The 10 finest new Microsoft Teams assembly options
Microsoft retains including new enhancements to Teams. Here’s the right way to use some lately launched options for higher Teams video conferences.
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Over the previous 12 months or so, Microsoft has added a bunch of latest capabilities to Teams, its chat and videoconferencing hub, targeted on bettering video conferences with co-workers and different colleagues. Here’s a rundown of the important thing new options to know and the right way to use them.
Note that this information refers back to the Microsoft Teams desktop app for Windows and macOS included with Microsoft 365/Office 365 enterprise and schooling subscriptions. Some of those options should not supplied within the net or cellular apps or in shopper variations of Teams, together with the free model.
1. Breakout rooms
Breakout rooms are mainly mini-meeting rooms which might be related to a bigger assembly. Each breakout room has a lot of the common assembly options together with participant audio and video feeds, a chat pane, and screen-sharing capabilities.
If you could have a small staff that should converse and current in a gathering, they might profit from prepping and conferring with one another in a separate breakout room whereas the principle assembly is happening. In one other situation, you might put all assembly members into breakout rooms to facilitate small-group discussions earlier than bringing all people again to the principle assembly.
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Breakout rooms allow small-group discussions other than a bigger Teams assembly. (Click picture to enlarge it.)
To arrange breakout rooms, you have to be a gathering organizer or a presenter with breakout room supervisor privileges. During a gathering, you may entry this function by clicking the Breakout rooms icon (a smaller sq. on high of a bigger sq.) on the higher proper of the assembly window. This will open a panel the place you may create a number of breakout rooms and both manually assign folks within the assembly to them or have the assignments made robotically.
Alternatively, you may arrange breakout rooms earlier than a gathering by opening the assembly invite in Teams and deciding on Breakout rooms > Create rooms.
Breakout room managers may also rename breakout rooms, set deadlines for breakout periods, enter and go away varied breakout rooms, ship bulletins to breakout rooms, and extra. For particulars, see Microsoft’s assist web page on establishing and managing breakout rooms.
2. Improved whiteboard
Teams has lengthy built-in with Microsoft’s Whiteboard app in order that assembly members can collaborate on a shared digital whiteboard in actual time. Team members can add textual content, pictures, diagrams, notes, sketches, and extra to a board. The lately revamped model of this app provides a bunch of enhancements together with greater than 40 new templates, the flexibility to insert pictures and paperwork, response icons, and quite a few inking software enhancements.
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The Microsoft Whiteboard has an overhauled interface and new capabilities. (Click picture to enlarge it.)
To launch the Whiteboard app whereas in a gathering: At the higher proper of the assembly window, click on the Share content material (up arrow) icon. On the panel that opens, click on Microsoft Whiteboard.
Outside of a gathering, you may add the Whiteboard app to any of your Teams channels. (It will be helpful to work on a whiteboard earlier than or after a gathering.) Open the channel and click on the + icon on the high of the channel. On the “Add a tab” pane that opens, click on the Whiteboard icon. Another pane will open the place you sort in a reputation for the whiteboard. Click the Save button on the decrease proper, and your new whiteboard will probably be added to this channel.
You may also add a whiteboard to a chat. Open the chat. Whiteboard could already be listed as a tab alongside the highest of the chat window. (Or you could must click on More to open a small menu that lists Whiteboard on it.) If Whiteboard is listed as a tab, click on it to launch the Whiteboard app within the chat. If it isn’t listed anyplace alongside the highest of your chat, then click on the + icon and comply with the identical steps above for including a whiteboard to a channel.
3. Live transcription
Teams has lengthy supplied textual content transcripts of recorded conferences after the conferences are over. Another helpful longtime function is AI-driven textual content captioning that exhibits what assembly members are saying in actual time. A more recent reside transcription functionality combines these two options, providing a Transcript sidebar that exhibits all the pieces that’s been mentioned in a gathering, full with speaker attribution.
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A reside assembly transcript might help members sustain with all the pieces that’s been mentioned in a gathering. (Click picture to enlarge it.)
Live transcriptions might help those that can’t hear nicely or who should not fully fluent within the language being spoken within the assembly. And anybody who arrives late to a gathering or is momentarily distracted can shortly catch up by scrolling again by the Transcript sidebar. The full transcript is on the market after the assembly is over for invitees who missed the assembly or members who wish to evaluate what was mentioned.
To begin reside transcription in a gathering, click on the three-dot More actions icon on the higher proper of the assembly window, and from the menu that opens, click on Start transcription. Meeting members will see a notification saying that the assembly is being transcribed.
Alternatively, when you file a gathering (click on the More actions icon and choose Start recording), reside transcription is robotically turned on on the similar time. Meeting members will see a notification saying that the assembly is being recorded and transcribed.
Teams presently helps reside transcription in 28 languages. If everybody within the assembly is talking a language apart from English, you may change the transcribed textual content to the one which they’re talking. Click the three-dot icon on the high of the Transcript sidebar, choose Change spoken language, choose a unique language, and click on Confirm.
After the assembly, the transcript will probably be out there for obtain within the assembly occasion on the calendar.
Live transcription have to be allowed by your Teams admin. For extra particulars, see Microsoft’s assist web page on reside transcriptions in Teams.
4. Spotlighting folks
Meeting organizers and presenters can “spotlight” sure assembly members — for example, at an all-company assembly the place a couple of leaders are often known as on. When you highlight somebody, their video feed is displayed prominently within the assembly window for all members, mainly pinning it in a distinguished place onscreen. Up to seven folks will be spotlighted at a time.
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You can highlight sure members for everybody within the assembly. (Click picture to enlarge it.)
