- Coming up, a special edition of Microsoft Mechanics.
We take a closer look at Microsoft Teams
with all the recent news and updates
as we tour the end-to-end experience
that makes it easier for you to communicate
and work more effectively with your teams.
So I'm joined today, once again, by Aya Tange
from the Microsoft Teams group, welcome back.
- Good, so I also wanna show you something else
that comes in handy.
If you wanna be a bit more formal,
you can click here to start a new conversation.
And I can use the rich text editing icon.
So I can give it a subject.
So let's call this AI video.
And then I can add some text,
so I'm gonna say that we have some new features
we recently added.
I can even make this an announcement
to catch people's eyes
or host this exact message in multiple channels or teams,
by clicking on the select channels button.
So I'm gonna go ahead and add this message
to the announcements channel.
- And I really like that last capability in particular,
it saves a lot of time
to really communicate your announcements
to lots of different teams.
But can you explain the other buttons then,
there next to that Rich Text Editor button?
- Of course, so first let me start with attachments.
So attachments may seem like a pretty well-known concept,
but most people think about it in the context of email.
So here for example,
I can upload a large video file
that I have on my hard drive into Teams.
And since everything is in the cloud,
I actually don't have to worry about size limits
like I would in email.
You can see that this is over a 100 megs
and only the people with the right permissions can see it.
And now I can upload and post it.
You also have all the collaboration benefits
like real time co-authoring.
So for example, let's open this PowerPoint file here.
You can see other people are already editing it.
And here you can also see all my files
that my team has worked on and shared.
And of course, because of the native integration
with Office 365,
not only can you bring in all of your Office files,
like Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote
directly into Teams,
you can edit and create them directly from Teams.
- Okay, so you've shown us now files
and chat in a team, but can you walk us through
the other experiences that you can do in tabs?
- I can, so first one thing to note is that
these tabs can vary by channel.
So along the top, you'll see that we've personalized
and customized this for the specific channel.
So here I have my Power BI dashboard
and other apps my team uses regularly.
To add a tab, I can just click on the plus sign
and I can see apps for Microsoft
and other partner apps, services and tools.
- Okay, so let's move on to meetings
because I know that this is a big area focus for us,
especially with so many people
joining meetings remotely today.
- Yes, the meetings experiences is where we've made
a ton of updates.
So here in my calendar,
you can see all my meetings for the week.
I can schedule meetings
and I have the option to add them to a channel.
Of course I can add people.
So let me go ahead and add my colleague, Karan here.
And then I can also see his free/busy status
by clicking on the Scheduling Assistant.
Well, let me actually join this existing meeting
called weekly team discussion.
So here is my new pre-join screen,
We've added quite a few new controls
for setting up audio and video.
So now I can even select background effects
so I can blur my background
or I can swap in a different background image.
I can also upload my own as well.
So I'm gonna go ahead and choose this one.
Now, I'll unmute my microphone and join.
- All right, and you'll see that the meeting's
in a second popped out window,
and that means you can easily switch back
to your primary Teams interface.
And it's really great for multi-monitor setup.
So once you're in a meeting though,
what options do speakers have then to share their content?
- Sure, so if you haven't used it before,
you can open your share tray in the top right-hand corner.
So I can share my entire desktop,
my individual app windows,
PowerPoint files that you can see in the middle here
or my Microsoft Whiteboard.
- Right, and something cool that you showed
was the PowerPoint file approach,
and this is actually super network efficient.
And we published a show on Microsoft Mechanics
we're in my example,
I saved about 90% network bandwidth.
And you can check out that series at aka.ms/wfhmechanics.
- Wow that's pretty amazing,
but beyond sharing content,
we actually have some more options
for viewing people in content.
So what you see here is the new dynamic view,
which adjusts to prioritize what's most important,
such as presentation slides
or people dialing in with video.
Audio-only participants will show up
in the right-hand rail.
Now, when content is shared,
participants will shrink and move to the side.
But sometimes I wanna pin selected participants
while content is shared so that I can actually see,
let's say the presenter.
So let me go ahead and pin Marissa here.
And I can even add, let's say a sign language interpreter,
or key decision maker.
So let me go ahead and also pin Sean.
Now this makes it really easy for me
to see their reactions.
Previously I'd have to decide between content and people.
But now with the new dynamic view,
I can actually see both.
