Tag: Microsoft Teams

Over 270 million active users rely on Microsoft Teams to connect, share, learn, and collaborate, which affirms our commitment to continually improving call quality. In a previous Teams Blog post, we introduced machine-learning-based noise suppression, which automatically removes unwanted background sounds from calls and meetings. Since then, we have been working to expand the reach of this feature to more platforms and scenarios. After its initial release on Windows, background noise suppression is now available on Mac and iOS as well.

After the release of Teams background noise suppression for Windows users as an optional feature, we went through an iterative development and evaluation cycle to optimize our model and advance broader research in this field. With this goal in mind, we launched various competitions including our latest at the International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing 2022, and open-sourced both our dataset and the perceptual quality crowdsourcing framework.

These events helped improve the quality and complexity of our model. Our iterative experimentation process showed that improved call quality led to an increase in call duration for one-on-one calls. We also saw a 32% reduction in complaints of background noise reported in our end-of-call survey. Considering the significance of these improvements, we enabled machine-learning-based noise suppression as default for Teams customers using Windows. The same experiments were also conducted for Mac and iOS which showed similar improvements, leading us to release this feature as default on these platforms as well. This change of enabling noise suppression by default for most calls makes this feature the most widely used AI feature in Microsoft Teams, but more importantly improving experiences for millions of users who confidently take Teams calls and meetings from anywhere.

In addition to this extended platform coverage, we have also been working to make machine-learning-based noise suppression available on an expanded range of device types, including support for ARM-based devices and Microsoft Teams Rooms.

While the user benefits from machine-learning-based noise suppression appear obvious and ubiquitous, we were mindful of scenarios where it’s important to not suppress non-speech content, such as during music lessons. While it may be desirable that your kid’s music practice doesn’t disturb your work meeting, we also want to avoid negatively impacting the teacher’s ability to conduct the music lesson over Teams.

To differentiate those use-cases, we have implemented music detection into the noise suppression capability. This feature alerts users when AI identifies music so they can choose to disable noise suppression and enable transmitting music via our “High-fidelity Music Mode”. Music detection has been released for our desktop Windows client and has allowed us to turn on machine-learning-based noise suppression by default for our education customers as well. A future release of this feature is planned for education users on Mac and iOS devices as well as across all Teams Android and web clients.

While we’re excited about the advancements in Teams call quality we’ve achieved through machine-learning and AI, we’re just beginning to realize the opportunities ahead. Keep watching this blog to learn how innovation, testing, and optimization enables us to continually improve meeting and call quality in Teams.

In 2021, nearly three-quarters of employees experienced a 70% increase in meetings after organizations shifted to remote work due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.¹ When 43% of remote workers state they do not feel included in meetings², the natural question is, how can we make meetings more effective and inclusive?

We were curious too, so we decided to survey a large number of Microsoft customers who wanted to improve meeting experiences in their organizations. As it happens, this was the first large-scale study that we’re aware of conducted by a technology company to determine what makes meetings effective and inclusive.

We used statistical, mathematical, and machine learning techniques to analyze meeting dynamics through survey data and anonymous telemetry. This enabled us to build a model to understand and predict which meetings would be effective, and why. Criteria such as using an agenda, active participation, having video turned on, keeping meeting sizes small, and sharing pre-meeting material all ranked high for driving inclusiveness and effectiveness. Additionally, data analysis showed strong connections between meeting participation and attendees’ subjective perceptions of inclusiveness, sense of comfort, and meeting effectiveness.

Since meetings are a permanent fixture of modern work, we encourage you to dive into the findings below and find new ways to promote behaviors that lead to more effective and inclusive meetings.

Identifying Our Audience and Survey Methods

We used two survey methodologies in tandem to measure meeting effectiveness and inclusiveness across Microsoft employees and a select group of Microsoft Teams customers:

1. Post-meeting pop-up – A two-question survey within Teams that popped up at the end of a meeting to collect sentiment in near real-time.
2. Email-based survey – Approximately 20 questions designed to understand the nuances of the most recent meeting the respondent attended.

The in-Teams survey methodology was designed with goals to:

• Reach a random sample of meetings throughout the organization
• Minimize intrusion in the workday
• Lower the burden to respond
• Keep responses anonymous to ensure a psychologically safe place to provide feedback on meeting effectiveness and inclusivity

Survey types and population groups have different survey response rates, adding another layer of sampling to our data collection. While this additional layer induces a “non-response” bias to the data, our analysis showed a negligible amount of bias that did not degrade the data utility.

In-product survey

Modeling the Survey Data

To understand the drivers of meeting effectiveness and inclusiveness, we began examining the strength of dependencies between user ratings on these criteria with expected factors including meeting duration, the number of participants, usage of audio/video/screen sharing, and presence of an agenda among others.

We used a variety of statistical tests and machine learning (ML) algorithms to learn the set of factors and combinations that correspond to fundamental differences in ratings of effectiveness and inclusiveness. While an abundance of articles and small-sample studies provide a long list of potential drivers for meeting effectiveness and inclusivity, many of them are shown to not be significant after large-sample analysis.

A proven method of breaking down the collective pattern of dependencies among the set of potential factors and ratings is through the use of graphical models. We developed a process for selecting top contributors by fitting a web of dependencies and estimating the strength of each connection. A sample of such a model is shown below. The following graphical model from our peer-reviewed publication³ illustrates the multivariate interplay between factors.

Multivariate model of effectiveness (red and green show negative and positive effects, respectively)

The arrows in the above graph show the relationships between the variables and in relative terms. Using green arrows to show positive correlations and red arrows show negative correlations, this model helped us select the truly impactful factors on meeting effectiveness and inclusiveness from a sea of claims and anecdotal hypotheses. For example, the green arrow with “2.5” between “Participation” and “Inclusive” can be interpreted as meetings with high participation are 2.5x more likely to be rated as inclusive.

Participation represents “speaking in the meeting more than once.” It shows a significant positive impact on the chance of the meeting being rated inclusive (4 or 5-star). This pattern consistently shows up regardless of the survey type or audience group. The strength and consistency of this impact encouraged us to develop targeted ML models to further understand details about this correlation. Specifically, to include the interaction effects and explore the ramifications under different segments. Our findings show that:

• Meetings with higher levels of participation were rated more inclusive. Participants who spoke often during the meeting gave a 98% inclusive rating, participants who spoke a few times gave an 89% inclusive rating, participants who spoke only once gave a 67% inclusive rating, and participants who only listened gave a 36% inclusive rating.
• Participants who felt their presence was necessary for the meeting felt more included – giving the meeting a 92% inclusive rating over those whose presence was not necessary, who gave a 53% inclusive rating.
• Meetings with smaller meeting sizes were rated as more inclusive. This is a decreasing trend where 2-person meetings were rated by all participants as inclusive, while meetings with more than 10 people were rated only 60% inclusive.

