Welcome to the June edition of What’s New! This month, we are going through the rich feature updates from Microsoft Teams & Cisco Webex. With the goal of making meeting experiences more efficient and engaging for all collaboration users, find out how these new updates will impact you! From refinements to the way you look on video, new capabilities for multi-language features & two new Webex devices, we have lots of news waiting for you.
Teams performance update
Adjust brightness and soft-focus video filters
Enhance the video quality when lighting is poor by turning on the Adjust brightness filter. You also can use Soft focus to apply a subtle smoothing effect. Both filters are now available before joining meetings, as well as during meetings. Simply navigate to the device settings to enable these filters. Currently, Soft focus is not available for EDU tenants.
Multi-language meeting invite control
Multi-language Teams meeting invite control enables administrators to configure the display of join information in meeting invitations in up to two languages across all email platforms. With this feature, you can customise your meeting invites to include the languages with which your users are most familiar and comfortable. Admins can apply this new policy in their admin portal by enabling the –MeetingInviteLanguages parameter in the CsTeamsMeetingPolicy at the user or group level, or for the entire organisation.
View Together mode for everyone
Together mode creates a virtual shared space in which attendees feel like they are sitting in the same room. Now, meeting organiser and presenters can start Together mode for all of a meeting’s participants. Previously, this view could only be enabled for your own personal view. To enable this feature, simply check the Select Together Mode for Everyone option after you choose a scene. All meeting participants can then join this immersive experience together. This is currently only available for Teams Desktop users.
Multi-window support for Teams for VDI for Azure Virtual Desktop, Windows 365 and VMware
Teams multi-window support is available for virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) for Azure Windows Desktop, Windows 365 and VMware. Multi-window capability provides users the option to pop out chats, meetings or calls into separate windows to help streamline their workflows. Additionally, meeting and call controls such as mute, video, chat, and leave are now located at the top of the meeting window so that they are always available and never block the underlying content.
To verify multi-window is on, right-click on any chat. If “pop out chat” is showing in the options, multi-window has been successfully turned on.
Give and Take Control for Teams on VDI for Citrix
Give and Take Control for Microsoft Teams is now available on VDI for Citrix. Give and Take Control allows a meeting participant to control the presenter’s shared content during screensharing. A presenter can give control of the shared content to another meeting participant to take actions such as present or modify files. Both the presenter and the meeting participant have control of the sharing, and the presenter can take back control at any time.
A meeting participant can request control while another participant is sharing content. The participant sharing content can approve or deny the request. When the requester has control, they can make selections, edit, and make other modifications to the shared screen.
Learn more about Give and Take Control of shared content on Teams.
Background Blur for VDI on Azure Virtual Desktop and Windows 365
Background blur effects are now available for VDI on Azure Virtual Desktop and Windows 365. Users on Teams for VDI on Azure Virtual Desktop and Windows 365 can make meetings more personalised and avoid unexpected distractions by applying background effects. Meeting participants can select one of the available images to change their background or choose to blur their background. Refer to Change your background for a Teams meeting on how to turn on background blur.
Devices & Teams Meeting Rooms
Direct Guest Join for Microsoft Teams Rooms on Android:
Zoom meetings can now be joined directly through Microsoft Teams Rooms on Android devices. To use this feature, simply schedule a new meeting on Zoom or forward an existing meeting to your Microsoft Teams Room, and it will appear on the calendar. Click on “Join” from your Teams Rooms device to enter the meeting. At this time, support is limited to controls such as camera and microphone, but additional functionality will be integrated in the future. Supported devices are currently the Poly Studio X30 and Poly Studio X50, with support for additional device manufacturers coming soon. This feature is available as part of the May 2022 update (App version – 1449/1.0.96.2022051102).
Horizontal participant gallery:
To increase the flexibility of the meeting stage, the orientation of participant video feeds can be displayed horizontally and located below the meeting stage when content is shared, or participants are spotlighted. You can change the location of the participant gallery through the layout chooser experience on the Teams Rooms console. This feature is available as part of the May 2022 update (App version – 1449/1.0.96.2022051102).
Certified devices
Logitech Zone True Wireless earbuds
Logitech Zone True Wireless Bluetooth earbuds are now certified for Microsoft Teams. With noise cancellation and immersive sound, these earbuds provide a high-quality audio experience that is ideal for taking meetings and calls in busy workspaces. Hybrid ANC blocks distracting noise to help keep focus, while Transparency Mode is handy for chatting and hearing people or traffic noise without taking the earbuds off. Users can simultaneously connect their computer and smartphone, then customise and control the earbuds with the Logi Tune app.
Shure Digital Signal Processor
Shure’s IntelliMix room audio software digital signal processor is now certified for Microsoft Teams Rooms when installed on the Lenovo ThinkSmart Core. This makes it easier than ever to bring audio into your next hybrid meeting with Shure’s Microflex Ecosystem portfolio. The next-generation MXA920 Ceiling Array Microphone with Automatic Coverage technology provides an inclusive audio experience for participants, alongside simple setup positioning information for audio-based camera steering.
Chat & Collaboration
Additional language support for Suggested Replies for mobile
Suggested replies are now supported in Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, Swedish, French, Finnish, German, Hungarian, Italian, Chinese, Hebrew, Japanese, Norwegian, Russian, Korean, Czech, Danish, Turkish, and Polish. The auto-replies are on by default but can be turned off.
