Summary
- Microsoft updates WSL for Windows and announces roadmap website changes.
- Microsoft Teams to improve performance for Edge and Chrome users, and introduce new breakout room setting.
- Microsoft Outlook to add CTRL + Y keyboard shortcut for folder navigation, and Copilot for Microsoft 365 to provide step-by-step solutions for quiz questions.
Last week we witnessed lots of exciting developments in the realm of tech, including Microsoft releasing updates to WSL for Windows after almost two and half years. Additionally, in the same period, Microsoft quietly updated its roadmap website, continuing its tradition of announcing Microsoft 365 features that are in the works.
From one of the most-requested capabilities for Forms, to performance improvements for Teams in Edge and Chrome, this week's Microsoft Roadmap Weekly has plenty of exciting goodies.
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4 Microsoft Teams: Performance improvements, enhancements to breakout rooms, and more
Performance improvements in Edge and Chrome
The last major performance update for Teams was rolled out last year. The company has plans for another performance upgrade, though it's only for Edge and Chrome users. Microsoft will boost Teams performance when anonymous users join Teams meetings on the web via Google Chrome and Edge browsers (Feature IDs: 401116, 401117).
The performance improvements will be available for Google Chrome users first in August, with the rollout for Edge users happening in October.
New setting to move between breakout rooms
Another upcoming noteworthy change is a new setting to better manage breakout rooms in Teams meetings. When available, instead of meeting organizers assigning rooms to participants, the latter will be able to choose which room they wish to join (Feature ID: 121269). This will be possible because the setting will allow meeting organizers to make all the breakout rooms visible to all participants.
Bidirectional support in Teams Live Interpretation
In the current scenario, Teams Live Interpretation allows users to listen to live events in their preferred languages. However, it can't translate in both directions between two languages. However, that will change when Teams for PC and Mac will receive bidirectional support for Teams Live Interpretation in August this year (Feature ID: 403103). The bidirectional support simply means that the Teams Live Interpretation tool will be capable enough to automatically translate between a pair of languages when they're exchanged.
3 Microsoft Outlook: Improved folder navigation in new Outlook
Microsoft has one functionality planned for the new Outlook for Windows next month, too. It'll introduce a CTRL + Y keyboard shortcut to quickly navigate to a folder (Feature ID: 403108). No matter where you're at in Outlook, pressing the shortcut key followed by the first letter of the folder name will take you directly to that folder. The trick will just be to remember the first letter of the folder you want.
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2 Copilot for Microsoft 365: Step-by-step solutions for quiz questions
Copilot in Microsoft Forms will get a new quiz feature next month. Copilot will "show its work" to demonstrate problem-solving steps. For those who pay a monthly subscription fee to use Copilot in Microsoft 365, you'll be able to "generate step-by-step solutions for each question" in Microsoft Forms (Feature ID: 392843). This will come in handy if you're a teacher. For example, you can allow students to view the steps to a solution (supported by Copilot) for all those quiz questions you've prepared.
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1 Microsoft Forms: Validate responses
We don't see Microsoft announcing new features for Microsoft Forms as often as it does for Teams. Last week was special, not only because Microsoft announced something new for Forms, but also due to the potential impact the change will have on a large number of users who have been asking for it for a very long time.
Microsoft is currently working on a validation feature for Forms. It'll allow users to set specific requirements for answers to open-text questions (Feature ID: 400503). For example, if the question requires an email address from respondents, it'll ensure that the response is a valid email address. Users will also be able to set URLs, certain keywords, text, and numbers as requirements. This capability will be available by the end of this month.
The release timelines are more like rough estimates
In addition to describing upcoming Microsoft 365 features, the software giant mentions when users can expect those functionality to arrive. However, many a time, those release schedules change without the company ever telling users that they're being pushed to a later month. It has happened in the past and may happen again.