Our analysis also showed that the impact of participation on inclusiveness was also influenced by other factors including meeting duration and length of the meeting. For example, the most significant gain is observed for thirty-minute or shorter meetings. In this segment, participation can increase meeting inclusiveness by ~6% and effectiveness by ~4%.

Video usage was another area where the large sample of our survey allowed us to learn from nonlinear patterns. While additional research is warranted to understand the breadth of meeting scenarios that benefit most from having video on, and which scenarios benefit from having video off, our survey data did yield interesting findings. We found the meeting scenario with a higher chance of benefiting from video usage is a “small meeting” with fewer than eight participants where some people are in a meeting room, and the rest are joining remotely. The benefit mostly comes from local participants (those in the meeting room) being able to see remote participants via video. Larger meetings may be more prone to “Video Conference” due to prolonged eye gaze, an effect that’s magnified when users are required to stare at numerous one-inch boxes of faces on their screens.⁴

More Resources and Insights

In addition to encouraging behaviors correlated to increased meeting effectiveness and inclusiveness, Microsoft Productivity Score and Viva Insights are valuable resources to help monitor organizational productivity, effectiveness, and engagement.

Productivity Score can be accessed through the Microsoft 365 Admin Center

Better Meetings… Through Science

Bookshelves are full of pages dedicated to the topic of meeting effectiveness, though many of these insights are based on small samples and anecdotes. While there’s still much about meetings yet to explore, such as the influence of meeting purpose on effectiveness and inclusion (brainstorming and problem solving versus status meetings), our research offers valuable constructs for how to make such connections.

What is clear in a hybrid-first world, is that the volume of scheduled and ad-hoc meetings is likely to increase. Organizations need a trusted methodology to identify and measure the factors that lead to more valuable meetings and enable us to form and strengthen connections between colleagues and friends.

1. Atlassian. 2022. You Waste A Lot of Time at Work Infographic | Atlassian. [online] Available at: https://www.atlassian.com/time-wasting-at-work-infographic
2. Work Trend Index: Microsoft’s latest research on the ways we work
3. Cutler, R., Hosseinkashi, Y., Pool, J., Filipi, S., Aichner, R., Tu, Y., & Gehrke, J. (2021, February 19). Meeting effectiveness and inclusiveness in remote collaboration. arXiv.org. Retrieved May 23, 2022, from https://arxiv.org/abs/2102.09803
4. Karl, K., Peluchette, J. and Aghakhani, N., 2021. Virtual Work Meetings During the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Good, Bad, and Ugly. Small Group Research, 53(3), pp.343-365

We strive to make classroom tools accessible to every student, helping them feel supported regardless of any challenges they may face. With the latest updates to Microsoft Teams, we continue our work to empower students with solutions designed for their diverse needs and situations. We’ve highlighted our favorite updates below:

Ukrainian language support for auto-detect in Reading Progress

As educators welcome students who have fled Ukraine, finding ways to ensure their inclusion and continued learning is essential. We are proud to announce that we have globally rolled out auto-detect speech detection for the Ukrainian language in Reading Progress. This brings our total number of supported languages and locales to 105.

Reading Progress, a free tool that supports educators in building students’ reading fluency, allows you to translate passages into any supported language right in Microsoft Word. You can use the auto-detect feature in Reading Progress to mark the student’s reading accuracy and fluency in any of our 105 supported languages, allowing them to continue developing fluency in their native language while also providing some context to help them engage in content learning with their classmates in a novel language.

This means that with auto-detect in Ukrainian, educators who do not speak Ukrainian can still get a sense of a student’s reading level and adapt to support individual student growth. In addition, Reading Progress recordings allow educators to check students’ progress more regularly while freeing up time for relationship building and providing the differentiated support that students in crisis need.

Immersive Reader and Microsoft Translator also support for learning in the Ukrainian language and are available in tools across Microsoft 365, helping educators to differentiate and providing an entry point for displaced Ukrainian students no matter the reading level. With Immersive Reader, we support Ukrainian read aloud, as well as Ukrainian translation between 100+ languages.

Read Aloud support for Somali and Zulu in Immersive Reader

We are excited to announce that Read Aloud for the much-requested languages of Somali and Zulu is now rolled out globally in Immersive Reader.

Explore the languages supported by Immersive Reader, then head over to the Tech Community blog to read more about the latest updates.

Five years ago, Microsoft Teams began its incredible journey. Today with over 270 million users, Teams is where hybrid work happens. Teams brings together everything you need to communicate, collaborate, and stay in the flow of your work. From connecting with those outside your organization, to giving you the flexibility to work where, when, and how you want, these improvements address the new expectations for today’s workplace.

A recent Morgan Stanley chief information officer (CIO) survey reports that over half of organizations have standardized on Teams.¹ Teams Phone alone counts nearly 80 million active users, placing over a billion calls monthly – including more than 90% of the Fortune 500 that used Teams Phone in the last quarter. Additionally, the number of active Teams Rooms devices more than doubled year-over-year.

But our work is far from over.

Since launch, we have added hundreds of Teams features that were directly influenced by your feedback. From Together Mode to 3-D emojis, we continue to integrate new ways for you to express yourself in Teams, celebrate wins together, and show appreciation for your co-workers. We have worked hard to help you connect and collaborate with colleagues, customers, and co-workers. You have shared your ideas, and we have listened. The continual improvement and reinvention you see in Teams is inspired by you.

At Enterprise Connect 2022, we’re showcasing the latest Microsoft Teams features – built for the ways you work.

Operator Connect Mobile: fixed-mobile convergence for flexible mobile communication and collaboration

As organizations experiment with flexible working models and reimagined physical spaces, a whole new set of workers are going “mobile”. This growing segment needs 24/7 mobility, not a 9-to-5 anchor. For many, the days of a fixed phone on a fixed desk in a fixed office are over, and Teams enables you to cut the cord.

This year, we’ll launch Operator Connect Mobile for Microsoft Teams Phone, enabling mobile-first calling experiences in partnership with some of the world’s largest telecom operators.

