Teams is Microsoft’s premier tool for online communication and collaboration, one that gets new features on a regular basis. Towards the end of each month, the Redmond tech giant rounds up all the capabilities it added to the software during the past four weeks. Now, the firm has detailed enhancements that it made to Teams during September 2024.

What new features did chat and collaboration get?

A very useful change made to Teams during the previous month is the ability to rename the General channel when creating a new team in order to improve clarity and meaningfulness. In the same vein, when a new user joins a team, owners will have the ability to recommend specific channels to them.

When it comes to group chats or 1:1 conversations, users can utilize the Shared tab – which replaces the Files tab –; it contains a consolidated view of all shared URLs and files. Additionally, when you attach images in chat, they appear horizontally to consume less space in the compose box. You can also navigate between the images you have attached, copy them, and add alternative text. Once they are sent, Teams will automatically adjust their size and aspect ratio for optimal viewing.

What about people who use Copilot, Mesh, webinars, and town halls?

Tenants with Copilot licenses had a lot of new features to enjoy during September 2024. On desktop and mobile, Copilot can now leverage both the transcription of the meeting and the associated chat in order to paint a complete picture of what was discussed during a conversation. Similarly, those with a Teams Premium or Copilot for Microsoft 365 license can get a summary of meetings and insights directly in Outlook. However, if IT admins believe that Copilot doesn't provide enough value to their users, they can also utilize granular controls to disable it for specific users in certain conditions.

Meanwhile, on the Mesh side of the fence, customers can take advantage of a new workshop environment for smaller team collaboration activities. Moreover, organizers can allow presenters to moderate Q&A sessions, with organizers also having the ability to sort questions by audience votes and filter them based on keywords for a more engaging discussion. This is something that is available to even more customers, now that webinars have hit GCC-High.

Awesome! What about Teams Rooms and other hardware?

Teams Rooms on Windows received lots of new features with version 5.2, and more are coming this month. For now, customers can utilize ultrasound proximity join, roster grouping for proximity join, UI customization options like text and dynamic video tile resizing, and native controls on console for OEM features. That's still not all, though. Users can also leverage the Cloud IntelliFrame preview indicator, breakout rooms, automatic work locations on bookable desks, and custom background images on Teams panels.

In addition, the following devices are now Teams-certified:

• ViewSonic® TeamJoin™ TRS10
• Meeting Owl 3
• Yealink MeetingBar A40
• VC520 Pro3
• Poly Studio E60
• Lenovo Wireless VoIP headset

If you thought that these were all the new features that Microsoft added to Teams during September 2024, you'd be mistaken. There are lots of other enhancements related to Teams Phone, platform, and frontline worker solutions too. You can read more about them in Microsoft's dedicated blog post here.