What you need to know
- Microsoft Teams gained several new features in August and September 2022, including collaborative annotations in meetings and Parent Connection for educators.
- Multiple Teams certified devices rolled out over the last two months as well.
- Microsoft optimized Teams for Mac devices with Apple silicon, which greatly improved the performance of the app.
Microsoft Teams is one of the most updated apps in Microsoft's library. With so many features rolling out and several versions of Teams to keep track of, it's easy to miss a few features. Luckily, Microsoft gathers together every new feature at the end of each month, at least usually. The company chose to combine the new features from August and September in a single roundup. Here's what shipped to Teams in August and September 2022, as outlined by Microsoft.
Performance
Microsoft optimized Teams for Mac computers using Apple silicon. The change brings a "significant boost" to performance, according to the tech giant. Teams was available on Macs before the update but had to run through emulation, which isn't as efficient as running natively.
Meetings
As meetings are one of the core experiences of Teams, it's no surprise that they received several new features over the last two months. Cameo in PowerPoint Live launched, as did collaborative annotations in Teams meetings. Microsoft also added support for language interpretation.
Here are all of the new meetings features for Teams:
- Cameo in PowerPoint Live
- Collaborative annotations in Teams meetings
- Language Interpretation
- Select Together mode for everyone in the meeting
- Pre-assign channel members to breakout Rooms
- Transcription created automatically during recordings
- Use a ranking poll to prioritize or re-order items for effective decision making
- Usability improvements to in-meeting notifications
- Improvements to informational messages in meetings for iOS and Android
- Leave a meeting on all my devices
- Meeting transcripts in Microsoft Teams for Android and iOS
- Background blur and effects for Citrix and VMWare
- HID Support for VMware
- Convert a Word/PDF form or quiz to Microsoft Forms with one click
Calling
Only a few calling features rolled out to Teams in August and September, including the ability to play hold music for people waiting to be transferred.
- Music on hold for call transfer
- Early media support for compliance recording
- Block inbound federated VoIP calls
Devices
Teams devices are built to facilitate communication within specific areas. There are several types of devices, including those with displays, phones powered by Wi-Fi, and Teams rooms devices. Here's everything Microsoft added for Teams devices in August and September:
- Front row experience update
- Single display mode
- Dual display mode
- Join a Teams meeting using a meeting ID
- 18 videos for dual display Teams rooms
- Mute/unmute status on your room video
- In-room noise suppression control
- Share tray update
- Pin and hide the room video for Teams Rooms on Windows
- Turn off split gallery with XML setting
Certified devices
The PolyCCX 505 Business Media Phone and the Logitech Brio 500 & 505 cameras rolled out in August and September. The former is a touchscreen phone with integrated Wi-Fi, while the latter two are business webcams.
Chat & collaboration
It's now an option to select the download location for saving files through the desktop client of Teams.
Over on the mobile side of things, Teams on iOS and Android will now ask if a message should be translated if it's not in your preferred language.
- Choose preferred download location for files
- Intelligent chat message translation in Teams for iOS and Android
Power Platform and custom development
Teams users can now use apps within Teams Phone VoIP calls and instant meetings. The addition helps bring those experiences to parity with other meetings and calls.
Management
Admins are now able to customize the Teams admin center dashboard. To personalize the experience, admins can drag and drop cards and widgets. Here are all of the changes:
- Dashboard customization in Teams admin center
- User request configuration to external systems (URL redirect)
- Policy propagation in Activity log
Teams for Education
Parent Connection was added to Teams for Education. The tool allows educators to communicate with the parents or guardians of students using information provided by School Data Sync. A small handful of other education-related features also shipped over the last two months:
- Parent Connection
- LTI apps integration with Schoology LMS
- Brightspace (D2L) LMS integration with Microsoft 365
- Home page for Teams for Education class teams
- Activate a class from inside the Teams Classes LTI app within your Learning Management System (LMS)
- View video recordings and attendance reports inside LMS
- Timed quiz
Frontline workers
Microsoft added a pair of features for frontline workers over the last two months. Admins can now use a Teams PowerShell command and two CSV files to deploy up to 500 teams and add 25 users per team.
Additional filters were also added to the Approvals list, making it easier to find content.
Government
Government clients using Teams received a relatively short list of new features in August and September.
- Isolated audio feed for GCC-High and DoD
- Attendance Dashboard for GCC-High and DOD
