See also: Upcoming Teams Features

• Co-organizers in Teams meetings

  Meeting organizers and instructors can assign up to 10 participants to serve as co-organizers to help manage a Teams Meeting.

• Temporarily unmute keyboard shortcut

  Microsoft added a press-and-hold feature to temporarily unmute your microphone in Teams meetings. Start by muting your mic in a Teams meeting. When you need to speak, you press and hold down Ctrl+Spacebar for Windows or Option+Spacebar for macOS, unmuting your mic for as long as you hold. Upon releasing the keys, your mic will return its mute setting.

• Loop components in Teams chat

  From Teams chat or in meeting chat, you can send a Loop component. Loop components serve as starters for composing content, such as an agenda, checklist, table, task list or paragraph. After sending a Loop component via chat, participants can edit content together in real time.

• Q&A app

  Looking to have written questions submitted from attendees in a Microsoft Teams meeting? Schedule and moderate a question-and-answer session using the Q&A app in a non-channel meeting.

• Breakout Rooms managers

  Meeting organizers and instructors can appoint presenters to help manage Breakout Rooms in a Teams meeting. While there may be multiple Breakout Rooms managers, only one Breakout Rooms manager can control the rooms at a time.

• Presenter Modes

  Microsoft Teams lets presenters add their video feed when sharing content in a Teams meeting. Learn more about the three video feed presenter modes — Standout Mode, Side-by-side Mode and Reporter Mode.
  
  

• Pre-assigning participants in Teams meeting breakout rooms

  Breakout rooms allow a meeting organizer to split your attendees into multiple online rooms for discussion and collaboration in Teams. Meeting organizers can create breakout rooms in advance then pre-assign members to the breakout rooms. This feature became available in mid-September 2021.
  
  

• New Share Content Window

  When participants share their screen, window, Whiteboard, or PowerPoint during Teams meetings, a new drop-down window will replace the current sharing tray. This feature became available in mid-April 2021.
  
  

• Presenter View

  Microsoft Teams meetings now feature Presenter View for your PowerPoint slides. Presenters can see their slide notes and upcoming slides in Teams; meeting participants cannot. This feature became available in mid-January 2021.
  
  

• Dynamic View

  Teams offers you more control over how you see shared content, such as a presentation, and participant video feeds in a Teams meeting.
  
  

• Video Muting

  A meeting organizer or presenter can set “video mute on” for a Teams meeting.

• Teams Meeting Enhancements

  The number of Teams participants increased to 1,000. Teams meetings include the Question and Answer feature, currently part of Teams Live Events. The Spotlight feature for video feeds changed from a single spotlight to multiple spotlights. And attendee registration and email confirmations became part of Teams meetings.

• Whiteboard update
  

  Faster load times, sticky notes, text and drag and drop features. Allows participants who lack access to a touchscreen or Surface Hub to participate in whiteboarding sessions during Teams meetings.
  
  
  
  

• New Teams Calls

  For students, faculty and staff who use Teams calls and chat, Microsoft Teams unified calling features into a single interface. You have easy access to the phone dial pad, calling history, voicemail, contacts, speed dial and call settings.
  
  
  
  Other upcoming call features include:
  • Spam Call Detection: Teams calling flags potential spam calls, saving you from wasteful interruptions.
  • Real-time Reverse Number Look-up: Teams automatically displays the a caller's name before you pick up and will store the name in your activity feed and voicemail.
  • Transfer Calls between Mobile and Desktop: If you take a Teams call on your mobile device, you can switch the call to your desktop or vice versa.
  • Call Merge: Bring several different one-to-one calls together into a single call.
  • Low-data Mode: You can cap the amount of data used during video calls and create different settings based on network availability (e.g., set one data cap for cellular and a different cap for Wi-Fi access).

• Teams Meeting Overflow

  When attendees exceed the 300 limit in a Teams meeting, up to 20,000 attendees can join the Teams Meeting in view-only mode.

