Summary:
In June, we introduced exciting enhancements to Microsoft Teams. I regularly use Copilot compose to help make my draft messages clearer and in the tone that I’m aiming for. Additionally, the new meeting organizer controls let me manage access to meeting transcripts, recordings, AI-generated recaps, and Copilot. Even simple updates make a big difference in my daily work, like the ability to mute and unmute myself from the Windows taskbar.
The monthly blog covers everything from chat to meetings and town halls, from Teams Phone to Teams Rooms, and more. Whether you’re a regular Teams user, an IT administrator, or a frontline manager, you’ll find something new and exciting. And every month we highlight new devices that are certified and ready to use for Teams. You can find more devices for all types of spaces and uses at aka.ms/teamsdevices.
Read on to discover new ways to increase your productivity.
Meetings, Mesh in Teams, Webinars, and Town Halls
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
Customize your draft message when you compose with Copilot
You can now instruct Copilot to adjust your draft message however you’d like. To try it out, write a message in chat or channels, open Copilot beneath the message box in Teams, choose to adjust the message with a custom prompt, and type your own prompt, like “add a call to action” or “make it persuasive" or "convert my message into a list and add inclusive language." Copilot will adjust the message accordingly. This feature requires a Copilot for Microsoft 365 license. Learn more here.
Intelligent message translation in chats
When you get a message in a different language, you will see a suggestion to translate the message into your preferred language. Additionally, in your translation settings, you can select which languages you don’t want to translate, and whether to translate messages automatically. These features reduce the need for manual translation or switching between apps, streamlining the workflow, saving valuable time and enhancing communication and collaboration across different language speakers. Learn more.
Slash commands
Slash commands provide a quick, user-friendly, and consistent interface to take command of your actions fast. Instead of multiple mouse clicks to perform a task, like when you need to open a chat in a new window, add a code block, navigate to settings, or change your presence, you can simply type a slash in the compose box, select a command, and complete your task quickly.
Meet now in Teams group chat
If you need to discuss and brainstorm with your team, start a quick and informal huddle using meet now in a group chat. Meet now in group chat enables ad-hoc calls in real time with your team, providing an alternative to a formal, scheduled meeting. Regardless of your whereabouts, you can start a call as spontaneously as dropping by your colleague’s desk. The chat is part of your ongoing group chat thread so the content stays in its context and you can find the information when you need it. With meet now it is easier to see if colleagues are talking about an issue in real-time and giving an easy to way to join.
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.
Unfurling permalinks to see code previews
You can now share code with your team in chat more easily by pasting a permalink that shows a rich preview from Azure Dev Ops. The receiver can view the code in Azure DevOps. This helps your team understand the context without leaving the chat.
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.
Enhancements for multi-tenant organization (MTO) users
We’re introducing new improvements to support consistent and seamless collaboration experiences for users in different tenants within the same parent organization, such as conglomerates or organizations that have merged. These improvements include:
- The "External" label will be removed from the chat list and chat header, so you will no longer see it when collaborating with users from other MTO tenants.
- Users can view richer profiles for people from other MTO tenants, including their profile picture and contact information. These profile pictures are now shown consistently throughout the Teams UI.
- Users can share files with other MTO users in 1:1 and group chats.
- Users can access all their chat threads with new messages from one place, directly from their home tenant, with no tenant switching required.
- MTO admins now have an option of configuring text-based labels for each participating tenant, which will then be displayed for each user from respective tenants. Learn more here.
Meetings
Extend Copilot in Teams meetings capabilities with a Copilot for Sales plugin
Now, you can extend the power and knowledge of Copilot in Teams meetings for your sales organization by enabling a plugin to connect to Copilot for Sales. With this plugin, Copilot can process conversations in real time and return insights to sellers, such as an overview of an account opportunity, based on your organization’s Copilot for Sales data. Copilot can also suggest dynamic prompts for querying account information when sellers mention keywords and names during a discussion. You can enable the plugin with just a few clicks, and sellers can turn it on from the Copilot plugin menu. Copilot’s ability to intelligently surface data and insights from your organization’s Copilot for Sales knowledge base during customer meetings can transform your sellers’ efficiency and drive better meeting outcomes. This feature began rolling out in June.
Meeting organizers can manage access to meeting recording, transcript, and AI-generated insights
Meeting organizers now have an option to manage which attendees have access to the meeting recording, transcript, and AI-generated insights that are based on the transcript, like Copilot queries and intelligent meeting recap. Meeting organizers can select from three options: (1) Everyone (2) Organizers and Co-organizers, or (3) Specific People. By default, access is set to ‘Everyone,’ but meeting organizers can change this before the meeting starts. This new meeting option is currently rolling out to Copilot for Microsoft 365 licensed users and will be available to Teams Premium licensed users next quarter.