With Operator Connect Mobile, a single SIM-enabled number for Teams Phone serves as your desk phone number, your mobile number, and your Teams number. Seamlessly move calls across networks and devices with no call interruption. Transition calls from your cellular service while on-the-go to your office Wi-Fi to bring in rich video calling enabled by voice over IP. Make and receive calls on your phone’s native dialer and benefit from all the collaborative richness of Teams. Get call history, voicemail, and transcriptions in Teams and on your mobile device, while unified presence lets your colleagues see when you’re on a call – all automatically.

Setting up and managing Operator Connect Mobile is simple as well. It’s built upon the same framework and interface as the Operator Connect service we launched last year. Select from participating operators in the Teams Admin Center, purchase your license, and assign your operator-provided numbers. It’s that easy. Admins can also access call dashboards and advanced policy settings for additional insights and control.

Operator Connect Mobile leverages capabilities from the Azure for Operators product family, formerly Metaswitch Networks. Azure’s Mobile Control Point makes it easier for telecom operators to integrate with Operator Connect Mobile, enhancing their end users’ mobile experience with Teams.

Operator Connect Mobile for Teams Phone will be available through the following partners in a limited preview in the months ahead, with an expanded list of participating operators as the service becomes generally available later this year.

New Teams Phone features enable richer calling experiences

Teams Phone was built for you. Your input helps us bring innovative new features and capabilities to life.

End-to-end encryption – Some calling scenarios may require added privacy. Teams Phone now offers end-to-end encryption (E2EE) for all 1:1 VoIP calls on mobile as well as on the desktop client. E2EE means that no other party, including Microsoft, has access to the decrypted conversation, giving you confidence your communications remain private.

Common Area Phone enhancements – By early May, we are enhancing the Common Area Phone offering to serve a wider variety of scenarios for customers without increasing the price. Security, endpoint management, and cloud-based voicemail features will be available through the following service plans added to the Common Area Phone license:

• Azure Active Directory Premium Plan 1
• Microsoft Endpoint Manager
• Exchange Online Plan 2

In addition, the following calling features will be available for Teams Phone devices enabled with a Common Area Phone license and the latest Teams app update (available by May 2022):

• Call park and retrieve
• Cloud-based voicemail through Exchange Online Plan 2
• Call queues
• Auto attendants
• Group call pick-up
• Forwarding rules

Within the Admin Center, a Common Area Phone license can be activated for Azure Active Directory Premium Plan 1, Microsoft Endpoint Manager and Exchange Online Plan 2.

DECT device integration with SIP Gateway – We are integrating digital enhanced cordless telecommunications (DECT) devices with SIP Gateway, allowing frontline workers to use Teams calling functionality on DECT devices to communicate with colleagues while on the go. DECT device integration with SIP Gateway will be available by the end of June on the following compatible handset models from Spectralink, Ascom and Poly:

• Spectralink (IP-DECT 200/400/6500/Virtual IP-DECT, handsets 72xx/75xx/76xx/77xx)
• Ascom (IP-DECT Access Points IPBSx, Gateway IPBL, Virtual Appliance IPVM, handsets d43/d63/d81/d83/Myco3)
• Poly (base stations Rove B2/B4, handsets Rove 30/40, repeater Rove R8)

We have been working closely with these partners to create a seamlessly integrated experience, and we will add compatible DECT handset models from OEM partners Yealink and Gigaset by September. Learn more about planning for and configuring SIP Gateway in your organization.

Reimagined “office” communications

Even before the pandemic, organizations began to shift the ways they think about physical office spaces and the flow of work. Using a data-driven approach to product development helps us reimagine workplace experiences, to address the evolving needs and expectations of today’s workers.

Outlook RSVP – One of the challenges brought on by hybrid work is knowing who’s around—and in what form. Multiple schedules can make things messy for organizers. They need to know who is available, and whether they will attend online or in person. Outlook RSVP gives uses a richer set of options to respond to a meeting invite. Organizers and attendees can easily see who will participate online or in person in the response tracker in Outlook. Outlook RSVP will be in public preview for Outlook web access in April.

Enhancements for companion devices – New enhancements to the companion device experience make it easy to join a hybrid meeting from within a conference room. For example, when you bring your personal device into a Teams Room, your audio is automatically turned off to avoid feedback.

Improved meetings gallery settings – Intelligent meetings gallery settings help ensure more inclusive experiences without added distraction. Participants for in-person meetings will be prompted to turn on their video, so remote participants can see everyone clearly. Video feeds for in-person attendees will be hidden from the front of the room, as well as the gallery of other in-person participants freeing up space in the meeting gallery so additional remote participants can be seen more clearly. The names of in-person attendees can now be found under the conference room name—making it easy to identify all participants.

Front row for Teams Rooms – This new meeting layout for Teams Rooms is designed to enhance hybrid meetings and provide in-room participants with greater context of what is happening across various aspects of the meeting. With front row, the gallery is displayed horizontally across the bottom of the screen, at eye level. This placement replicates the left-to-right view if people were seated across from you in the room, and delivers a more natural, face-to-face experience.

Meeting content is surrounded by chat – often the “meeting within the meeting” – so when you’re in a room you can easily see and engage in the conversation in real-time. It provides quick visibility for which participants raise their hands, and in what order. This layout is supported across both single- and dual-display configurations.

Surface Hub 2 Brice – Surface Hub enables colleagues not just to meet and present, but also to collaborate and co-create in the hybrid world. On Surface Hub, teams can whiteboard ideas, contribute to projects, and connect dynamically with a video conference experience that engages people wherever they work – whether remote, in the office, or a mix of work environments.

Next-generation Surface Hub 2 Brice delivers the first neural network, AI-powered camera from Microsoft enabling dynamic video of in-room interactions that creates an inclusive meeting environment for all participants. Auto-framing technology within the device dynamically adjusts your Teams video feed, re-framing the view when someone leaves, more people come in, or a person interacts with content on the display. People in the room can move freely, with confidence they’ll be seen clearly as they interact with remote team members, who appear on the Surface Hub in vibrant and clear video.

Microsoft Whiteboard updates – Collaboration gets a fresh, modern look with more than 50 new Whiteboard templates that help you quickly create structure for ideas and group problem-solving. Everyone in the Teams meeting can write simultaneously on the Whiteboard you’re sharing, whether from their own individual devices or on other Surface Hubs. And new emoji reactions within Whiteboard keep things fun.

