Every few months I round up some of the key feature announcements from Microsoft 365 in a quick and to the point fashion.
Where possible I list the scheduled release date, however, these are subject to change, and often do.
- If I state a release date as “Available”, then I have personally seen the feature in wild.
- If the release date has past, it means I haven’t seen the feature in the wild myself – it may have been released, but equally, it may also have been delayed 🙂
Let’s get started.
Teams Meetings
Teams Outlook add-in
Release Date: Available
- Start a Teams ad-hoc meeting directly from Outlook using ‘Meet Now’
- Manage meeting settings directly
Webinars in Teams Meetings
Release Date: Rollout starting late April 2021
- Registration page with email confirmation for registrants
- Reporting for registration and attendance
- Licence – O365 or E365 E3/E5/A3/A5/Business Standard/Business Premium
Teams Meetings Dynamic View
Release Date: Mid May
- Audio participants smaller to make more room for video participants
- Shared content larger, while more participants visible
- Dock the participant gallery to the top of your screen
PowerPoint Standout Mode
Release Date: Early May
- Overlay a video feed on the presentation with ‘Standout mode’
- Video feed superimposed onto the foreground of the content being shared
PowerPoint Slide Translation in Teams
Release Date: Early May
- Meeting attendees can live translate presentation content into a language of their choice while in private view
Multiple meeting spotlights
Release Date: Early May
- Spotlight up to 7 participants
Teams meeting related content and recap
Release Date: By Early April
Related content surfaces:
- OneDrive docs
- SharePoint docs
Post Meeting Recap provides a central location to access:
- Meeting recording
- Transcript
- Meeting notes
- Chat
More control for participant mute
Release Date: Early April
Manage mute on a per participant basis, toggle between:
- Don’t allow to unmute
- Allow to unmute
Previously this could only be managed on a per meeting basis and participants had to raise their hand to request unmute.
Prevent sharing video in Teams meetings
Release Date: Early May
- Prevent meeting attendees from turning their camera on during a meeting
Org-wide meeting backgrounds
Release Date: In preview now
- Publish backgrounds for use by end users in meetings
- Advanced Communications license required
Meeting backgrounds on mobile devices
- Background blur
- Background replacement
Share to rooms from iOS or Android Teams app
- Wirelessly share the content of your mobile device in a Teams Room without needing to first set up a meeting
- Using Bluetooth, users can broadcast their screen and cast content stored locally on their device
Join a meeting with digital meeting ID
Release Date: Early May
- Join a Microsoft Teams meeting by entering a digital ID
- Different ID from Conference dial-in ID 🤔
Anonymous presenters in Teams Live Events
Release Date: Mid April
- Schedule an anonymous presenter when scheduling the live event – This must be managed when scheduling
- The anonymous presenter must use the Teams desktop app
Separate window experience for live events
Release Date: Early May
- Producers will manage a live event in a separate Teams window
Teams Chat
Supervised Chat for Teams private chats
Release Date: Early May
- Restrict users from starting new chats unless a supervisor is present
- Supervisors aren’t allowed to leave chats and other participants aren’t allowed to remove them
- Ideal for educational institutions
- Limitations are only applied to new private chats that are created after supervised chat has been fully enabled
More emojis 😎
Release Date: Late May
- From 85 to more than 800!!!
- Improved access with:
- Keyboard search
- Category selector
- Short code filter
Create tasks from Teams chats or channel posts
Release Date: Early May
- Create a task from chat and channel
Teams Calling
Improved Calls App
Release Date: By end of April
- Provides a single view for:
- Contacts
- Voicemail
- Calling history
- Quick access to forwarding and device
management - Search names and numbers
Call Merge
Release Date: Late March
- Merge active 1:1 call into another 1:1 or group call
- Applies to Teams VOIP calls and PSTN calls
Transfer calls between devices
Release Date: Available
- Transfer an ongoing VoIP, PSTN or Group call between Teams devices
- Add a second device to the same call
1:1 Call recording policy introduction
Release Date: Mid April
- Currently, 1:1 Call recording is controlled by the -CsTeamsMeetingPolicy / AllowCloudRecording attribute.
- After this change, it will be controlled by the -CsTeamsCallingPolicy / allowCloudRecordingForCalls attribute.
