications turned off will see the event only when they open the channel calendar.
• Next Steps: The Channel calendar is available to all users by default. You might want to notify your users about this new capability and update your training and documentation as appropriate. Administrators can control apps by from the Teams Admin Center.
• Note: the channel calendar is available only to team members. Guest users cannot access the channel calendar app.

4. Teams & Secure Score integration

With that integration, Microsoft is adding some security recommendations for Microsoft Teams in the Secure Score.

• When: The roll out started mid-January and should be complete by the end of January 2021.
• What: Microsoft Teams customers will see “Restrict anonymous user joins during meetings” as a new improvement action in Secure Score.
• Next Steps: Access Microsoft Secure Score at https://security.microsoft.com/securescore and review the recommendations.

5. Start Meet Now from Outlook Desktop

With that feature it is easier than ever to start a Teams meeting through the addition of the Meet Now button in Outlook. Users who have both the Teams desktop client and Outlook desktop client installed on a Windows machine, and have the Teams add-in enabled in Outlook will see a new Meet Now button in the ribbon of the Calendar Tab in the Outlook.

• When: The roll out begins in late January and should be complete in mid-February 2021.
• What: Clicking on the Meet Now button will launch the meeting in Teams client.
• Next Steps: Try the Meet now button. You might consider updating your user documentation and training materials.
• Note: Users will only be able to use the Meet Now button in the Outlook ribbon if the AllowPrivateMeetNow policy setting is set to True.

6. New Teams lobby settings

With that feature, Teams meeting organizers can have greater control over their meetings by enabling a new lobby setting where only Calendar meeting invited users will be able to join directly.

• When: The roll out will start in early February and will be complete by mid-February.
• What: Meeting organizers can change the meeting option Who can bypass the lobby to People I invite. Anyone else with the meeting invitation will be sent to the lobby.
• Next Steps: You might consider updating your user documentation and training materials.

7. Windows 10 Native notifications

With this update, your users will be able to choose their preferred means of Teams notifications delivery, either via the Teams built-in notification system or via their native OS notification system.

• When: The roll out started in mid-January and will be complete by mid-February.
• What: Your users can change notifications of Teams messages from the Teams app to the native Windows OS notification system, from the Teams Notifications settings.
• Next Steps: You might consider updating your user documentation and training materials.

8. 25000 members per team

As announced on Ignite, Microsoft is increasing the number of members that can be added to a team from 10,000 to 25,000.

• When: The roll-out began in early December 2020 and will be complete in late February.
• What: Once the feature is available, all new and existing teams will be able to grow and host up to 25,000 members.
• Next Steps: You might want to notify your users about this new capability.

9. New Usage report

There will be a new Microsoft Teams report to the Microsoft 365 admin center usage reports section.

• When: The roll-out begins in late January and it’s expected that it will complete in early February 2021.
• What: The new Teams usage activity report shows tenant-level aggregates and per-team level details, providing an overall picture of how your organization is using teams within Microsoft Teams.
• Next Steps: Review the new report in Microsoft 365 admin center > Reports > Usage.

10. Customer Key for Microsoft Teams

The support for Customer Key for Microsoft Teams is now available in Public Preview. Customer Key is built on service encryption and provides an added layer of encryption at the application level for data-at-rest and allows you as the organization to control the encryption keys. The Customer Key was already available for Exchange Online, Skype for Business, SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business.

• When: The public preview is available since December.
• What: Customer Key helps you meet compliance obligations because you control the encryption keys that Microsoft 365 uses to encrypt and decrypt data, enhancing your ability to meet the demands of compliance requirements that specify key arrangements with the cloud service provider.
• Next Steps: You can now assign a single data encryption policy at the tenant level to encrypt your data-at-rest in Teams and Exchange.

Conclusion

As you can see, Microsoft was busy developing some nice new features. We’ve recently posted about an important update to Teams Guest Access and did a deep dive on the SharePoint Home site app coming to Teams. If you are rolling out Teams just now or you have deployed it already, make sure you know what your steps to proper Teams Governance are. If you’re looking for an expert help on your Digital Workplace project or Microsoft Teams project of any kind, we at Impactory would be more than happy to help!