What you need to know
- Microsoft shipped a long list of features to Teams in October.
- The platform now supports popping out shared content during meetings, an improved companion mode for Android users, and many other new options.
- Teams now supports video clips across the platform and suggested replies within group chats.
Microsoft Teams is used by millions of people each month, and it regularly gains new features to deliver a better experience. Each month, Microsoft gathers together all of the new features for the app in a roundup (opens in new tab). To start of November, Microsoft delivered its usual recap.
Sit down and grab your favorite beverage because it will take a while to run through everything that shipped to Microsoft Teams last month.
Meetings
As meetings are the core experience of Teams, Microsoft added several features for them last month. Meeting organizers and presenters can now assign seats within Together Mode. It’s also possible to pop shared meeting content out to separate windows.
Teams Premium now supports real-time translation for 40 spoken languages as well.
- Assign seats in Together Mode
- Pop out shared content into a separate window
- Live Translated Captions in Teams Premium
- Updated companion mode for Android users
Calling
Teams now features a more detailed call history, including showing how a call arrived and if it was forwarded or transferred. The call history can also show recordings and transcriptions.
- Detailed call history
- Creation of Contact Groups in Calls App
Certified Devices
A few certified devices for Microsoft Teams rolled out last month, including a conference room companion, a pair of earbuds, and a frame.
- Crestron Flex
- Sony YY2969 Earbuds
- Neat Frame
Chat & Collaboration
Microsoft combined the best of Microsoft Teams templates with SharePoint site templates in October. The company also added the ability for tenant admins to set Adobe Acrobat as the default app in Teams admin center for PDFs.
Suggested replies are now available in Teams, allowing users to select generated messages with a single tap or click. Teams also gained support for video clips, which are short videos that you can quickly edit directly in the app before sending them.
- Microsoft 365 connected templates
- Adobe PDF experience
- Suggested Replies in Group Chat
- Video clip
- Delete or rename files in a channel and in your OneDrive folder in Teams
- Teams calendar now includes scheduling form pop-outs
Power Platform and custom development
Developers have some new tools to utilize in Teams as well.
- ISV App Subscriptions instead of 3P app subscriptions in Teams Admin Center
- Simplified app update experience
- Teams Platform Apps in One-on-One VOIP Calls
- Teams Platform Apps in Group VOIP Calls
- Zero install link unfurling
Management
Usage analytics for Teams admins and users have been updated. Microsoft updated Teams admin center usage reports and end user analytics in Teams to have the same data source as Microsoft 365 Admin Center Teams usage reports.
- Upgraded usage analytics for Teams administrators and users
- Enhancement to app usage report - support for Line of Business apps
Teams for Education
Microsoft has an entirely separate blog post (opens in new tab) for Teams for Education, but it also highlighted a single feature.
- Education Insights – Student Support Card
Frontline Workers
Microsoft added a small handful of features for Frontline Workers last month. Approval creators can now save a request as a PDF and easily print it. Lists users can now create and manage approval requests within SharePoint Lists as well.
- Approvals as a PDFs can be saved, printed and transferred
- Approvals in integrated SharePoint Lists
- Assign Approvals to a Tag in Teams
- Rich notes in Tasks field
Government
Quite a few features rolled out to government clients of Teams in October. As a reminder, most options make their way to other versions of Teams first and then later ship to government users. The following are shipping to customers in US Government Community Cloud (GCC), US Government Community Cloud High (GCC-High), and/or United States Department of Defense (DoD).
- Enhancement to app usage report – support for Line of Business apps
- Enhancement to app usage report – support for Line of Business apps
- Live Share SDK support for meeting extensions
- Text prediction for Teams mobile in GCC-High and DoD
- Connectors in GCC
- Firefox Meeting Support for Outgoing Screen Sharing
- Updated companion mode for Android users for GCC, GCC-High and DoD