New Teams devices from Neat and Yealink – Being seen is essential to an inclusive meeting environment. So is being heard. New meet and co-create solutions from Neat and Yealink are in the process of being certified for Microsoft Teams Rooms on Android, and will be available soon. These devices combine audio, video, touch display, and compute in a single unit—allowing for easy deployment and enhanced collaboration experiences.

Call controls with Bluetooth headsets and speakerphones – As hybrid work moves between the office and home, USB dongles can easily be lost or broken. By next quarter, you will be able to use the buttons on Bluetooth headsets and speakerphones to answer, hold, or end calls as well as toggle mute state without a USB dongle. To take advantage of this, pair your Bluetooth headset or speakerphone with your Windows PC running the Teams desktop client. Teams-certified headsets and speakerphones provide the richest and most complete Teams experience. Stay tuned for updates on Bluetooth headsets and speakerphones.

The new Teams device store within Teams Admin Center – Explore and purchase Teams-certified devices from the Teams Admin Center, There, you can also enable integrated remote provisioning for Teams devices through an authenticated experience. Stay tuned for general availability details.

Making meetings matter

Microsoft Teams gives organizations new ways to work, empowering presenters to be their best, and enabling asynchronous collaboration. New functionality in Teams and PowerPoint delivers inclusive and engaging experiences designed to make your meetings matter.

PowerPoint Recording Studio – You no longer need to appear in person to deliver your message effectively. With PowerPoint Recording Studio, you can create your own presentation, record it, and send it to your coworkers. Then they can catch up and absorb the material when the time is right for them.

Pre-recording with Cameo – Cameo is the PowerPoint experience that seamlessly integrates your Teams video feed into your presentation. Customize how and where you want to appear on your slides. Designer in PowerPoint makes Cameo infinitely more powerful, offering layout recommendations to produce more engaging and impactful presentations.

Soon you’ll be able to pre-record presentation slides using Cameo and Recording Studio. When it comes time to present your slides, it will appear as though you are in the meeting – even if you’re unable to attend. This allows for asynchronous collaboration and co-presentations with others who are unavailable, or in a different time zone. Recording Studio + Cameo, presented with PowerPoint Live will be generally available in the coming months.

Speaker Coach for Teams – Even the most experienced speakers can use guidance on presenting with greater impact. Speaker Coach uses AI to nudge you if you’re speaking too fast, notify you if you are interrupting someone, and remind you to check in with your audience. Speaker Coach is your personal coach, giving you private suggestions that you can turn on or off as you please, and helping you succeed in hybrid or remote environments. Speaker Coach is generally available now.

Language Interpretation for Teams – This new feature enables interpreters to translate speakers in near real-time into a multitude of languages, removing language barriers for audio, video, and content sharing and creating more streamlined meeting experiences. Soon, customers will hold multilingual meetings in Teams, supported by professional interpreters, without having the start-and-stop experience of delayed interpretation. Language Interpretation will be available in the coming months.

Streamline how you plan, organize, and deliver webinars in Teams

Delivering a successful webinar involves creating an interactive digital experience where audiences are inspired and engaged. Often, it requires help to ensure things run smoothly.

Co-organizer – Assign multiple organizers for each event and designate up to 10 different co-organizers. Co-organizers will have the same capabilities and permissions as the organizer, enabling them take on tasks such as admit attendees waiting in the lobby, manage event options, create polls, control audio settings, share content, and spotlight attendees’ feeds throughout the event. In addition, co-organizers will be able to manage breakout rooms once they’ve been set up by the main organizer.

To assign co-organizers before the webinar begins, select the meeting options and click on the dropdown menu under ‘choose co-organizers’ and search and add the relevant people from the list of participants. Co-organizer capabilities will start rolling out at the end of this month.

Quality and performance optimizations for Teams calls and meetings

A key element of our commitment to launching innovative Teams features is making sure these experiences are optimized for all users, regardless of network or device.

Power consumption optimizations – Since 2020, we’ve continuously improved video streaming quality – all while reducing power consumption by half.

High-fidelity music mode – Now you can enable high-quality audio for applications such as music lessons, concerts, or even virtual medical appointments.

Screen-sharing optimization – Teams can now optimize sharing capabilities automatically based upon the type of content , resulting in improved readability and smooth playback.

These updates are generally available or rolling out now.

Flexible and expressive communications and collaboration

Meaningful collaboration involves creating and sustaining productive relationships with others, including those who may not work within your organization. Throughout our industry, there’s great interest in removing data silos created from closed productivity tools. Teams is enabling this change.

Teams Connect – Collaborate seamlessly in the same Teams digital workspace with customers, partners, suppliers, or anyone outside your organization. Teams Connect lets users share channels in Teams— helping to strengthen relationships, collaborate in real-time, and make decisions faster.

When creating a new channel, you will be able to select “Shared” as the channel type. Then you can invite individuals or entire teams from as many organizations as you need. Admins retain control over the process, ensuring security and compliance for data access. Shared channels allow you to create a workspace with no boundaries.

Teams Connect shared channels will go into public preview later this month.

Delivering more flexible and connected experiences

While so much has changed about work, one thing stays the same. People remain the focus of everything we do. With Microsoft Teams supporting your efforts, bringing everyone and everything together, we can make hybrid work more efficient, more productive, and more rewarding.

To everyone who joined us at Enterprise Connect, in person or virtually, thank you for being a part of our team, sharing your ideas and feedback. Your partnership helps us deliver innovative Teams experiences that help make work, really work.

¹Weiss, K., Baer, J., and Huang, B. (2021, October 5). CIO Survey Takeaways- Further Solidifying the Leadership Position. (p3). Morgan Stanley Research.

Welcome to December! I know you have been waiting for this post as November has been another month with a lot of great features that will help you get the most out of Microsoft Teams. Let’s jump right in!

What’s New: Meetings
AI-based noise suppression
Our real-time AI noise suppression feature automatically removes unwelcome background noise during your meetings. The AI-based noise suppression analyzes your audio feed filtering out the noise and retaining only the speech signal. You can also control how much noise suppression you want, including a high setting to suppress more background noise. 

New Together mode scene selection
Together mode reimagines meeting experiences to help participants feel closer together even when you are apart. We are excited to introduce new Together mode scene selections to transport your team to a variety of settings. Choose a scene to set the tone and create a unique experience for your meeting, whether it be a smaller conference room meeting, or an all-hands meeting held in an outdoor amphitheater.