Choose your own status for a meeting
Organisers and participants of Teams meetings can choose a Calendar Show As status feature such as free, busy, or OOF to reflect their status for scheduled meetings. In addition, organisers can select private meeting functionality, which will allow users to hide meeting details from other users when their calendar is shared.
Mandatory Comments for Approvals App in Teams
Teams admins and approval template creators can enable mandatory comments for when an approver responds to a request. Team admins can go through the Teams Admin Center under Managed Apps and select the corresponding setting.
Data export within Approvals App
Through the approvals app, you can now export your personal approval data easily into an Excel file within a selected time period.
Management
Enhancement to app usage report – support for Line of Business apps
There is now an updated version of the Teams app usage report with support for Live of business apps in alignment with Teams app usage in M365 admin center. This will help admins track all app usage metrics over time.
Home page customisation for Teams admin center
IT admins can now create a Teams Admin Center customised dashboard. This allows them to place the most utilised options and drag and drop widgets to customise their Home page.
Policy operations details in enhanced activity log
Admins can see group policy assignments in the activity log along with other policy operations, such as batch policy assignment. The activity log now includes enhanced details regarding policy operation to give admins more visibility. New columns such as group name, policy type, policy name, submitted by, and overall status are added for deeper understanding of a policy operation. Learn more.
View Custom app’s external app ID on Manage apps page and app details page
External app ID is an app identifier defined during app creation. It is only applicable for custom apps. You can view external app ID on the Manage apps page when you enable the column from column settings. You also can view it on the app details page for a custom app.
Frontline Workers
Team Templates maintenance
Enhancements to Team Templates content with additional apps and channels in the Microsoft-provided predefined team structure.
Walkie Talkie app in Teams is now supported on Crosscall devices
The Walkie Talkie app in Teams with a dedicated push-to-talk button on Crosscall devices is available for front-line workers to enjoy clear, instant, and secure communication at their fingertips. Learn more.
Reimagined Workspaces
Webex Room Bar
The new Webex Room Bar is part of the next generation of meeting room devices designed to power hybrid workspaces and replacing and augmenting the experience provided by the Webex Room Kit Mini.
It is a flexible, highly scalable and feature-rich video bar enabling exceptional video conferencing on any platform and inclusive meeting experiences in your huddle spaces and small-to-medium meeting rooms.
Some of the capabilities include: built-in, beamforming microphone array and external microphone input; dual-screen support; 12MP wide-angle lens camera; spatial stereo sound; single-cable USB-C passthrough and content sharing; and smart speaker tracking.
In addition, Room Bar comes with the award-winning Webex Room Navigator including IoT sensors, scheduling, smart controls and workplace management apps in an intuitive touch panel for 4K content sharing, unified management & analytics, and AI powered technology like people focus, face recognition and noise removal.
Cisco Desk Camera 1080p
The all new Cisco Desk Camera 1080p is a full HD webcam with high quality video, noise reduction microphones, a built-in privacy shutter, and the flexibility you need to turn any space into a video powerhouse.
Cisco Desk Camera App
Manage your Cisco Desk Camera and settings in one place through the latest enhancement to the app giving you access to adjust your image settings, add presets, record videos, take snapshots, and upgrade firmware.
Flexible Workstyles
Consistent and Seamless Webex App Experiences on iPhone
Picture-in-Picture
Multi-task like a pro on the go with the new picture-in-picture capabilities on iPhone. Browse email or check calendar, or access other apps, while still keeping your eye on the meeting.
Animated Virtual Background
Keep your interactions and engagement dynamic and refreshing even when you’re in your car in the school line or picking up your favorite latte, with animated virtual backgrounds available on your iPhone.
Sign into the Webex App with your social credentials
For users using the Webex free version, with password-based accounts, they now will be given the option to transition their account to use social platforms for signing in to Webex. Social accounts can be used for a quick sign-up and sign-in process, as well as account recovery.
Meetings: Closed Captioning transcription support for 3 new languages
To foster inclusivity and better collaboration experiences in meetings, hosts leveraging Webex Assistant or Closed Captioning can now select spoken language transcription for English, French, Spanish and German.
Calling: Spam or Fraud Call Indicator
Ever regretted picking up a spam call or a phishing call? With this latest capability, those calls will be clearly labelled to reduce wasted time and potential security risks. Administrators can set organisation policies to automatically block calls as well.
Learn how Webex’s enterprise-grade Calling solution can keep your business connected from anywhere.
Connected Events
Webex Webinars
Keeping attendees engaged starts from the minute they join the webinar. Now, you can upload an image for attendees to see while panelists are in the practice session. Get your audience thinking about the topic, direct them to answer a poll, or just show captivating photography with a warm welcome message.
Learn more about Webex Webinars
Webex for Customer Experience
Webex Connect Updates
Richer interactions with channel enhancements
- WhatsApp and Apple Business Messages support for list messages and quick reply buttons.
- Register brands and campaigns for 10-digit long codes. Now you don’t need to reply on your support team to register brands and campaigns. With this latest capability, you can easily register your brand and campaign for 10DLC usage.
Your Next Steps
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