Direct from Microsoft
Product Marketing Manager Remco de Kramer shares a new feature coming to Teams calling called safe transfer. This allows for ringing back to the transferrer if the target user does not answer.
Community News and Contributions
Tony Redmond outlines the new feature that makes everyone wait in the lobby except the meeting organizer in his article Teams Meeting Policy Restricts Automatic Meeting Joins to Organizers. This feature is primarily aimed at education sectors where a teach can create a meeting but make all the students wait in the lobby until the organizer joins.
Chris Hoard has a two part article on the new Microsoft Lists and how they work with teams.
Microsoft Lists Fundamentals Part 1
Microsoft Lists Fundamentals Part 2
Chris Hoard also outlines TeamsFest online conference happening in October 2020.
On Twitter, Thomas Binder (@RtcBinder) points out some interesting announcements that came out of the Microsoft Inspire conference last month. This includes new calling plans countries and branch office survivability for Teams voice. New calling plan countries will be a welcome progression as Microsoft has not added a new supported country in quite some time.
ICYMI: Microsoft announced a couple of new #MicrosoftTeams features at last month’s Inspire conference. Personal highlights: “Branch Office Survivability” and “Additional Calling Plan Countries”. Now waiting for more details.
— Thomas Binder (@RtcBinder) August 12, 2020
Recording and slides: https://t.co/MnO7N16bxc pic.twitter.com/YMKp2hvSlX
Another tweet from Linus Cansby (@LCansby) points out feedback on Teams UserVoice that a default background feature for meeting video is now live. This means the background you select will persist from meeting to meeting.
The background you select in Teams will now persist between meetings, until you select another or turn it off. #MicrosoftTeams pic.twitter.com/J1VtBZv4Aw
— Linus Cansby (@LCansby) August 15, 2020
Josh Blalock continues with the great Teams devices reviews with two videos this week covering Lenovo ThinkSmart Hub 500 and Lenovo ThinkSmart View.
Road Map and Admin Center Updates
New Teams Meeting Pre-Join Experience
The pre-join meeting experience is getting an update with easier discovery of audio, video, and device selection. Expected release is September 2020.
Spotlight an Individual Video Participant for all Attendees in a Teams Meeting
Presenters can lock an individual’s video feed for everyone in the meeting. This will keep that video feed as the main video for all participants. Expected release is September 2020.
Enable Tenant Administrators to Configure Masking of PSTN Participant Phone Numbers
Tenant administrators using can define how audio conferencing participant’s phone numbers appear in the list of attendees. The participant’s phone number can be masked to external users, masked for everyone, or no masking. This only applies to meetings scheduled by organizers in their tenant. Expected release is September 2020.
Multiple Number Dialing
Teams will display multiple numbers for a user. These numbers are populated from the work telephone number and mobile number fields in Azure Active Directory. Expected release is by the end of August 2020.
Update to Meeting Creation and Expiration Policies
Microsoft outlines updated behavior to existing Teams meeting after meeting scheduling permissions have been revoked for a user.
Device Tagging Functionality in Teams Admin Center
Rolling out by the end of August 2020, administrators will be able to group, organize, and manage Teams devices by creating device tags.
Tip of the Week
Simona Millham shares a great tip of installing Teams as an app in Chrome or new Edge browser. This allows having multiple instances of Teams open each signed into a different tenant or user account. I use this for customers and different user accounts in my demo tenant.