Polls in Teams Meetings
Polls in Teams meetings is a seamless experience powered by Forms that helps you conduct more engaging and productive meetings. As a meeting organizer or presenter, you can prepare, launch, and evaluate polls before, during, and after meetings, respectively. Your attendees can easily view and respond to the polls in the pop-up bubble or chat pane. To enable this feature as the meeting organizer or presenter, simply add the Forms app as a tab in your Teams meeting. Learn more.

Full screen support in new meetings experience
We heard you, full screen mode is back! With full screen mode on Windows the meeting window fills up the whole screen, removing all other screen elements, including the title bar on the top and task bar on the bottom. On Mac OS, full screen mode maximizes the meeting window and the title bar is hidden. This helps you to reduce distractions and focus your attention.

Start an instant meeting from your mobile device
You’ll now find the familiar Meet Now icon on the calendar tab and in the Teams channel helping you connect with your team instantly. Once you start your meeting, you can use any messaging app on your mobile device to share the invite or add participants directly to the meeting, and anyone in the Teams channel can join without an invite.

 

Updated layout for meetings on iOS 

We have improved the Teams experience on iOS devices with a new presentation mode, the ability to see more participants, and the ability to see shared content and a spotlighted participant concurrently.

 

 

What’s new: Calling
Call Merge
While you’re on a call with another person (or a group), you might want to add another expert to participate in the call. Similarly, you may receive an incoming call that makes sense to connect with one you’re already on. Call Merge gives end users the capability to merge their Teams VoIP and PSTN active 1-1 calls into another 1-1 call or another group call. You can merge your calls, simply by choosing the “…” (more actions) button from the call controls and select “merge calls”. Learn more.

Survivable Branch Appliance
To support the most critical conversations in the event of an outage, the new Survivable Branch Appliance (SBA) allows you to place and receive PSTN calls even in the event of a WAN outage. This SBA is now available to certified Session Border Controllers (SBC) vendors, allowing SBCs to link with the Teams client in the event the client cannot reach the Microsoft Calling network.

Ericsson Session Border Controller certification
Ericsson has completed the Session Border Controller (SBC) certification process, which ensures that their SBC supports Direct Routing for Microsoft Teams, joining the list of certified SBCs. This rigorous certification process [insert link here] includes intense 3rd party testing and validation in production and pre-production Direct Routing environments. Direct Routing permits customers to connect their own carriers and infrastructure with Phone System to enable Teams Calling. Learn more.

 

What’s New: Devices
Microsoft Teams displays
Microsoft Teams displays is a new category of all-in-one dedicated Teams devices that features an ambient touchscreen and a hands-free experience powered by Cortana. These devices seamlessly integrate with your PC, providing easy access to Teams chat, meetings, calling, calendar, and files. With natural language, users can ask Cortana to join and present in meetings, dictate replies to a Teams chat, and more. Learn more.

 

USB phone by Yealink: MP50
The plug and play format of the newly available MP50 by Yealink offers a new way to experience calling features in Teams, allowing you to connect a phone to your PC and start engaging in full phone functionality instantly. The MP50 provides a cost-effective option, giving you a traditional handset experience with a dedicated Teams button, for quick meeting and calling join, as well as USB and Bluetooth connection for both mobile and PC.

 

Yealink A20
Yealink A20 is an integrated, Android-based Microsoft Teams Room designed for small meeting rooms and huddle spaces. The A20 delivers premium audio and video experiences through a 20-megapixel 133-degree horizontal field of view lens, 8 MEMS microphone array and built-in speaker. The A20 is easy to deploy and brings Teams Rooms features like wireless content sharing and whiteboarding, to small meeting spaces.

 

Poly Sync 20 USB/Bluetooth® smart speakerphone now certified for Microsoft Teams
Poly Sync 20 is a portable personal speakerphone certified for Microsoft Teams that delivers great audio for your meetings as well as music. Combined with up to 20 hours of talk time, the ability to charge your smartphone and IP64 dust and water resistance, it’s a great companion for hybrid workers. Learn more.

 

New features rolling out to Microsoft Teams Rooms and Surface Hub
The latest app for Microsoft Teams Rooms on Android, version 1.0.94.2020102101, is now available through the Teams Admin Center. New features have also begun rolling out to Surface Hub! Features enabled through this update include:
Microsoft Teams Rooms on Android

• Support for dual screens: Now you can use Teams Rooms on Android in spaces with a dual screen configuration, allowing one screen to be focused on meeting participants in the gallery view, while the second screen can be used to show content or whiteboard.
• New gallery views: Teams Rooms on Android now supports the 3×3, large gallery, and Together Mode gallery views.
• Auto-answer for meetings: In some meeting scenarios where Teams Rooms devices are deployed, like a healthcare patient room, meeting participants want to be able to connect to an incoming call without taking an action to accept it. Now, we’re providing a setting that allows calls to be answered automatically. This new feature can be enabled through the Admin settings.

Surface Hub

• Together mode: view meeting participants in the new Together mode, which brings everyone into a shared virtual space.
• Large gallery: view up to 49 meeting participants simultaneously in full screen mode,
  in the new 7×7 video grid.

What’s New: Chat & Collaboration

Pinned Posts

Keep important information easily accessible and top of mind with Microsoft Teams. You can pin any message in a channel, and it appears in the channel information pane for all members of the channel to see.

 

More options to use polls, surveys & checklists in Teams
Easily gather information or keep track of things in chat and channels with new app templates for polls, surveys, and checklists in Teams. Once installed and configured by the Teams administrators, these messaging extensions provide a simple and intuitive experience for users across all platforms without the need to use 3rd party apps.

Quickly create and send polls to gather input to make decisions.

Easily create surveys to gather feedback to improve your processes.

Collaborate with your team and keep things on track by creating a shared checklist.

Set presence status duration
Let others know when you are available in Teams by managing your presence status. Users can now change their presence status for a specific period. Learn more.

Android On-Demand Chat Translation
Inline message translation gives all your team members a voice and facilitates global collaboration. With a simple click, people who speak different languages can fluidly communicate with one another by translating posts in channels and chat.

What’s New: Power Platform and custom development
Build solutions with Power Apps in Teams
The new Power Apps app for Teams is now generally available. It allows you to build and deploy custom apps without leaving Teams. With the simple, embedded graphical app studio, it has never been easier to build low code apps for Teams. You can also harness immediate value from built in templates like the Great Ideas or Inspections apps, which can be deployed in one click and customized easily. The new Power Apps app for Teams can be backed by a new relational datastore – Dataverse for Teams. Learn more.

