Tag: Microsoft Teams

Teams Meetings – Presentation Modes

Two new modes for presenting content and video into a Microsoft Teams meeting will be introduced during late August and early September.

What is available?

  1. Side by side mode – allows the video of the presenter alongside the content being delivered – similar to the effect that has been available in a live event.
  2. Reporter mode – superimposes the content over the shoulder of the presenter’s video in a similar fashion to that of a newsreader in a broadcast.

Meeting presenters:

  • Can customize the background image before starting the presentation
  • Can easily enable or disable the video feed during the presentation from the sharing bar

 

Timing

These new presentation features are rolling out now and will be available to users by mid September ’21 at the latest.

Microsoft Whiteboard Enhancements – September and October 2021

During September ’21, Microsoft will be releasing a number of enhancements for the Whiteboard product.  Ultimately the goal is to provide a unified experience across all versions whether on Surface Hubs, Windows 10, Android, Teams Web or iOS.

 

Some features have already started to roll out for the web and Teams versions of Whiteboard with more coming during September.  The native clients (Windows 10, Surface Hub, Android and iOS) will roll out during late September and October ’21 and will be completed by the end of October ’21.

 

The following features are already available in the Web and Teams versions

 

  • Sticky note colours: 10 colourful sticky note shades to choose from.
  • Note grids – insert a grid of sticky notes in one of 12 available colours to help in workshops and ideation sessions.
  • View objects created in native apps – Objects such as lists & templates inserted on native apps can be viewed on web and Teams as well.
  • Ink pen colours: 15 new ink pen colour options with a range of thicknesses to help visualize your content and bring your text to life.
  • Highlighter colours: – 15 new highlighter colour options enable users to emphasize content on the board.
  • Ink shape recognition: – draw shapes with ink and then watch them straighten automatically.
  • Improved mouse inking: – create smoother ink lines, making your strokes easier and cleaner when drawing with a mouse or trackpad.
  • Read only mode for education accounts: – as a meeting facilitator or an educator, determine when and how students participate and collaborate by enabling or disabling their editing capabilities.

Further updates coming soon include

Modern look and feel:

  • Streamlined user experience: an unobtrusive app UI maximizes your canvas space.
  • Creation gallery: a highly discoverable, simple way of finding and using objects and features in the application.

Collaboration features:

  • Collaboration roster: see who is on the board and collaborating with you.
  • Collaborative cursors: see where other people are on the canvas and what they are editing.
  • Laser pointer: get other people’s attention as you share your best ideas.
  • Improved performance: quickly open boards, pan and zoom, create content, and collaborate in real time with numerous editors at once during large working sessions.

Interactive content features:

  • More than 30 customizable templates: get started quickly and collaborate, brainstorm, and ideate with brand new templates.
  • Stickers: provide lightweight, contextual feedback with a set of fun stickers.
  • Images: add images from your local drive to the canvas and annotate them to build visual interest on your boards.

Facilitation features:

  • Copy/paste: copy and paste content and text within the same whiteboard.
  • Object alignment: use alignment lines and object snapping to precisely organize content spatially.
  • Format background: personalize your whiteboard by changing the background colour and pattern .

Inking features:

  • Ink arrows: smoothly draw single and double-sided arrows using ink to better facilitate diagramming.
  • Ink effect pens: express yourself in a creative way using rainbow and galaxy ink.

 

Features coming to Native Applications

  • Ruler: for straight lines, users can now insert lines from the shapes menu or hold down shift when inking.
  • Erase entire ink strokes: for faster erasing, users can now erase the entire ink stroke instead of a portion of it.
  • Lock image: the ability to lock images and other canvas content will be available shortly after the update.
  • Insert document: the ability to insert documents from local storage along with OneDrive and SharePoint will be available shortly after update.
  • Like/unlike sticky notes: users can use stickers instead as a workaround for lightweight voting and liking. We will be releasing more enhanced voting capabilities in a future update.
  • Sorting: the ability to organize and sort lists and note grids are being rebuilt and will be included in a future update.
  • Export template to CSV and email summary: these features are being rebuilt and will be included in a future update, including different ways to export content from the board.
  • Ink grab, Ink to table and Ink to text: these features are being rebuilt and will be included in a future update.
  • Accessibility checker and alt text: these features are being rebuilt and will be included in a future update.
  • Bing image search: users can download and insert images onto the canvas with the insert image feature.
  • Easy share on Surface Hub: this feature is being rebuilt and will be included in a future update.

 

You can find out more about Whiteboard and the features available by clicking here.

Microsoft Teams Breakout Rooms Managers

During September Breakout Rooms Managers will become available as a feature in Microsoft Teams.

 

Meeting Organisers can assign the role of Breakout Rooms Manager to one or more presenters in a meeting, either before or during the meeting.  Only ONE person with the correct rights can manage breakout rooms at any one time.  If Person A organises the meeting and assigns Presenter B and Presenter C with the Breakout Rooms Manager role then either Person A (the organiser), Presenter B or Presenter C can take control and run the breakout rooms.

This feature will ONLY work in Desktop versions of Microsoft Teams.

 

What will the experience look like?

Organizers who will configure and manage Breakout Rooms on a Teams desktop client will have access to appoint Presenters as Breakout Room managers. Currently, only users who are named presenters from the same tenant are supported to become Breakout rooms managers.

When Breakout rooms managers join the meeting, they will see the Breakout rooms icon in toolbar.