Meeting notes powered by Loop are available for Channel meetings
Meeting notes powered by Loop are already an essential feature in scheduled meetings, but now they are available in Channel meetings. Participants can collaborate on the agenda, take notes together, and track follow-up tasks in the same place. Because meeting notes are Loop components, they stay in sync across all the places they have been shared. Meeting notes eliminate the typical bottleneck of a single note-taker for capturing the agenda and notes, and makes notes visible to everyone, improving accuracy and inclusion at every stage of your meeting.
Meeting notes powered by Loop are available to Government Community Cloud (GCC) environments
Meeting notes powered by Loop are now available to our GCC customers. Meeting notes enable meeting participants to co-edit the meeting agenda, notes, and tasks in one place. Because meeting notes are Loop components, they stay in sync across all the places they have been shared.
Presenters can move the presenter toolbar and optimize video in Microsoft Teams screensharing
Now, when you share your screen in a Teams meeting, you can easily move the Presenter toolbar to any place you want on your screen so that you can still see the important areas of the screen when you’re presenting. We’ve also added a new feature to the Presenter toolbar in Teams that lets you manually optimize video playback when screensharing. Use the ‘Optimize’ button on the Presenter toolbar to make sure your content runs as smoothly as possible.
Enhancements to meeting transcript file storage and management
We are excited to share that we are standardizing the storage of meeting transcript files to OneDrive for Business, and bringing parity to the file management experience for meetings with only transcription enabled and meetings with both transcription and recording enabled. This change will simplify the management of meeting transcript files. The changes included in this rollout are:
- Meeting transcript files for transcription-only meetings will start saving to the OneDrive for Business folder of the meeting organizer (for scheduled meetings, Meet Now, Townhall, and Webinar).
- In the coming weeks, we will deprecate the storage of meeting transcript files in Exchange Online. But, starting with this rollout, all Teams client actions and entry points will only point to transcript file saved in the OneDrive for Business folder.
- Until the deprecation of storage in Exchange Online is complete in the coming weeks, with this rollout, when the meeting organizer or co-organizer deletes the transcript in the Microsoft Teams app, this will delete both copies of the transcript (from OneDrive for Business and Exchange Online).
- Default permissions are updated so that only meeting organizers and co-organizers have permission to download or delete the meeting transcript file, while meeting participants only have viewing permissions for the transcript in Teams client and Stream.
- Meeting organizers can update file permissions in Stream and select which participants have permission to download, view, and edit the transcript in Stream.
- The existing admin policy for default expiration time for meeting recordings will now also apply to the meeting transcript files stored in OneDrive for Business for transcription-only meetings.
- Customers who use Microsoft Purview can now use auto-apply retention label policies (requires one of the E5/A5/G5 SKUs) to set explicit retention & expiration controls on Teams transcripts stored in OneDrive for Business in addition to recording.
Expanded admin policy for who can download meeting transcripts
The existing admin policy to block permissions for the download of meeting recordings is expanding to include blocking permissions to download meeting transcript files (stored in OneDrive for Business) for any users within the tenant. This policy applies to new meeting transcripts across the entire organization. Administrators can exempt people who are members of specified security groups from the policy. This allows admins to specify governance or compliance specialists who should have download access to meeting transcripts. This control will be available through the SharePoint Advanced Management add-on license.
Require participant consent for meeting transcription
The meeting policy that requires explicit consent to be recorded is expanding to include transcription. When the policy is applied, a notification will pop up when the recording or transcription is initiated, requesting consent of all participants to be transcribed and recorded. Before a user gives consent, the user cannot unmute, turn on camera, or share content in the meeting.
Mute and unmute yourself from Windows taskbar in Microsoft Teams
We know there are times during a Teams meeting when you need to multitask – we all find ourselves needing to toggle to a different screen or pull up a document. Getting back to the Teams meeting to mute or unmute yourself can be difficult. In the new Teams experience on Windows, you can now see your microphone and your mute/unmute status from the Windows taskbar. From there you can also mute and unmute yourself by clicking the microphone icon. Now it will be much easier to control your microphone during a Teams meeting while multitasking.
SMS notifications for staff-scheduled appointments in Bookings
You can now set up SMS text notifications in Microsoft Bookings to be sent to the person for whom an appointment is scheduled. This is a welcome change to the current feature, which only sends SMS notifications when appointments are scheduled by an attendee via a published booking page. With this update, SMS confirmations and reminders can be sent to attendees even when appointments are booked by a scheduler or a staff member through the calendar scheduling experience in Bookings. This feature is available to Microsoft Teams Premium license holders.
New avatar wardrobe options for Mesh in Teams
It is important for your avatar to look and interact like you would. In May, we released new wardrobe options, more professional attire, and improved texture, fit, and color of the clothes available in the Avatar Builder.
Mac access for Mesh in Teams
Beginning rollout to general availability in June, Mesh will be accessible via Mac.
Disable social share of Teams webinars for individual event attendees
With disable social share of webinars for attendees, Teams webinar organizers can prevent attendees from sharing the webinar event page to social networking sites for public events post-registration. This allows organizers to more closely control their specific audience for an engagement to those intended attendees.