New Power Automate App for Teams
The new Power Automate app for Teams is now generally available. The new app makes it easier than ever to automate workflows within teams. With the simplified flow designer, you can easily build flows by selecting from a number of templates and simply selecting your options from drop down menus. Also, the home screen of the new app improves your visibility into your flows and let’s manage your flows for Teams from there. Learn more.

Power Virtual Agents (PVA) for Teams
Power Virtual Agents (PVA) for Teams is now generally available. Since announcing the PVA preview at Ignite 2020 users have found chat bots useful well as easy to create and we have seen thousands of bots created in the past few weeks. We are now also providing additional features including native authentication, where bots can be designed to provide information to users based upon their identity. You can now also easily make your bot available to your teammates and have admin approval to make it available for the whole organization.

Teams apps for meetings now generally available
Teams apps for meetings are now generally available with nearly 20 new apps in the Teams app store, such as Asana, HireVue, Monday.com, Slido, and Teamflect, as well as familiar Microsoft apps such as Forms. Learn more. If you’re a developer, learn more about creating Teams apps for meetings.

Support for Single Sign-On (SSO) for Bots
We are thrilled that Single Sign-on (SSO) support for bots is now available. SSO authentication in Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) minimizes the number of times users need to enter their login credentials by silently refreshing the authentication token. If users agree to use your app, they will not have to consent again on another device and will be signed in automatically. Learn more.

Microsoft Teams App Development Challenge
We’re continuously planning new events and ways to connect with the developer community. For example, Microsoft is launching the Microsoft Teams App Development Challenge. Starting November 16, 2020 through February 8, 2021, developers, partners, and organizations can participate in a challenge to develop a new and innovative Teams App for publishing to AppSource, to be eligible to win a share of $45,000 in cash and prizes. For full challenge details visit http://microsoftteams.devpost.com

App Spotlight

This month the Now Virtual Agent app by ServiceNow features new capabilities that help improve employee productivity with seamless self-service and faster case resolution – allowing you as a user to submit support requests, view open ticket approvals, act on notifications, chat with virtual agents for automated assistance, or streamline communication between agents and employees – all while staying in the flow of work in Teams.

 

 

What’s New: Management
Device management automatic alerting in Teams Admin Center
Device management automatic alerting provides more efficiency in identifying devices issues by triggering notifications that can be turned into an immediate correction action.

What’s New: Teams for Education
Insights across classes and spotlight student activity
New capabilities in Insights helps you as an educator to understand engagement and progress of students over time and across your classes. Now, educators can see high-level trends across classes, like inactive students, active students per day, missed online classes and missed assignments. And within a class, new spotlight cards show trending student behaviors an educator may want to take action on. Learn more.

What’s New: Firstline Workers
Shift schedule assistance
Shifts schedule assistance will alert managers if conflicts occur anywhere in the schedule and they will receive conflict warnings when approving schedule change requests. This alerting saves managers time, makes shift scheduling more efficient and reduces inaccuracies that lead to employees not turning up for their shift. Learn more.

What’s New: Government
These features currently available to Microsoft’s commercial customers in multi-tenant cloud environments are now rolling out to our customers in US Government Community Cloud (GCC), US Government Community Cloud High (GCC-High), and/or United States Department of Defense (DoD).

Full screen support in new meetings experience
We heard you, full screen mode is back! With full screen mode on Windows the meeting window fills up the whole screen, removing all other screen elements, including the title bar on the top and task bar on the bottom. On Mac OS, full screen mode maximizes the meeting window, and the title bar is hidden. This helps you to reduce distractions and focus your attention. GCC only in November.

OneNote in Teams DoD
You can now add new or existing OneNote Notebooks tab to your Teams channels if you’re a DoD customer. You can also go to Files or add OneNote Personal App to open your OneNote notebooks directly. Learn more.

Prevent attendees from unmuting in Teams Meetings
Meeting organizers and presenters in the US Government Community Cloud can now prevent attendees from unmuting during the meeting and enable specific attendees to unmute when they raise their hands. This can be helpful for press conferences and classrooms scenarios where you want to be in control of who’s speaking. Learn more.

Welcome back! This month we have a packed blog with a lot of new features that are now generally available to improve your experience with meetings and calling, chat and collaboration, as well as a number of new updates to Microsoft Teams devices. This blog also contains a few industry specific items for Education, Firstline Workers, and our Government customers. We have updates on Teams platform capabilities and we’re introducing a new section called “App spotlight” that showcases 3rd party apps available in Teams.

What’s New: Meetings & Calling
Live Captions with speaker attribution
Microsoft Teams added speaker attribution to live captions so that you can see who is speaking along with what’s being said, making meetings more inclusive and easier to follow along.

Spotlight an individual video participant for all attendees in a Teams meeting
Presenters can now pin an individual video feed for all attendees to see during a Teams meeting. Once pinned, the individual identified as the spotlight will be the main video shown to all participants. This applies to PC, Mac, mobile (view only) and Microsoft Teams Rooms on Windows. Learn more

Prevent attendees from unmuting in Teams Meetings
Meeting organizers and presenters can now prevent attendees from unmuting during the meeting and enable specific attendees to unmute when they raise their hands. This can be helpful for press conferences and classrooms scenarios where you want to be in control of who’s speaking. Learn more

Advanced Production for Teams Meetings

Transform your Teams Meeting into a virtual stage with a new advanced production option for broadcasts. Network Device Interface (NDI) support for Teams allows event producers to convert each participant’s video into a discrete video source that can be used in the video streaming production tool of your choice. This functionality enables you to use Teams meetings in new ways, including bringing speakers into Together Mode or customized views, to deliver professional broadcasts to the end point of your choice and reach audiences wherever they are.

 

Microsoft Whiteboard read-only mode

Microsoft Whiteboard read-only mode is available in Teams allowing for more flexibility for you to either present the digital whiteboard in read-only mode, or to allow others to edit and collaborate when given access.