Breakout rooms managers will have to take control to manage rooms. (Only one manager can manage rooms at the same time).

Once in control, Breakout rooms managers can perform operations to manage Breakout rooms, such as:

  • assign users to rooms
  • add/delete rooms
  • open/close rooms
  • re-assign users to rooms
  • send announcements
  • recreate rooms
  • set timer
  • adjust other Breakout rooms settings

 

When rooms are started, all Breakout room managers (also those not in control) can join opened Breakout Rooms by clicking on the … menu next to each room and selecting Join room.

 

Timing

This functionality will roll out during the second half of September 2021 and will be available by the end of September at the latest.

 

Enhancements to Microsoft Teams Breakout Rooms

During September 2021, Microsoft will add some much anticipated enhancements to the Breakout Rooms functionality in Microsoft Teams.

Once live, organisers will be able to configure Breakout Rooms ahead of the actual meeting using an additional tab within the meeting.  From this tab it will be possible to create and rename rooms and organise participants in advance of the meeting.   The full set of features to be enabled are as follows:

 

  • Bulk creating / deleting rooms
  • Adding / deleting / renaming individual rooms
  • Configuring meeting options for each room
  • Adjusting settings for breakout rooms session (timer, selecting breakout rooms managers and more)
  • Pre-assigning participants via both manual and automatic assignment options

 

The “Breakout Room Manager” is a new role which the organiser will be able to assign.  This user will then be able to run breakout rooms even if the organiser of the meeting is not present.  The Breakout Room Manager will also be able to control and update breakout rooms, start and stop them and set features such as the room timer, and room meeting options.

 

The new features are expected to be live by the end of September but may be available earlier in the month depending on delivery to the Imperial Office 365 tenant.

NOTE this functionality will only be available in the Teams Desktop client initially.

 

For more information on Breakout Rooms and settings (this document will be further updated when Microsoft release the new features) see this link.

Microsoft 365 Training

Flipped open silhouette of a head with Office 365 app icons

 

New Microsoft 365 Training Dates have been scheduled for August, September and October 2021.

 

Getting Started with Office 365

Scheduled to run on 23rd August, 29th September and 21st October at 10.00.

This covers the basics of Office 365, including Logging In, OneDrive for Business, how to upload and share files and how to move away from using your H: drive, along with basic file co-authoring.

Book your place here.

 

Collaborating with Microsoft Teams

Using Microsoft Teams?

Want to know more about how to make your team more collaborative and keep everyone in your team “in the know”?

Why not join one of the sessions running at 14.00 hrs on 23rd August, 29th September or 21st October to find out more about working together.

Book your place here.

 

Microsoft OneNote – “Imperial as One presents OneNote Training with Adrian”

Open sessions for training on OneNote hosted by Imperial as One.

Sessions running at 10.00 hrs on 24th August 2021 and 23rd September 2021

Book a place here.

 

NEW – Power Automate in Microsoft 365 – NEW

Do you do repetitive tasks with information?

Would you like to automate what you do and ensure that the data is processed in the same way every time?

Do you collect information using Microsoft Forms and then need to do something more with the information?

Join this 2 hour session on 20th October where we will begin to explore Power Automate and how you can use it for automation of data processing … We’ll look at taking data captured by a form and adding it to a table in Excel, and a list in SharePoint.  We’ll also look at functions such as automating posts into MS Teams, and using “Approvals” in workflows.

Book your place here.  Places are limited to 25 initially – subject to initial feedback we hope to run this course again with a larger number of participants later in 2021.

 

 

 

Teams Updates for May and June 2021

​​Over the past couple of months (May and June 2021) Microsoft have introduced a number of new features and updated some functionality across Microsoft 365.

Microsoft Teams

New Share Tray experience – when sharing in a meeting the share experience has been improved.  Instead of the sharing options appearing from the bottom of the screen, the new experience delivers a drop out set of sharing options as per the screen shot below:

 

PowerPoint Live in Teams – A new PowerPoint Live experience is now available which means that you can see the “presenter view” of your PowerPoint slides and notes while delivering the presentation tot he meeting.  This also allows you to see the audience participants and facial reactions and also the chat window for questions.

Select your file from the list of files in the PowerPoint Live section of the Share Tray in a meeting.

 

New Teams Desktop App for Mac OS X – A new version of the teams app for Apple Mac OS X users brings the ability to share system sound into a meeting.  This feature is often requested by Mac users who wish to provide sound from their screen when sharing video or web content into a meeting.

 

Set Out of Office from Teams – with the summer holidays now happening for many, setting an out of office is vital to keep your colleagues abreast of your availability.  As well as being able to set an Out of Office message via Outlook or Outlook on the Web, you can now use Teams and set an automated response via the Teams settings pane.  This delivers an out of office response for emails and Teams messages in just the same way as using the option in Outlook does.

 

Multiple Spotlights in Meetings – You can now spotlight multiple participants in a meeting, bringing their video to the fore and putting all other videos into a small version in the meeting.  Spotlight is great for highlighting your speaker or panel members in a panel discussion.  To spotlight a participant, click on the three dots beside their name and choose Spotlight.  To remove the spotlight click on the three dots and then choose to “stop spotlighting”.

 

Prevent Video in Teams Meetings – Under the Meeting Options a new option has been made available.  The option sits under the “Allow mic for attendees?” and is titled “Allow camera for attendees?”