- So, how many video feeds now
can we see in the context of a Teams meeting?
- Sure, so there are a couple of options
that we've recently added to make sure
that we accommodate different meeting sizes.
So in the default gallery view,
which I'm currently in, you can see nine people.
We can also switch to the large gallery view,
which supports up to 49 people.
- Right, I know a lot of people
have really been waiting for this.
- I know, but it gets even better.
We also recently announced
a new video meeting experience called Together mode,
which brings you and your Team
into one virtual shared space.
With a click, it's like all of us are sitting together
in an auditorium.
Now this encourages natural human interaction
and also helps avoid people from speaking over each other.
- It's really great because you can catch
nonverbal cues a lot easier,
like nods of approval or raised eyebrows,
smiling or even a physically raised hand.
- Exactly, so this is a great option for meetings,
town halls, classroom discussions,
or sporting events.
Together mode can support up to 49 people,
and we'll also be adding other types of settings,
such as conference rooms, coffee tables,
and study halls over time.
- And this will now make everyone feel more connected
in the meeting experience.
But what else are we doing then specifically,
to help with people joining from remote locations?
- Sure, so we've also introduced new AI capabilities,
which will remove distracting background noise.
So here in fact is my colleague Marissa,
who is joining us to help illustrate this.
- So for example, if I'm talking
and someone starts vacuuming in the background,
it can be really distracting.
But when we enable background noise suppression in Teams,
you will find that the distraction's been removed
and I can be heard crystal clear.
- So this all really helps improve the experience
so you can really focus on the people
and the content they're sharing.
- Right, and we're making meetings
even more accessible and inclusive in other ways.
Now many of us have been using live captions
in team meetings to actually follow along
with the conversation.
But one of the problems we've had in the past
is that you have really no way of knowing
who is saying what,
which makes it particularly challenging
for those with hearing difficulties.
But now when I turn on live captions,
you can actually see who is speaking,
- This is especially helpful when someone is presenting
and you can't see the person talking.
- And we've all been in those meetings with a lot of people,
maybe with similar voices
or people that we haven't met yet.
And now we can address them by their first names.
- Exactly, and along those lines,
we've also added live transcription,
which is recorded during the meeting.
So now I can read up on anything that was being said
in the meeting, especially if I've missed something.
- And this will really save a lot of time I think,
for anyone who's taken a lot of notes
during the meeting,
and now it's all using speech-to-text AI.
- Right, so when I leave the meeting,
you'll see the full transcript accessible
in the meeting chat.
So this is available to all participants to view.
So here is a sample transcript,
so you can read what was discussed,
any action items and of course who said them.
- So these are updates, I think that a lot of people
have had on their wishlist for a while.
And let's go back down the left nav bar really,
to resume our tour of Microsoft Teams.
- Sure, so not only can you join meetings,
but of course you can also make calls.
So as I click in, you can see that we have voice calling,
which can be done with all of your internal
and external contacts that are using Teams.
So voice calls are built in,
but if you have integrated PSTN calling
with Microsoft Teams,
you'll see your phone number
and even a dialing pad to make regular phone calls.
So I can even call my parents in Japan
if I wanted to, for example.
- And if you don't see that dial pad,
it means that you're not configured for PSTN calling,
but it's really easy for Teams admins
to add phone system and a calling plan
or direct routing to make those types of calls.
But going back to the left nav bar,
the last item that you mentioned here was Tasks.
- Yes, so this is one of my new favorite
capabilities in Teams.
So one of the things that we've tried to solve for
is to give you one place where you can keep track
of all of your actions that you've assigned to yourself
via To Do, and others that have assigned to you via Planner.
So here you can see that we've built a unified view
to track everything you need to do in one place.
So let me open this task called Earnings Report,
and I can see where it's from,
the status and make updates right from here.
Actually, this is the PowerPoint I was working on earlier,
so I can go ahead and mark this complete.
- And that's super helpful, thanks so much Aya
for the comprehensive tour
and especially all the recent updates for meetings.
And of course we didn't have time to go
through every single aspect of Teams,
like options for creating teams and channels
or all the different administrative settings,
security and compliance options.
So be sure to check out aka.ms/MicrosoftTeamsforIT
to see all of that in action and more.
And of course, subscribe to Microsoft Mechanics
for the latest updates.
Thanks for watching.
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