 

Meeting & Calling recordings stored in OneDrive and SharePoint
Teams meeting and call recordings can now be stored in your OneDrive for Business or in SharePoint, providing the ability to share recordings with guests or external users, access meeting recordings faster, and manage recordings with security and compliance controls available to other file types in Microsoft 365. Teams Admins can select their recording storage location by updating policies using PowerShell. Learn more

 

Updated functionality for downloading participant reports in Teams meetings
Meeting organizers, especially teachers and event organizers, often need to know who joined and how many people joined their Teams meetings. Now you can easily download a participant report after the meeting within the meeting chat. We’ve also added new data into the report that allows you to better manage your attendance. Learn more

Changes in Incoming IP Video policy (New Audio and Video Policies)
We are updating our meeting policies to allow IT administrators more control over how video is managed in Teams meetings. Current policy can only be set to prevent outgoing video. We have extended the Allow IP Video policy to prevent both outgoing and incoming video as needed. Tenant administrators can use this policy to manage bandwidth. Learn more

 

What’s New: Devices
ARM64 Native Teams App
Unleash the full power of Microsoft Teams on your favorite ARM devices with the new native ARM64 Teams client now generally available. Stay connected and organized while enjoying improved performance, reliability, and battery life in devices such as the Surface Pro X.

New capabilities coming to Microsoft Teams Rooms
Features beginning to roll out to Microsoft Teams Rooms on Windows include:

• Spotlight support: Microsoft Teams Rooms now supports the spotlight feature in Teams meetings, which enables you as a meeting organizer or presenter to select a video feed as the spotlight for all attendees. Once selected, the individual identified as the spotlight will be the main video shown to all participants, which is great to make sure everyone focuses on, for example, the presenter.
• Hard mute: This feature allows you as a meeting organizer to disable microphone controls for all meeting participants. This feature can be useful for scenarios like distance learning or executive board meetings where organizers want a higher level of control over who can unmute their microphone and when. Teams Rooms supports this setting and joins muted with microphone disabled unless granted permission.

Dell Meeting Space Solution for seamless onsite and remote collaboration
Dell’s newest Meeting Space Solution for Microsoft Teams Rooms offers a complete group collaboration ecosystem that includes the OptiPlex 7080 Micro running the Teams Rooms experience on Windows, Dell Large Format Monitors, plus Logitech Tap and ConferenceCams. With proximity detection and one-touch join, you can start a meeting while instantly projecting content in the room and to virtual participants.

EPOS announces two new headsets certified for Microsoft Teams
The IMPACT MB Pro 1 UC ML and 2 UC ML have now passed the rigorous reliability testing required to be certified for Microsoft Teams. You can now experience high end audio tools that provide optimal comfort, easy call handling and rich, natural sound – all while reliable, intelligent technologies filter out unwanted noise, enhance audio and boost efficiency.

See the latest in Teams Devices at http://aka.ms/teamsdevices

What’s New: Chat & Collaboration

Pinned Posts

Keep important information easily accessible and top of mind with Microsoft Teams. You can pin any message in a channel, and it will appear in the channel information pane for all members of the channel to see.

New offline presence status
Let others know when you are not available in Microsoft Teams. You can now change your presence to “Offline”. This allows you to have full access to Teams while signaling to colleagues that you are unavailable.

Language-aware proofing
Communicate using multiple languages in Microsoft Teams. If you write different messages in different languages, you now see spellchecking relevant to the language you use when typing a message in the Teams desktop app.

Templates for creation of a new Team
When creating a new team, you can now choose from a variety of customizable templates including event management, crisis response, as well as industry-specific templates like hospital ward and bank branch. Microsoft publishes a set of first-party templates and as an IT professional you can also create new custom templates for your organization, allowing you to standardize team structures, surface relevant apps, and scale best practices.

New file sharing experience
Team members share and work together on content from a single source of truth seamlessly with Microsoft Teams. You can now create a shareable link for any file stored in Teams and directly set the appropriate permissions. Additionally, you can also set permissions for files stored in SharePoint or OneDrive while composing a private chat or starting a channel conversation. Learn more

Updated SharePoint pages app
Using SharePoint pages is a great way to consolidate and share content in the right context using images, Excel, Word and PowerPoint documents, videos, links, Twitter feeds and more – all on the same page. And now you can more easily add your pages as tabs in Microsoft Teams. Learn more

New and simplified global notification settings
As a user you can now configure and customize your notification settings through a newly designed notification settings section. This new experience makes it easier to find the exact notifications you want so you can keep track of the activity you care about. To access, go to your profile picture > Settings > Notifications. We also added a new setting that allows you to turn off message previews in chat notifications if you desire more privacy.

What’s New: Teams for Education
Anonymous grading and marking in Assignments
Tackle unconscious bias and even the playing field in class with Anonymous Grading. When enabled in the assignment detail view, students’ names are anonymized and avatars are temporarily removed, presenting a random list of students. This allows you as an educator to review work with identities hidden, no shuffling of paper involved.

View assignments across all classes
Being able to see what’s upcoming, whether you’re an educator or student, is critical to getting a handle on your week, month, or year. Now both educators and students can once again view upcoming and turned in assignments by class or view them across all classes. Just visit Assignments in your app bar on the left-hand side of Teams to view assignments across all classes. Students can also filter by category, see the due date, and assigned value of the assignment and more.

What’s New: Firstline Workers
Off-shift access controls
With off-shift access controls, IT administrators can now configure Teams to alert you when you are accessing the app on your personal device outside of working hours. The feature prompts you to accept that you will not be getting paid for time spent on Teams to help ensure that you are not involuntarily working while not on shift and helps your employer to comply with labor regulations. The feature does not require active usage of the Shifts app, but it does require Shifts being configured and schedule data being inside the app; either added natively with Excel import or including workforce management API connectors like Kronos, BlueYonder and more. Learn more

What’s New: Government
These features currently available to Microsoft’s commercial customers in multi-tenant cloud environments are now rolling out to our customers in US Government Community Cloud (GCC), US Government Community Cloud High (GCC-High), and/or United States Department of Defense (DoD).

Priority notifications
Share urgent messages and time-sensitive information more effectively with Teams. Priority notifications alert a recipient of an urgent message on their mobile and desktop devices until a response is received, every two minutes for up to 20 minutes. IT admins can manage this feature as part of messaging policies in Teams. Priority notifications are now available in GCC, GCC High, and DoD. Learn more

Read receipts
Now available in GCC, read receipts in private chats allow senders to know that a message was read by the recipients. IT admins can configure messaging policies from the Microsoft Teams admin center to enable or disable this feature for users. Learn more

File viewer upgrades
Teams file viewer is being upgraded for Gov clouds from legacy to OneUp for non-Office file types and to unified app for Office file types (Word, PowerPoint, and Excel).

Together mode
Together mode, now available in GCC, uses AI segmentation technology in meetings to digitally place participants in a shared background, making it feel like you’re sitting in the same room with everyone else.