- By default, this new policy attribute will be set to false, so 1:1 call recording will not work unless you change this attribute to true
Operator Connect
Release Date: Public Preview Mid May
- Telco/Operator direct integration in Teams:
- Enabled with almost no configuration required
- Telephone numbers, once acquired are available for assignment
New Zealand Calling Plans
- NZ will soon have access to Microsoft Calling Plans
Branch office survivability for Teams
Release Date: Available
- PSTN resiliency when Teams is unavailable
- Requires a supported Session Border Controllers (SBC):
- AudioCodes
- Oracle
- Ribbon Communications
- TE-SYSTEMS
Teams Other
Accounts
Release Date: Available
- Org and account switching now has its own menu
- Add personal accounts in Team desktop
Correct Answer choice in Teams Meeting Forms Polls
- Correct Answer choices in Microsoft Forms Polls within Teams
Teams for your personal life banners
- Microsoft will show a banner in the activity feed informing users they can use Teams for personal 🤔
- If you have disabled the ability to add additional accounts, users will not see the banner
- You can submit a help ticket to Microsoft to have your tenant excluded from the banners. This will not limit your user’s ability to add a personal, work or school account to the Teams app.
Improvements for Teams Approvals app
Release Date: Templates: Mid May
Teams admins and owners can create an approval template from:
- Out-of-the-box templates
- From scratch templates
Release Date: Adobe Sign: Mid April
- Support Adobe Sign digital signatures
Manage Out of Office in Teams
Release Date: Early May
- Manage an out of office message from within Microsoft Teams desktop/web
- Syncs with Outlook calendar, presence, and contact card information
History menu in Teams
Release Date: Available
- Navigation history
- Displays recently visited locations within Teams
New Cortana voice assistance regions in Teams Mobile
Release Date: By early June
Cortana voice assistance for iOS and Android for users with their phone region set to:
- Australia
- Canada
- India
- United Kingdom
Mobile optimised network data usage
Release Date: Mid March
- Limited to 500 kbps on average depending on modalities in use
Guest access on by default
Release Date: Available
- Teams guest access is now on by default
- 😮?
Exchange
New Exchange admin center general availability
Release Date: Late April
- Previously in Preview, now GA
- New features:
- Tenant-to-tenant migration
- Automated G-Suite migration
Outlook on the Web calendar board view
Board view allows you to combine:
- Calendar
- Tasks
- Goals
- Flagged emails
- Files
Request/Release workflow for quarantined messages
Release Date: Early April
- Configure end user access to messages quarantined by:
- Exchange Online Protection (EOP) anti-spam
- Microsoft defender for office 365 (MDO) anti-phishing anti-malware
- Microsoft defender for office 365 (MDO) safe attachment policies
- End users will have a process to request message release
- Previously, users had to manually ask an admin to release messages
Email Quarantine
Release Date: Rollout early May
- End user spam notifications will include a one-time deep-link to the quarantine portal.
- We are adding a deep-link in the end user spam notification to the quarantine console present in the security and compliance center.
Access delegate mailboxes from Outlook mobile
- Add and remove delegates from Outlook for iOS and Android.
- Access Delegates mailboxes
Organisation logos in Outlook for iOS and Android
- Display the organisation logo defined within Azure Active Directory
- Show in the left-hand navigation area and while composing messages and calendar events.
- Help users differentiate their work accounts from their personal accounts
- Requires 2 or more accounts to be added in the app
SharePoint
Create Power BI Reports from Lists
Release Date: Early May
- Create business intelligence reports in Power BI using your list schema and data
New SharePoint site templates
Release Date: Late April
- New scenario-based site templates
OneDrive
Exclude specific files from OneDrive sync
Release Date: Available
- Prevent the OneDrive sync app from uploading specific files to OneDrive or SharePoint
- The change is visible to end users via a new excluded icon
- Managed using Group Policy admx/adml templates
Other/General
Version management for Office installs
- Available for Office installations configured to use Monthly Enterprise Channel
- Allows:
- Roll back to a previous version
- Skip an upcoming version (one version at a time)
SfB Retirement Reminders
- May 15, 2021 – Skype for Business Online Connector (PS Module)
- July 31, 2021 – Skype for Business Online
Past Feature Roundups
