What’s New in Microsoft Teams - June 2024
In today’s hybrid work environment, seamless communication and collaboration are more important than ever. Microsoft Teams plays a central role in keeping organizations connected, with its powerful calling and meeting room capabilities designed to enhance productivity and streamline workflows.
This blog will keep you up to date on the latest Teams Calling features, best practices for meeting room setups, and insights into how businesses can leverage these tools to improve efficiency. Whether you’re an IT admin optimizing your organization’s call flow, a frontline worker managing high call volumes, or a business leader looking for better collaboration solutions, this series will cover everything you need to stay ahead.
Stay tuned for monthly updates, deep dives into new functionalities, and practical tips to get the most out of Microsoft Teams!
Let’s dive into the key updates and how they can benefit your business!
Chat and Collaboration
Co-edit code blocks
Save time by using Loop components to share and co-edit code in Teams, instead of sending many code blocks. Just insert your code into a Loop component or turn a native code block into one. Then, anyone who can access the Loop component can review and co-edit it, making communication clearer and faster.
Streamlined compose box
The compose box UI has been updated to improve your messaging experience, making it simpler and more intuitive to craft and send messages. The redesign offers a cleaner layout and better-organized options directly from the compose box, enabling quick access to frequently used functions like message editing, emoji insertion, Loop components, and Copilot assistance. To explore a wider range of tools and features, such as file attachments, video clip recording, or adding apps to the conversation, click on the plus sign to access the extended menu.
Teams Rooms and Devices
Find certified for Teams devices for all types of spaces and uses at aka.ms/teamsdevices
Multi-panel check-in on Teams panels
In a conference room with multiple panels, check-in and room release are synchronized across all panels for accurate reflection of the room’s status and availability.
Logi Zone 305 Headset
Newly certified for Teams, the Logitech Zone 305 headset is a lightweight headset ideal for mass deployment to everyone who needs great audio and a reliable connection for call or video meetings. With 20 hours of battery life, its lightweight design provides long-lasting comfort.
Teams Phone
Intelligent call recap
Intelligent call recap brings one of the best AI features in meetings to calling. Intelligent call recap provides AI-powered insights and recaps of your VoIP and PSTN calls in Teams, helping you to stay focused during important conversations and save time on coordinating next steps. This feature is available for Teams Premium and Copilot for Microsoft 365 users.
Stream music for callers on-hold
Admins can configure streaming music on hold through integration now available with Easy On Hold. Easy On Hold offers different subscriptions, which allows admins to choose from a curated list of licensed music or create personalized voice recordings to provide callers with help information while they wait. Once the streaming content is set up using Easy on Hold’s administration tool, a URL for the streaming source is provided, which can then be used to configure your Teams call hold policy with PowerShell. An Easy On Hold subscription is required to enable this feature
Fundamentals
New VDI solution for Teams
We have redesigned the existing VDI optimization for Teams, which will enables enhanced performance (e.g., faster meeting joins, new codecs), reliability (higher success rates for creating and joining meetings and screensharing), and supportability (via Teams admin center and Call Quality Dashboard). This new optimization offers additional features such as advanced meeting capabilities, and a simpler app update experience.
Chat and Collaboration
Time-based prompts in Copilot in chat There’s no need to manually scroll and search through extensive chat histories. Now when you activate Copilot in your chat, you can use time-based phrases like “yesterday,” “last month,” “6 months ago,” or " December 2023" in your prompts. Copilot will efficiently locate and provide insights on information from the time period you specify.
Request to join a shared channel via channel link
It is now easier for users to access relevant shared channels and for channel owners to manage memberships. Users that share the same tenant can request to join a shared channel by using the channel’s share link. Channel owners will receive the join request and can easily approve or deny requests. While fostering efficient collaboration in organizations, this feature also helps to reduce administrative tasks for channel owners.
Show/hide discover feed
Discover feed delivers a personalized, relevance-based feed of Teams channel content to make it easier for you to stay informed and engaged with the content that matters to you most. You can now show or hide the discover feed by going to settings > general and setting the toggle to on or off.
Teams Rooms and Devices
Join Zoom meetings with an ID and passcode from a Teams room on Android
If your organization has enabled Direct Guest Join meetings for Teams Rooms on Android, you can now join Zoom meetings with an ID and a passcode. To be configured, this feature requires a Teams Rooms Pro license.
Text and UI resizing for Teams Rooms on Windows
With text and UI resizing for Teams Rooms, IT admins can now adjust the size of the text and all other UI elements on the front-of-room display by changing the display scaling settings. Text and UI elements are resized and adjusted for all supported display resolution and scaling combinations, including 1080p resolution at 100-150% scaling, and 4K resolution at 100-300% scaling. This capability is extended to support touch boards.
Logitech Rally Bar + Mic Pods for Teams Rooms on Windows (with Lenovo Core)
Transform any mid-sized room to a Microsoft Teams Room meeting place with this newly certified for Teams, all-inclusive room solution from Logitech, featuring Rally Bar, Logitech Tap, 4 Rally Mic Pods, and Lenovo Core mini PC. Rally Bar’s motorized PTZ camera, room-filling speakers, and a sensitive microphone array deliver a premium user experience that’s easy to install and manage. In addition, the Rally Mic Pods expand your audio coverage with beamforming microphones. Premium materials, thoughtful cable management, and a sleek 10.1” touch controller integrate beautifully into the modern workplace.
Find certified for Teams devices for all types of spaces and uses at aka.ms/teamsdevices
Teams Phone
Callback for call queues
Eligible callers waiting in a call queue can now receive a callback to their phone number when an agent becomes available. Callers become eligible for a callback based on conditions configured by admins such as exceeding a certain wait time, the number of calls in the queue, or the calls-to-agent ratio. Eligible callers will be given the option to request a callback after the music on hold finishes playing, and admins can customize the messaging, key press, and notification email for failed callbacks.