Large Gallery view (Preview) – see up to 49 participants
Large Gallery is providing a new way to view video up to 49 participants at once on a single screen (7×7). This feature rolled out to production with the new multi-window experience. To take advantage of this new view, users will need to turn on the new multi-window meeting experience. Large Gallery is now available in GCC.

Spotlight an individual video participant for all attendees in a Teams meeting
We are delivering the ability for presenters to lock on an individual video feed for all attendees to see during a Teams meeting. Once selected, the individual identified as the spotlight will be the main video shown to all participants. This applies to PC, Mac, mobile, and Microsoft Teams room systems. The spotlight feature is now available in both GCC and GCC High.

Improvements to meeting notes
Meeting notes now support 100 users by default. Also, if anyone joins your meeting past after it is scheduled and, doesn’t have access to notes, they can now request access from the note’s owner in one click. Meeting notes are now available in GCC, GCC High, and DoD.

Changes in Incoming IP Video policy (New Audio and Video Policies)
We are updating our meeting policies to allow IT administrators on GCC more control over how video is managed in Teams Meetings. Current policy can only be set to prevent outgoing video. We are extending the Allow IP Video policy to prevent both outgoing and incoming video as needed. Tenant administrators can use this policy to manage bandwidth. Learn more

What’s New: Healthcare
Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare
Earlier this week we announced the general availability of our first industry-specific cloud offering, Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare, including the new Microsoft Teams EHR connector for Epic EHR. This allows clinicians to launch a virtual visit in Teams from within their electronic health record system. Learn more about how and about the many new features now available as part of the Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare.

What’s New: Platform
Microsoft Teams and Power Automate – Simpler automation for everyone
A new Power Automate app for Teams makes automating workflows easier than ever with new templates and a simplified editor experience.

Organizational branding for line-of-business Teams app catalog
IT Admins can now customize their Teams line-of-business app catalog using their organization’s branding. This enhances the user experience for end users and increase organic discovery and use of an organization’s line-of-business apps. Learn more

Resource-Specific Consent now generally available on the Microsoft Graph v1.0 endpoint
We are excited to announce that Resource-Specific Consent (RSC) is now generally available on the Microsoft Graph v1.0 endpoint! Your Teams app can now call Teams Graph APIs from the BETA endpoint without needing admin consent. This capability empowers Team owners to install an app for their specific team and restrict the app’s scope and access to data to only that one team, without needing the global IT admin to provision access. Learn more

App certification
Publishers building Microsoft Teams add-ins can now work with Microsoft to certify that their app – and its supporting infrastructure – protect the security and privacy of sensitive customer data. Certified apps receive a badge that is visible in AppSource and from within the Microsoft 365 tenant administrator’s console. We strongly encourage app publishers to take advantage of this program, and over time, expect to make it a requirement. Learn more

Publisher verification
It’s critical that IT Admins and end-users know that partner apps come from verified sources. Using a process that relies on a verified Microsoft Partner Network account, Microsoft now offers application developers a publisher verification service. Verified apps receive a badge that is visible in AppSource and in the consent dialog when a user or admin installs an application. Learn more

Teams App Spotlight 

Clio is a cloud-based legal software that law firms trust to manage their practices and clients from intake to invoice. As the needs of legal professionals have changed over the last year, Clio has been focused on building solutions law firms need in this new digital-first reality. To make remote collaboration even easier, Clio customers can now check the status of their matter, scan recent communications, and plan for upcoming events all within Microsoft Teams. Learn more

Reimagine your workday with Microsoft Teams displays, a new category of Teams device solutions that combine productivity, collaboration and artificial intelligence into one seamless experience. Teams display is the first all-in-one touchscreen device dedicated to bringing the Teams experience to life; by channeling your alerts, schedule, calls and meetings into one device you can free up your PC and mind space to the task at hand and minimize distractions. Most exciting, Teams displays are powered by Cortana, transforming what would be an ordinary video phone into a powerful personal assistant.

Whether you are at home or in the office, Teams displays change how you work.

1. Teams at your fingertips
As a device dedicated only to Teams, displays bring together everything you need to stay in the rhythm of work: chat, meetings, calls, calendar, and files can be accessed instantly, freeing up your PC for other tasks. Engage in high quality calling and meetings with your colleagues with industry leading microphones, cameras and speakers built in.

Dedicated Teams devices like Bluetooth headsets (left) and displays (center) create a more reliable calling and meeting experience.

2. Everything you need to know, at-a-glance
The customizable home screen of the display shows you key alerts from Team, your schedule highlights, and shortcuts to key communication apps like calling, contacts voicemail. Ever been heads down in a deliverable and can’t remember what is next in your day? Take a look at your display to stay caught up without skipping a beat. Customize your notifications to surface what is important to you and reduce pings and distractions from your primary work device or mobile. Finally change your wallpaper from a variety of delightful preset options, with the capability to add your own coming soon.

Microsoft Teams displays can be personalized to include wallpapers and highlight important activities and notifications.

3. Use the power of Cortana to go hands free

Use voice commands to leverage Cortana in your daily tasks. You can make requests like:

“What is on my calendar today?”

“Share this document with Megan”

“Join my next meeting”

“Add Joe to this meeting”

“Present the quarterly review deck”

Take back the time from little tasks with built in voice assistant capabilities.

4. Better together with your PC
Microsoft Teams displays seamlessly integrate with your PC to bring a companion experience that allows for seamless cross-device interaction. You can easily lock and unlock both devices from your connected PC, open files or messages on one with the option to respond on the other. You can even split the contents and participants in meetings across two screens, so you can consume information while maintaining contact with your collaborators.

Using Microsoft Teams displays allows for a distributed meeting experience across devices.

5. Enterprise privacy, security, and compliance
Microsoft Teams displays ensure user’s privacy and meets enterprise-grade security and compliance in several ways:

• With a camera shutter and microphone mute switch, users can feel assured that your conversations and video will remain private.
• IT admins can securely manage, update, and monitor Microsoft Teams displays through the Teams admin portal.
• Users will securely sign in with their enterprise Azure Active Directory credentials.
• Voice assistance experiences are delivered using Cortana enterprise-grade services that meet Microsoft 365 privacy, security and compliance commitments.

The Lenovo ThinkSmart View will be the first Microsoft Teams display to market, with Yealink coming soon.

The first Microsoft Teams displays are from Lenovo (left) and Yealink (right).

To learn more about portfolio of devices certified for Teams, visit office.com/teamsdevices or shop the ThinkSmart View at Microsoft Stores.