The 10 best new Microsoft Teams meeting features

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Over the previous yr or so, Microsoft has added a number of latest capabilities to Groups, its chat and videoconferencing hub, targeted on enhancing video conferences with co-workers and different colleagues. This is a rundown of the important thing new options to know and the right way to use them.

Word that this information refers back to the Microsoft Groups desktop app for Home windows and macOS included with Microsoft 365/Workplace 365 enterprise and training subscriptions. A few of these options aren't provided within the net or cellular apps or in client variations of Groups, together with the free model.

1. Breakout rooms

Breakout rooms are principally mini-meeting rooms which can be related to a bigger assembly. Every breakout room has a lot of the standard assembly options together with participant audio and video feeds, a chat pane, and screen-sharing capabilities.

In case you have a small staff that should converse and current in a gathering, they may profit from prepping and conferring with one another in a separate breakout room whereas the primary assembly is happening. In one other situation, you may put all assembly contributors into breakout rooms to facilitate small-group discussions earlier than bringing everyone again to the primary assembly.

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Breakout rooms allow small-group discussions aside from a bigger Groups assembly. (Click on picture to enlarge it.)

To arrange breakout rooms, you have to be a gathering organizer or a presenter with breakout room supervisor privileges. Throughout a gathering, you'll be able to entry this characteristic by clicking the Breakout rooms icon (a smaller sq. on prime of a bigger sq.) on the higher proper of the assembly window. This can open a panel the place you'll be able to create a number of breakout rooms and both manually assign folks within the assembly to them or have the assignments made robotically.

Alternatively, you'll be able to arrange breakout rooms earlier than a gathering by opening the assembly invite in Groups and choosing Breakout rooms > Create rooms.

Breakout room managers may rename breakout rooms, set deadlines for breakout classes, enter and depart numerous breakout rooms, ship bulletins to breakout rooms, and extra. For particulars, see Microsoft's help web page on establishing and managing breakout rooms.

2. Improved whiteboard

Groups has lengthy built-in with Microsoft’s Whiteboard app in order that assembly contributors can collaborate on a shared digital whiteboard in actual time. Staff members can add textual content, photographs, diagrams, notes, sketches, and extra to a board. The lately revamped model of this app provides a number of enhancements together with greater than 40 new templates, the power to insert photographs and paperwork, response icons, and quite a few inking software enhancements.

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The Microsoft Whiteboard has an overhauled interface and new capabilities. (Click on picture to enlarge it.)

To launch the Whiteboard app whereas in a gathering: On the higher proper of the assembly window, click on the Share content material (up arrow) icon. On the panel that opens, click on Microsoft Whiteboard.

Exterior of a gathering, you'll be able to add the Whiteboard app to any of your Groups channels. (It may be helpful to work on a whiteboard earlier than or after a gathering.) Open the channel and click on the + icon on the prime of the channel. On the “Add a tab” pane that opens, click on the Whiteboard icon. One other pane will open the place you sort in a reputation for the whiteboard. Click on the Save button on the decrease proper, and your new whiteboard shall be added to this channel.

You may as well add a whiteboard to a chat. Open the chat. Whiteboard might already be listed as a tab alongside the highest of the chat window. (Or you might have to click on Extra to open a small menu that lists Whiteboard on it.) If Whiteboard is listed as a tab, click on it to launch the Whiteboard app within the chat. If it isn’t listed wherever alongside the highest of your chat, then click on the + icon and observe the identical steps above for including a whiteboard to a channel.

3. Reside transcription

Groups has lengthy provided textual content transcripts of recorded conferences after the conferences are over. One other helpful longtime characteristic is AI-driven textual content captioning that exhibits what assembly contributors are saying in actual time. A more recent reside transcription functionality combines these two options, providing a Transcript sidebar that exhibits every thing that’s been stated in a gathering, full with speaker attribution.

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A reside assembly transcript can assist contributors sustain with every thing that’s been stated in a gathering. (Click on picture to enlarge it.)

Reside transcriptions can assist those that can’t hear properly or who aren't fully fluent within the language being spoken within the assembly. And anybody who arrives late to a gathering or is momentarily distracted can shortly catch up by scrolling again via the Transcript sidebar. The entire transcript is obtainable after the assembly is over for invitees who missed the assembly or contributors who need to overview what was stated.

To begin reside transcription in a gathering, click on the three-dot Extra actions icon on the higher proper of the assembly window, and from the menu that opens, click on Begin transcription. Assembly contributors will see a notification saying that the assembly is being transcribed.

Alternatively, should you report a gathering (click on the Extra actions icon and choose Begin recording), reside transcription is robotically turned on on the similar time. Assembly contributors will see a notification saying that the assembly is being recorded and transcribed.

Groups at the moment helps reside transcription in 28 languages. If everybody within the assembly is talking a language apart from English, you'll be able to change the transcribed textual content to the one which they’re talking. Click on the three-dot icon on the prime of the Transcript sidebar, choose Change spoken language, choose a unique language, and click on Affirm.

After the assembly, the transcript shall be accessible for obtain within the assembly occasion on the calendar.

Reside transcription have to be allowed by your Groups admin. For extra particulars, see Microsoft’s help web page on reside transcriptions in Groups.

4. Spotlighting folks

Assembly organizers and presenters can “highlight” sure assembly contributors — as an illustration, at an all-company assembly the place just a few leaders are often known as on. While you highlight somebody, their video feed is displayed prominently within the assembly window for all contributors, principally pinning it in a outstanding place onscreen. As much as seven folks could be spotlighted at a time.

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You possibly can highlight sure contributors for everybody within the assembly. (Click on picture to enlarge it.)

