Microsoft Teams recently released an array of new features to enhance employee and business organisation, efficiency, and collaboration.

As Microsoft continuously seek out new ways to improve its applications, discover the latest Teams features and how they can benefit your organisation.

Shared channels

Microsoft Teams allow employees to safely collaborate with partners, outside of their own organisation. This enhances teamwork capability, as the shared channels can engage different external stakeholders, ensuring improved communication, process and ultimately productivity. For example, shared channels allow employees to schedule meetings, share files and work collaboratively in apps without having to switch tenants. Therefore, teamwork is overall more efficient, easier, and inclusive to secure an effective outcome.

Chat with yourself

Another new Teams feature that’s recently came into play is a chat feature that allows users to have a one-on-one chat, solely with themselves. This feature has been designed to enhance personal organisation, allowing users to send messages, files, media, and notes to themselves, ensuring they are all kept in one same place. The chat is automatically pinned to the top of the user chat list, which helps it remain accessible and distinguished.

Available on desktop, web, or phone, this feature is particularly useful for employees who take notes during meetings or for keeping notes in one place for easy access.

Collaborative annotations in a Teams meeting

Another update that’s been introduced is the collaborative annotation capability, powered by Microsoft Whiteboard. This drives collaboration on design presentations virtually, allowing remote and on-site employees to work on a central file, wherever they are based. Microsoft Whiteboard automatically enables when a particular user shares their screen, meaning everyone present in the meeting is then authorised to start annotating too. This therefore encourages users to get creative as they can share their ideas visually, in real time. Using this feature can make team meetings more interactive and overall, more productive.

Updated meeting experience available for Teams on the web

An updated meeting experience is now available for Teams on the web, specifically in Chrome and Edge browsers. This update includes moving meeting controls to the top of the meeting window and improved pre-join features by making the microphone and camera settings available before entering a meeting. Additionally, ‘dynamic view’ of participants is now available, which is a redesigned meeting stage that optimises your experience of digesting shared content and engaging with the other video and audio participants. This means that the experience is as inclusive and personable as possible, which boosts employee engagement and productivity.

Overall, these new features and updates in Teams have been designed to enhance group productivity even further. Increased interaction, better video call experiences and improved collaboration features allow every organisation, big or small, to become more flexible and create a more positive working environment.