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.
Bookable desks
Teams lets users automatically reserve desks on the spot when they connect to the monitor or other equipment at a desk and share their location to collaborate better with others in the office. This feature enhances hot desking or hoteling office experiences. For IT teams, this also means they can track desk peripherals in the Inventory provided in the Microsoft Teams Rooms Pro Management portal.¹ IT admins can take advantage of automatic device discovery in the Teams desktop or use the free PowerShell Script to collect and import device data when setting up desks. Get started with bookable desks at aka.ms/desksetup.
Poly Studio Base Kit G9 Plus
Newly certified for Teams, the Poly Studio Base Kit G9 Plus for Microsoft Teams Rooms is a reliable, high-performance video conferencing solution for your meeting spaces. Purpose-built for collaboration, the HP Mini IP Conferencing PC with 13th Gen Intel® Core™ i7 processor with extra layer of security by HP SureStart pairs with Poly TC10 IP touch controllers over Ethernet, up to 4 controllers, and enables flexible room deployment from small to large spaces, ready to be paired with certified USB audio and video devices. The included Poly Lens Room lets you easily add rooms for management and monitoring. Learn more here.
AVer CAM520 Pro3
Newly certified for Teams, the AVer CAM520 Pro3 is a versatile Full HD PTZ video conference camera with a 36X total zoom, upgraded AVer SmartFrame, Preset Framing, Smart Composition, and a Sony WDR Sensor. It also provides three output options, including HDMI, for versatile streaming. What sets the CAM520 Pro3 apart is Smart Composition, an embedded AI feature that instantly captures meeting participants’ images to enhance video conferencing for meeting equity in medium to large meeting rooms. Learn more here.
Sennheiser TeamConnect Bars
Newly certified for Teams, Sennheiser TeamConnect Bars (TC Bars) enable Microsoft Teams users to experience hybrid meetings that combine high-quality Sennheiser audio with 4K Ultra HD video. Teams Connect Bars are plug-and-play devices for a quick start via USB. Beamforming technology, like in TeamConnect Ceiling solutions, allows movement and seamless presenter transitions. The AI camera features auto-framing and person tiling, and full-range stereo speakers ensure natural speech and intelligibility. Learn more about TeamConnect Bar Solutions (sennheiser.com).
Q-SYS VisionSuite
Newly certified for Teams, the Q-SYS VisionSuite enhances the visibility of participants in the room, providing a more natural viewing experience for remote attendees and enabling teams to feel connected and engaged, regardless of their location. Designed for high-impact spaces, it features best-in-class presenter tracking (driven by this newly certified AI-based accelerator appliance), intelligent audio-based automatic camera switching, flexible camera options, and vision-driven room automation. Learn more here.
Lenovo Wireless VoIP Headset
Newly certified for Teams, the Lenovo Wireless VoIP Headset is designed for modern, open hybrid workspaces. Its ergonomic design makes it easy to wear for extended periods, and you can enjoy 31 hours of talk time between charges.
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. Learn more about how to configure music on hold.
Easily manage Do Not Disturb presence status when screen sharing
We’re introducing a setting that allows you to opt-out of your presence automatically transitioning to Do Not Disturb when presenting or screen sharing. When this setting is enabled, you will be able to continue to receive call notifications when presenting, without having to manually adjust your presence status.
Calling features and contact management on non-touch phones devices
We’re expanding the capabilities available on non-touch phone devices and adding support for calling features such as park/unpark calls, busy-on-busy end user settings, auto restart, and the ability to manage contacts and contact groups, allowing you to access the same functionality and convenience as touch phone devices.
Platform
Simplifying the personal app header
For designers of personal apps for Microsoft Teams, this new feature displays a new simplified header bar in your personal apps on Microsoft Teams desktop and web clients. With this change, the ‘About’ tab and other utility actions will be moved to the overflow menu. In addition, the ‘Chat’ tab will be moved to a right-hand side panel for apps that support it. Learn more about designing personal apps for Teams here.
Easier discoverability of Workflows templates
Users can see which Workflows template was used when they receive a Workflows card in chats and channels. Teams Workflow cards posted from a template will now include a link to the template used. Users will be able to open the Workflow template and create their own automated Teams Workflows to save them time when completing routine tasks.
Frontline Worker Solutions
Shifts plugin for Copilot for Microsoft 365
Frontline teams can now harness the power of Copilot for Microsoft 365 with the new Shifts plugin. Both managers and workers can ask Copilot to show them their shifts schedule for their specific team, as well as open shifts and time off. With quick insights at their fingertips, frontline teams can manage schedules with more agility and speed so they can focus on critical tasks. Shifts plugin for Copilot is now generally available with both the Copilot for M365 license as well as Microsoft Teams E and F-SKU licenses.
Speech-to-text for Teams Walkie Talkie
Walkie Talkie users on Android and iOS devices can now view captions on the walkie talkie home screen, as Walkie Talkie in Teams will automatically convert speech to text.