To highlight somebody, right-click on the individual’s video (or your personal) and choose Spotlight from the menu that opens. (If the video of a minimum of one different individual has already been spotlighted, this selection will say Add highlight.)
Alternatively, you may choose the Show members icon (with two folks on it) on the high of the display screen to see a listing of each individual within the assembly. Right-click on an individual’s title and choose Spotlight from the menu that opens.
To take away an individual from a highlight, right-click on their video and choose Stop spotlighting from the menu that opens. You can cease spotlighting everybody within the Show members listing.
Note that the Spotlight function is not out there in case your view of everybody’s video feeds is ready to “Large gallery” or “Together” mode. Also, in case your assembly is being recorded, an individual’s spotlighted video will not seem as spotlighted within the remaining recording.
5. PowerPoint grid view and extra
There’s an improved technique to current a PowerPoint doc in a gathering, the place you may present particular slides and never should flip by all of them. At the higher proper of the assembly window, click on the Share content material (up arrow) icon. On the panel that opens, scroll to the “PowerPoint Live” part and click on Browse OneDrive or Browse my laptop, whichever has the PowerPoint doc that you simply wish to current.
After the PowerPoint doc is loaded, you’ll see the slide that’s being offered to assembly members in the principle space of your display screen, with a strip of thumbnails for different slides alongside the underside of the window. You can click on any thumbnail to go on to that slide.
Below the slide that’s being offered, there’s a Grid view icon (with a number of squares). Click this icon or press the “G” key, and the slide thumbnails will probably be organized in a grid. You can click on one in all these thumbnails to current it for folks within the assembly to see.
Meeting members watching a PowerPoint Live presentation in Teams have a Grid view icon as nicely; they will use it to leap to any slide within the deck after which click on the Sync to Presenter icon to return to the slide being offered.
For extra particulars on grid view and PowerPoint Live, see Microsoft’s assist web page on sharing PowerPoint slides in a Teams assembly.
Also new is the flexibility to cease presenting a PowerPoint deck after which choose up the place you left off later in the identical assembly — useful for once you wish to break up a protracted presentation with a unique presenter or exercise.
6. Presenter mode
This function brings collectively your video feed and the doc or picture you’re presenting to others within the assembly to see in one in all 3 ways:
- Standout removes the background behind you and replaces it with the content material you’re presenting.
- Reporter locations the content material above your proper shoulder in a format like what you see on the TV information when an anchorperson is onscreen.
- Side-by-side is just your video feed and the content material you’re presenting set subsequent to at least one one other.
Microsoft
Presenter mode combines your video feed with the content material you’re presenting.
At the higher proper of the assembly window, click on the Share content material (up arrow) icon. Under the “Presenter mode” heading on the high of the panel that opens, click on the icon in your most popular presenter mode.
To begin your presentation, select an merchandise beneath both “Screen” or “Window” within the panel. (Presenter mode doesn’t presently work with PowerPoint displays, although Microsoft says that functionality is coming sooner or later.)
For extra particulars, see Microsoft’s assist web page on utilizing presenter modes.
7. Content from digital camera
This function enhances the picture of an object in your room, akin to a whiteboard, guide, or paper doc, so that folks in your assembly can see it extra clearly. It additionally features a particular impact to make you seem barely clear when your physique, arm, or hand is in entrance of the whiteboard or different object or over the doc.
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Use the “Content from camera” function to sharpen whiteboards or different written materials.
At the higher proper of the assembly window, click on the Share content material (up arrow) icon. On the panel that opens, click on Content from digital camera and select Whiteboard, Document, or Video. (Video is for displaying product demos or different reside motion.) In a preview window, you’ll be instructed to level your machine’s digital camera or a related exterior digital camera on the whiteboard or doc. When your whiteboard or doc comes into focus, this function will improve the legibility of the phrases and pictures on it. You can then click on the Share button to current it to folks in your assembly.
For extra particulars, see Microsoft’s assist web page on sharing whiteboards and paperwork by way of your digital camera.
8. Call high quality monitor
If the audio or video of your assembly is spotty or missing, you may verify on what often is the trigger. At the highest of your name window, click on the three-dot More actions icon. From the menu that opens, click on Call well being. A sidebar will seem alongside the proper displaying the technical statuses of your community, audio, video, and display screen sharing. For particulars on the right way to learn the decision well being stats, see Microsoft’s assist web page on monitoring name and assembly high quality in Teams.
9. Keyboard shortcuts for digital hand elevating
Teams’ “raise hand” function lets assembly members sign to the host that they’ve a query or remark with out interrupting the speaker. In 2021, Microsoft added a keyboard shortcut to make this faster.
To elevate or decrease your hand and see who else has theirs raised, press Ctrl-Shift-Okay on Windows or ⌘-Shift-Okay on macOS. To have your display screen reader learn aloud a listing of others who’re elevating their hand, click on Ctrl-Shift-L on Windows or ⌘-Shift-L on macOS. (See extra Microsoft Teams keyboard shortcuts.)
10. Meeting recaps
After a gathering ends, you could find a abstract of it within the chat group that’s robotically created for the assembly. In the left sidebar of the Teams app, click on the Chat icon. In the second column, search for the title of the completed assembly and click on it.
The recap window consists of the chat textual content, notes taken, and information shared through the assembly, in addition to a video recording and transcription in the event that they had been created. If you are the organizer of the assembly, an attendance report may also be included; it may be downloaded as a .csv file.
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Teams assembly recaps embody assembly notes, recordings, transcripts, information shared, and extra after a gathering. (Click picture to enlarge it.)