• Timer and Room Assignment in Breakout Rooms

  The new Breakout Rooms Timer automatically moves members back to main room. A meeting organizer can set the timer in Breakout Rooms by following these steps:
  1A) Select three-dots icon to reveal the drop-down menu.
  1B) From the drop-down menu, select Rooms settings.
  2C) Turn on the "Set a time limit" toggle.
  2D) Choose a time limit in minutes from the drop-down menu.
  
  
  
  Also, members will stay assigned to Breakout Rooms for all subsequent sessions of that meeting or reoccurring meetings.

• Live Reactions

  Participants in a Teams meeting can use animated emojis during meetings that appear for everyone. The Raise Hand option changed into a reactions icon to let you raise your hand, laugh, applaud, heart and like.
  
  
  
  Select a reaction and the animated icon will appear for all participants.
  
  
  
  

• Background Noise Suppression

  When using the Teams Windows desktop software, Teams meetings include noise suppression, which reduces distracting background noise, such as loud typing or a barking dog. This feature became available on Dec 8, 2020.

• Breakout Rooms

  Microsoft Teams Breakout Rooms became available in a public preview as of the week of Sept. 7, 2020. Breakout rooms allow a meeting organizer to split your attendees into multiple online rooms for discussion and collaboration in Microsoft Teams. See current and planned features for breakout rooms.
  
  
  
  

• Spotlight a participant in a Teams Meeting

  Use the Spotlight feature in a Teams meeting to put the focus on a specific person for all participants. Only meeting presenters can spotlight a participant.
  
  

• Together Mode

  Together Mode places a head-and-shoulders live avatar of your video feed into a virtual space, such as being seated in an auditorium with meeting participants. This feature became available on July 8, 2020 and requires switching to the new Teams Meeting Experience. From the three-dots icon, select Together Mode when applicable.
  
  
  
  

• New Teams Meeting Experience

  Microsoft launched a new Teams Meetings meetings experience in the desktop software in June 2020. 
  
  Click or tap the image to enlarge.
  
  
  Controls such as mute/unmute, camera on/off, chat and leave meeting moved to the top of the meeting window. That way, the meeting controls are always available and will never block content.
  
  
  
  

• View seven-by-seven video feeds
  

  Up to 49 total feeds at a time. This feature became available in July 2020 and requires switching to the new Teams Meeting Experience.
  
  
  
  

• Search within a chat or channel — In the Teams desktop application, press Ctrl-F (Windows) or Command-F (Mac) while in a Teams chat or channel. A search box will appear at the top of the Teams window that searches within the chat or channel. Pictured below is a search limited to the "Golden Eagle Care and Feeding" channel. Generally became available on July 2, 2020.
  
  
  
  
• Teams meeting size increased from 250 to 300 participants on June 26, 2020.
  
  
• Upload your own background image for the background settings in a Teams meeting/online class session. Generally became available on June 9, 2020.
  
  
• View three-by-three video feeds — up to nine total at a time. Generally became available on May 13, 2020.
  
  
  
  
  
• Download a participant report, found in the participant list, that includes join and leave times for participants. Generally became available on May 15, 2020.
  
  
• Raise hand lets meeting participants indicate they have something to say during a meeting by clicking or tapping the hand-raise icon on the meeting control bar. Alerts for raised hands appear at bottom of the Teams screen and in the participant list (when shown as a right column). Generally became available on May 15, 2020.
  
  
• End meeting allows the meeting organizer to end a meeting for all participants. To end the meeting, click or tap the Leave meeting button. A drop-down menu appears. Select End meeting. If the online meeting or class was recording, the recording also stops when you use the end meeting feature. Generally became available on April 10, 2020.
  
  
• Select background settings gives you several background images to replace the standard blurred background. IT Services has added several Marquette themed backgrounds as well. Before you join an online meeting, turn on your camera and click or tap the blur icon to reveal the background settings options in the right column. Generally became available in April 2020.
  
  
  
  Also, during the online meeting or class, you can turn on or switch the background setting image. With your camera on, click or tap the three-dots icon on the meeting control bar. Select Show background effects.

Questions?

Please contact the IT Services Help Desk for questions about Microsoft Teams.