What’s New in Microsoft Teams - June 2021
Thursday, July 1st, 2021
June was another month where Microsoft released several features to make Teams even more useful. A new attendance dashboard is embedded directly in the meeting details section, allowing quick access to see meeting attendance. Meeting organizers can now lower all raised hands with a single click as well as spotlight up to 7 participants simultaneously during meetings.
Attendance Dashboard
After finishing a meeting or webinar, organizers can view an attendance report that helps you understanding how many registered vs. attended, who attended the meeting, and whether they engaged for all or part of the meeting. This is now embedded directly within the Teams UI for your reporting and analytics needs. Click on the Attendance tab in your Meeting Details to find the attendee dashboard. Learn more.
Lower all raised hands
When at least one hand is raised, meeting organizers and presenters can now lower
all raised hands with a single click. Simply navigate to the participant pane and
click on the Lower all hands option. This helps quickly lower all hands when associated
questions have been resolved to make way for new raised questions. Learn more.
Spotlighting multiple users in a meeting
Organizers and presenters can now spotlight up to 7 participants simultaneously during
meetings. Previously, while an attendee can pin multiple participants for their own
private view, only one participant can be spotlighted for all attendees. Once a single
participant has been spotlighted, simply click on the context menu of your additional
participant(s) and select Add Spotlight. For meetings that have multiple speakers
or presenters, this is great to focus all attendees’ view on those specific video
feeds. Feature is available in both Desktop and Mobile. Learn more.
Chat bubbles
Chats sent during a Teams meeting now surface on the screens of all meeting participants,
making the chat more central to the conversation. You no longer need to manually open
the chat window within a meeting to see what participants are typing. This feature
is on by default. To turn off this feature, select Don’t show chat bubbles under more
actions.
Inking and Laser Pointer in PowerPoint Live in Microsoft Teams
Virtual laser pointer and ink annotations are now available in PowerPoint Live. Presenters
can engage more with their audience by drawing attention or clarifying certain sections
of the PowerPoint deck. Just as you would use a physical laser point in a room, PowerPoint
Live allows you to effectively point at different places in the presentation so the
audience can easily follow along what’s on the slide. Only the active “in control”
presenter is able to see and make annotations via the annotation toolbar. Learn more.
Updated Large gallery view on Teams mobile
When selecting Large gallery in meetings, we are introducing a mobile-optimized layout
for Teams mobile users that allow you to swipe through all the participants in a meeting.
With up to 10 participants per page on your screen, you can now see all participants
clearly on your mobile device. This is available in iOS 13+ and Android OS 9+ or any
version with more than 4GB RAM. All other devices continues to see the current Large
gallery experience.
Include device audio when sharing on iOS and Android
Now you can include audio when sharing on iOS and Android devices during a Teams meeting.
This is great when sharing a video with voiceover and music. It allows everyone to
watch simultaneously without echoes or sync issues. You can find this setting under
More actions, Share screen with audio. It is available to devices with Android 10+ or iOS 13+.
Access files offline on Android
The Teams mobile app on Android now allows you to access files even when you are offline
or in bad network conditions. Simply select the files you need access to, and Teams
will keep a downloaded version to use in your mobile app. You can find all your files
that are available offline in the files section of the app. This feature was made
available earlier this year for iOS.
Include computer sound when sharing on Mac
Mac desktop users can now include audio when sharing their desktop or window during
a Teams meeting. This is great when sharing a video with voiceover and music. It allows
everyone to watch simultaneously without echoes or sync issues. You can find this
setting in the share content. Learn more.
Categories: Science and Technology