What’s New in Microsoft Teams for 2021 – Part 1
At various times throughout the year, big tech companies host events where they announce new products or exciting updates, and Microsoft is no different. The Microsoft Ignite event is the hot ticket event for both Microsoft partners and enthusiasts. At this, year’s Ignite hosted between 02-04 of March Microsoft announced a host of updates for Microsoft Teams. So much was announced that I’m going to put it into two separate posts. I can’t claim credit for this and will be posting this almost verbatim to the Microsoft Post.
Meetings
Dynamic view
Dynamic view intelligently arranges the elements of your meeting for an optimal viewing experience. As people join, turn on video, start to speak, or begin to present in a meeting, Teams auto-adjusts and personalises your layout. Dynamic view is rolling out soon.
View Switcher
The new view switcher in the top bar of your Teams meeting allows you to control how you see the meeting content. You may prefer to interact naturally with your colleagues and without visual distractions using Together mode. With Gallery at top, all video feeds display at to the top of your meeting window, making it easier to have a more natural eye gaze with others. Focus hides all video feeds and puts the attention fully on the shared content and Fullscreen can help remove other desktop distractions. View switcher will be available soon.
Presenter Mode
Use Presenter mode to step up the production level of your presentations and customize how your video feed and content appear to your audience. Our first mode, Standout, show your video feed as a silhouette in front of the shared content. The reporter places content as a visual aid above your shoulder just like a news story. Side-by-side displays your video feed next to your content. Presenter mode will be available soon.
PowerPoint Live in Microsoft Teams
PowerPoint Live in Teams gives presenters control and confidence while providing a more interactive and inclusive experience to your audience. As a presenter, you can now lead meetings with a single view of your notes, slides, meeting chat, and participants. Attendees can also personalise their experience by navigating the content at their own pace or using the screen reader to consume content, allowing people with vision disabilities to follow along with the presentation more easily. PowerPoint Live in Teams is available now.
PowerPoint Live in Microsoft Teams
All attendees can now use emojis to react during a meeting. These reactions help promote inclusivity in meetings and keep things upbeat and interactive. Live Reactions in Microsoft Teams meetings is now available. Learn more.
Webinars
Attendee registration and email confirmations
Soon, setting up and running webinars will be just as easy as meetings in Teams. Easily add a custom attendee registration page to your meeting or webinar to manage attendance before and after any engagement. Following registration, attendees automatically receive an email confirmation for a simple join experience.
1,000-person interactive webinars with moderation control
Beginning this month, Microsoft Teams supports interactive meetings and webinars for up to 1,000 attendees, including rich presentation options, live reactions, and moderation controls to disable chat, audio, and video for the attendees of the event.
20,000-person view-only broadcasts
Once your webinar grows to over 1,000 attendees, Teams will seamlessly scale to accommodate a 10,000-person view-only broadcast experience, including host moderation control that automatically disables attendees’ audio and video to prevent accidental presentation interruptions. And during this time of increased remote work, take advantage of even larger 20,000-person broadcasts through the end of this year. This feature is available this month.
Attendee reporting
Following your webinar, you can use reporting to understand attendee participation such as who attended and how long they participated. Download an attendee report to review, or use data to produce your own custom reports. Attending reporting will available to download this month, and additional reporting capabilities within Teams will be available next quarter.
Teams and Microsoft Dynamics 365 event experience
Today, Dynamics 365 Marketing customers can deliver integrated marketing campaigns using the robust event capabilities in Teams and the attendee management experiences from Dynamics 365 Marketing. And coming soon, following a Teams webinar, customers can connect to Dynamics 365 Marketing to deliver a range of marketing activities, from basic follow-up communications to more sophisticated relationship marketing campaigns. And if you use another marketing platform, Teams makes it easy to bring your event contacts with you. Learn More about generally available features.
I think that this is just about enough for you to digest on a Friday. Check back in with us on Monday when I will post Part 2 on all the exciting Microsoft Teams updates and new features announced at Ignite 2021 including:
- Chat and Collaboration
- Security, Compliance and Privacy
- Calling
- New Teams Devices
- Custom Development and Power Platforms
