From 4 to 9 participants and more new Teams updates

With much of the workforce of the UK continuing to work from home, the demand for fit for purpose communication technologies continues to increase. Microsoft Teams plays a critical role in helping them stay connected through video meetings, calls, and chats. Microsoft has recently announced several updates to Microsoft teams in response to customer feedback introducing core new features.

Increase in the number of simultaneous videos in Teams meetings

Microsoft recognised the importance of face to face conversations. It has increased the maximum number of participants that can join a meeting from 4 to 9.

Raise Hands

Reduce the potential for awkward confusion over whose turn it is to speak. The raise hand function lists and prioritises users indicating they have something to share.

Background effects

Don't compromise privacy, be seen but maintain privacy by blurring backgrounds or appearing as if from a more use either a pre-selected or custom image instead.

Background Blur for iOS

Brings the frequently used feature from the desktop to the iPhone and iPad.

Live captions in iOS and Android

Champion accessibility and use live captions to help disabled users or users in noisy environments.

End Meeting for all participants

Great for the virtual classroom, All participants exit the meeting when the organiser selects this button. A great example of a relevant scenario is in education. In some situations, class meetings should not continue after class is over without teacher supervision.

Meeting Recordings

Now you can easily record your 1:1 calls in Teams, just as you can for meetings. Simply select the option to record, and call participants will be notified on their screen that a recording has begun!

‍

Introducing the new Meetings Dashboard

The new Meetings dashboard in the Microsoft Teams admin centre helps you ensure users have the best experience possible during meetings and calls. It now provides insights into usage, user feedback, network health, meeting details, devices, and more from a single place. Leveraging Power BI capabilities, this interactive dashboard allows you to filter information by dimensions such as day, country, and platform. This allows you to quickly identify areas of improvement and drill down to uncover the root cause of poor experiences. You can join meeting data with other datasets, such as the faculty directory for student attendance in remote learning.

For customers with unique needs or more targeted requirements, we will soon make a call record API generally available to allow customers and partners to export Teams meetings and calls data for further analysis.

The new meetings dashboard is coming to Teams soon.