Microsoft Teams is the Redmond tech firm's flagship tool for online communication and collaboration. We recently learned that the software is gaining a bunch of powerful features pretty soon, but it's important to note that a lot of exciting new enhancements already made their way to Teams this month too, as we will cover in October 2024's roundup. They might be enough to compensate for the capabilities that Teams lost earlier in the month.

Awesome! What's new in chat and collaboration?

Starting off with updates to chat and collaboration, Microsoft introduced some productivity-focused enhancements to Teams as we discussed in detail a couple of days ago. The teams and channel views have been revamped so that users can efficiently manage their teams and check out analytics related to them. Customers can also find out pertinent details about chat - such as members and files shared - in the informational pane next to a chat window so that they don't lose context of ongoing activity in the chat.

What's in store for customers who use webinars, town halls, and Mesh?

Teams customers will now get a notification whenever AI-powered meeting recaps are ready for their meetings. Additionally, meeting organizers can also choose to delegate permissions related to lobby admittance to other roles, such as co-organizers and presenters. In the same vein, organizers can also facilitate integration between external email automation platforms to manage communication mechanisms in webinars and town halls. Webinars have hit general availability in Government Community Cloud High (GCCH) environments too.

When it comes to smaller enhancements, Mac customers can leverage voice isolation, just like Windows customers. Furthermore, webinars and town halls are now offering voting, sorting, archiving, and filtering options in Teams Q&A in order to boost engagement.

On the Mesh side of the fence, Microsoft has rolled out a Mesh Pavilion sample. It contains pre-built elements, assets, and activities that Mesh developers can quickly build upon and customize according to their needs. The Mesh avatar catalog has been expanded to include 51 new wardrobe items and 19 hairstyles as well.

Anything interesting for Teams hardware?

IT admins can now configure and manage integration with select digital signage providers in Teams Rooms on Windows, along with displaying dynamic content on the display. The same Teams variant can also join meetings on other services, like Google Meet, Zoom, Cisco Webex, and any other platform which supports Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). In collaborative environments, the shared display mode on a Teams device will be automatically activated in smaller bring your own device (BYOD) rooms. BYOD rooms can also be configured to automatically show workplace presence, with intelligent booking solutions coming soon too. Similarly, if you join a BYOD room through your own laptop, Teams will list you as an in-room participant in the roster for easier grouping.

Notably, the following devices have recently been Teams-certified:

• MeetUp 2 for Teams Rooms on Windows (with Lenovo Core)
• Poly Blackwire 8225 Stereo USB-C+A
• Poly Blackwire 3310 Monaural USB-C+A
• Epos Impact 430T
• Epos Impact 460T

If you thought that was all, you might be surprised to know that there are several other features in store for frontline workers and Teams Phone customers too. You can find out more details in Microsoft's blog post here.