9 Exciting Teams Updates for 2020

There are over 500,000 organisations using Teams.

Teams has everything in a single, secure location: chat, meetings, calls, integrated apps – not just Microsoft ones! There so many non-Microsoft apps you can integrate like Youtube, Hootsuite for social media automation and even Google drive! Search here to see if the apps you use are already able to collaborate with Teams.

See our guide to Teams to learn more about this powerful tool.

With 13 million daily active users, Microsoft are investing a lot into developing Teams. There are some brand-new updates coming soon & some already available! Things like – Chat translation, customized backgrounds, shifts, priority notifications. So keep your eyes peeled for these features.

Here are some of the most exciting updates for Microsoft Teams in 2020:

1 – Yammer Integration with Teams – Finally!

I’m so excited about this. Yammers’ application hasn’t been updated for a while and this is probably why. It’s moving to Teams! We’ve had many a discussion in the office about how handy this would be. Now it’s finally happening. I can’t wait to try this out for myself as we already use Yammer a lot at Fabric!

2 – Multiple Teams Chat Windows

This feature enables you to pop out chats into separate windows and chat with multiple people at the same time. Since using Teams more frequently for my work discussions, it can get difficult to ensure you’ve responded to all the chats you’re active in. With this feature, that issue is a thing of the past. If you’re I a conversation, simply open the chat in a new window and only close when you’re finished. Giving you the chance to use Teams groups and documents at the same time as chatting! Simple concept… but very handy.

Just double click on the chat you’d like to pop up and…

3 – Tag individual groups within a Team

Tag Team members to label their role or identify their common grounds. For example @sales or @logistics. Then you can use these tags in your Team posts to send a notification to that subgroup. This would work very well with large Teams.

4 – Cross Team Channel Posting

The ability to share the same post to more than one Team channel! Very handy

5 – Private Channels

You’ll be able to create private channels within your Team. This is ideal for individuals who are leading the Team and require a level of privacy – you don’t have to make another Team!

6 – Tasks Integration!

Yes, yes, YES!!!! To Do & Planner = Tasks in Teams!

We all love To Do already and this will link those lists with the tasks from your planner projects. A centralised space for all your jobs. There’s no excuse for missing a deadline when this awesome feature launches!

7 – Teams and Outlook Sharing

The ability to share emails to teams using a simple button in Outlook (top right). Then a pop up will appear and ask for more info on where exactly you’d like to send it and who to. The post in Teams will include all of the email attachments which are usable directly from Teams!

You can also share a Teams post to Outlook if you’re looking to share the information with a wider audience.

8 – Live Captions in Meetings

You will be able to show live captions for a meeting in Teams without the need to type a transcript! This is great for people who are hard of hearing, aren’t fluent in a language or simply use it to help concentrate.

9 – Virtual and analog whiteboard capabilities for meetings

You can draw on a virtual whiteboard within a meeting in Teams and collaborate with your contacts in a more interactive, visual way.

You can even use a real whiteboard and the webcam will zoom into the board, clarify it, and even fade a person stood in front of it whilst writing! So cool.

That’s not all for Microsoft Teams!

I’m sure this won’t be all that Teams has to offer. I’ll continue to keep a lookout for more exciting offerings in the future. But in the meantime – enjoy Teams!

If you’re not using Teams yet then what are you waiting for!? Get in touch to try a free version today.