Posted by: kurtsh | April 11, 2020

RELEASE: Microsoft Teams 3rd Anniversary Release – April 2020

Mid-April, were purportedly going to be releasing a new Microsoft Teams client & backend to support some new features – many of which folks have been waiting a long while for.

Some of these features were highlighted in this post about the “3rd anniversary” of Microsoft Teams.

BACKGROUND VIDEO FILTERING
You may have “background blur” in your tenant if you’re in the First Look ring:

But we’re going to be shipping “custom backgrounds” as well.  Should be arriving in the next few months:

NOISE SUPPRESSION
We’ll also be giving users the ability to block out background noises during Teams conference calls.  Dog barks, traffic noise, doorbells, children, eating noises, phone rings, etc.

OTHER IMPROVEMENTS
There’s also a massive number of features that are covered in the post.  Here’s a summary:

  • OPTIMIZE FOR LOW QUALITY CONNECTIONS
    Great audio quality even under networks with high packet loss
  • BACKGROUND VIDEO FILTERING FOR MOBILE
    Keep the focus on you with Background Blur for iOS (coming soon)
  • SCHEDULE MEETINGS THAT PARTICIPANTS CAN SELF-ADJUST
    Easily conduct interviews, virtual healthcare visits, and more with the Bookings App in Teams
  • “RAISE HAND” REQUEST TO SPEAK
    Raise hands in Teams meetings when you have something to say
  • AUTO-ADJUST QUALITY TO CHANGING NETWORK BANDWIDTH
    The new Satin codec makes the Teams meeting and calling experience even better
  • VOICE FOR SMALL BIZ
    Microsoft 365 Business Voice available in the US on April 1st
  • MULTI-WINDOW CHAT
    Pop out Teams chats into multiple windows.  Have Teams Meetings/concalls in separate windows as well.
  • OFFLINE USE
    Access Teams even without an Internet connection when you’re on an airplane or out of signal.
  • MASSIVE TEAMS
    Include up to 10,000 users in an individual team – instead of the old 5,000 user limit.
  • ADHOC CHATS WITH LARGE GROUPS
    Group chat with up to 250 people
  • TEAMS – SKYPE INTEROP
    Teams & Skype Consumer chat and calling interoperability

MICROSOFT TEAMS-CENTRIC HARDWARE
There were several Teams hardware technology announcements made with partners:

  • RealWear headset for hands-free Teams collaboration
  • Teams Walkie Talkie on the Samsung XCover Pro
  • Introducing Bose headsets for Teams
  • Teams collaborations bars let you transform your small spaces into collaborative workspaces!
  • New Teams phones from Poly
  • Device management experience in Teams admin center

FIRST LINE WORKERS
For folks using Teams to communicate with first-line workers, there’s been a dramatic number of changes to inherit basically what was in Kaizala into Teams.

  • Get ahold of the right on-shift employees using targeted communications
  • Workforce management integrations and Teams
  • New Capabilities in Shifts
  • Updates to Microsoft 365 Licensing for Firstline Workers

Read the details here:

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