To highlight somebody, right-click on the particular person's video (or your individual) and choose Highlight from the menu that opens. (If the video of not less than one different particular person has already been spotlighted, this selection will say Add highlight.)

Alternatively, you'll be able to choose the Present contributors icon (with two folks on it) on the prime of the display screen to see an inventory of each particular person within the assembly. Proper-click on an individual's identify and choose Highlight from the menu that opens.

To take away an individual from a highlight, right-click on their video and choose Cease spotlighting from the menu that opens. You possibly can cease spotlighting everybody within the Present contributors checklist.

Word that the Highlight characteristic is not accessible in case your view of everybody's video feeds is about to "Massive gallery" or "Collectively" mode. Additionally, in case your assembly is being recorded, an individual's spotlighted video will not seem as spotlighted within the closing recording.

5. PowerPoint grid view and extra

There’s an improved method to current a PowerPoint doc in a gathering, the place you'll be able to present particular slides and never need to flip via all of them. On the higher proper of the assembly window, click on the Share content material (up arrow) icon. On the panel that opens, scroll to the “PowerPoint Reside” part and click on Browse OneDrive or Browse my pc, whichever has the PowerPoint doc that you just need to current.

After the PowerPoint doc is loaded, you’ll see the slide that’s being introduced to assembly contributors in the primary space of your display screen, with a strip of thumbnails for different slides alongside the underside of the window. You possibly can click on any thumbnail to go on to that slide.

Beneath the slide that's being introduced, there’s a Grid view icon (with a number of squares). Click on this icon or press the “G” key, and the slide thumbnails shall be organized in a grid. You possibly can click on considered one of these thumbnails to current it for folks within the assembly to see.

Assembly contributors watching a PowerPoint Reside presentation in Groups have a Grid view icon as properly; they'll use it to leap to any slide within the deck after which click on the Sync to Presenter icon to return to the slide being introduced.

For extra particulars on grid view and PowerPoint Reside, see Microsoft’s help web page on sharing PowerPoint slides in a Groups assembly.

Additionally new is the power to cease presenting a PowerPoint deck after which decide up the place you left off later in the identical assembly — useful for if you need to break up a protracted presentation with a unique presenter or exercise.

6. Presenter mode

This characteristic brings collectively your video feed and the doc or picture you’re presenting to others within the assembly to see in considered one of 3 ways:

• Standout removes the background behind you and replaces it with the content material you’re presenting.
• Reporter locations the content material above your proper shoulder in a format like what you see on the TV information when an anchorperson is onscreen.
• Aspect-by-side is solely your video feed and the content material you’re presenting set subsequent to at least one one other.

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Presenter mode combines your video feed with the content material you’re presenting.

On the higher proper of the assembly window, click on the Share content material (up arrow) icon. Beneath the “Presenter mode” heading on the prime of the panel that opens, click on the icon to your most popular presenter mode.

To begin your presentation, select an merchandise below both “Display” or “Window” within the panel. (Presenter mode doesn't at the moment work with PowerPoint shows, although Microsoft says that functionality is coming sooner or later.)

For extra particulars, see Microsoft's help web page on utilizing presenter modes.

7. Content material from digital camera

This characteristic enhances the picture of an object in your room, similar to a whiteboard, e book, or paper doc, so that folks in your assembly can see it extra clearly. It additionally features a particular impact to make you seem barely clear when your physique, arm, or hand is in entrance of the whiteboard or different object or over the doc.

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Use the “Content material from digital camera” characteristic to sharpen whiteboards or different written materials.

On the higher proper of the assembly window, click on the Share content material (up arrow) icon. On the panel that opens, click on Content material from digital camera and select Whiteboard, Doc, or Video. (Video is for displaying product demos or different reside motion.) In a preview window, you’ll be instructed to level your system’s digital camera or a linked exterior digital camera on the whiteboard or doc. When your whiteboard or doc comes into focus, this characteristic will improve the legibility of the phrases and pictures on it. You possibly can then click on the Share button to current it to folks in your assembly.

For extra particulars, see Microsoft’s help web page on sharing whiteboards and paperwork through your digital camera.

8. Name high quality monitor

If the audio or video of your assembly is spotty or missing, you'll be able to test on what could be the trigger. On the prime of your name window, click on the three-dot Extra actions icon. From the menu that opens, click on Name well being. A sidebar will seem alongside the suitable displaying the technical statuses of your community, audio, video, and display screen sharing. For particulars on the right way to learn the decision well being stats, see Microsoft’s help web page on monitoring name and assembly high quality in Groups.

9. Keyboard shortcuts for digital hand elevating

Groups’ “elevate hand” characteristic lets assembly contributors sign to the host that they've a query or remark with out interrupting the speaker. In 2021, Microsoft added a keyboard shortcut to make this faster.

To lift or decrease your hand and see who else has theirs raised, press Ctrl-Shift-Ok on Home windows or ⌘-Shift-Ok on macOS. To have your display screen reader learn aloud an inventory of others who're elevating their hand, click on Ctrl-Shift-L on Home windows or ⌘-Shift-L on macOS. (See extra Microsoft Groups keyboard shortcuts.)

10. Assembly recaps

After a gathering ends, you'll find a abstract of it within the chat group that’s robotically created for the assembly. Within the left sidebar of the Groups app, click on the Chat icon. Within the second column, search for the title of the completed assembly and click on it.

The recap window consists of the chat textual content, notes taken, and recordsdata shared throughout the assembly, in addition to a video recording and transcription in the event that they had been created. In case you're the organizer of the assembly, an attendance report can even be included; it may be downloaded as a .csv file.

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Groups assembly recaps embrace assembly notes, recordings, transcripts, recordsdata shared, and extra after a gathering. (Click on picture to enlarge it.)