Microsoft Teams has become a hub for digital collaboration. The platform’s integration of web conferencing, file storage, Office 365 applications, and more have created an effective space for remote work.
New upgrades to Teams are on the horizon, with a rollout underway for features like virtual breakout rooms, live meeting transcription, and increased member limits.
Enhanced meetings
Microsoft Teams users will have access to several new features and updates for meetings in the coming weeks, including:
- Virtual breakout rooms
- Live transcription
- Forms polls
- Improved participant reports
- Chat moderation settings
Breakout rooms, live transcription, and more
Breakout rooms are making their way to the platform, allowing meeting organizers to split main meetings into smaller sessions. This feature adds a more personal feel to large meetings for attendees where group discussion is possible so specific questions or topics can be addressed.
Users will soon have access to live transcription during meetings. The transcription feature will provide attendees another way to follow meeting conversations, and it can be combined with the recording feature to create a downloadable transcript file after a meeting.
Microsoft Forms, the online survey creator that’s part of Rutgers Connect, now integrates with Teams for in-meeting polling. Meeting presenters can create polls both prior to and during meetings for attendees to respond to. Results are available in real time and can also be viewed in the Forms app or exported to an Excel workbook following the meeting.
Teams is rolling out updates to the participant reports, now allowing meeting organizers to download the file from the chat once the meeting ends. Meeting organizers will also have more information to work with in the report, including attendees’ duration in the meeting and email addresses.
Meeting organizers will be able to moderate chat settings during meetings. Options include allowing the chat to be used at any time, allowing the chat to be used by participants during meetings only, and turning off the chat so no new messages can be added.
Increased member limit and native notifications for MacOS
Outside of the upgrades for meetings, Microsoft Teams is also rolling out two other improvements to the platform.
Organization-wide teams will have an increased member limit, doubling the previous max of 5,000 members to 10,000.
Mac users will be able to choose their preferred means of Teams notifications delivery. In the “Settings” menu accessed by clicking on your profile, users can decide between receiving notifications from their native OS notification system or continuing to use the Teams built-in notification system.
Learn more about Microsoft Teams features, how to get started with the platform, tips for effective use, and more at our Microsoft Teams webpage.
Tags: Microsoft Teams, Rutgers Connect