You enjoyed this year’s Microsoft Ignite, right? There was a lot happening and a lot of content to review. AI- and Copilot-related topics clearly dominated as we all probably expected? This post lists my preferred news and updates about Microsoft Teams. For more information you can check the links to the official posts and the Microsoft Ignite book of News which contains all news from Ignite 2023 in one place.

My highlights – Teams Premium

We’ll begin by going over Teams Premium: This is a subscription per user that gives more capabilities for working together and having meetings than the regular Teams user subscription license. The list indicates (my highlights on) what’s recent or forthcoming for Teams Premium based on Microsoft Ignite 2023.

• turn off copying or forwarding of meeting chat
• advanced Town Halls
  • scale up to 20,000 attendees
  • Q & A support,
  • up to 50 concurrent events across a tenant
  • real-time insights
  • customizable email templates
  • eCDN support
  • additional language support for live translated captions
• SMS notifications for the Virtual Appointments template are now available
• Virtual Appointment Graph API for SMS notifications are now available
• Tenant-level analytics
• Customizing immersive spaces in Microsoft Mesh will be available in January 2024
• Advanced Collaboration Tools (ACT)
  • empower IT administrators with control and insights into their organization’s collaborative behaviors.
  • Advanced collaboration analytics
  • priority account chat controls, which are available now and rolling out in the next few weeks.
• watermarking for recording playback
• increased E2EE capacity
• controlled-content meeting template

My highlights – Teams Devices and Teams Rooms

Teams devices and rooms support different ways of working together, such as modern, hybrid, and remote collaboration. They have many features that help people communicate and interact better. The list shows (my highlights on) what’s new or coming soon for Teams Devices and Rooms based on Microsoft Ignite 2023.

• Deployment by using Windows Autopilot and Auto-login
• One-time passwords (OTP) for simplified deployment
• Remote Access via Teams Rooms Pro management portal
• 4K device support for more and more devices, starting with Surface Hub 3
• features to optimize the Front Row experience
• support end-to-end encrypted meetings and sensitivity labels on Android
• enhance the console calendar view
• Shared spaces innovation includes
  • bookable desks
  • utilization data
  • QR codes for instant reservations
• BYOD meeting rooms
  • smoother starts and runs
  • intelligent speakers
  • peripheral discovery and analytics

My highlights – Teams Phone

Microsoft Teams Phone System enables users for calling capabilities in many ways. Furthermore it provides call flow capabilities to distribute calls if required and can be extended with third-party services, tools and devices. The following list presents the new or upcoming features (my highlights) for Teams Phone based on Microsoft Ignite 2023.

• supports compatible Analog Telephony Adaptors (ATAs)
• supports compatible overhead paging devices
• private line functionality
• shared calling
• protected voicemail
• UI improvements for desk phones
• intelligent and connected calling features are now available.
• Teams Phone also supports
  • Copilot
  • click-to-call
  • protected voicemail notification
  • shared line appearance enhancements
  • shared calling
  • external call routing and issue detection
• Teams Calling Plans in Hong Kong
• Teams Phone Mobile in Liechtenstein and Norway

My highlights – Teams webinars and town halls

Team webinars and town halls are advanced features that enable communication and collaboration for larger audiences, especially town halls. You know what a webinar is, right? A town hall meeting or event is for streaming internally or externally to a large group, it is mostly one way communication from presenters to attendees, for example, for the management team of a big company who wants to give a corporate update to all employees (similar to a TV broadcast or live stream) with little interaction (Q&A chat …). The following list presents (my highlights of) the new or upcoming features for Teams Phone based on Microsoft Ignite 2023.

• Town Halls in Teams replaces Teams Live Events in late 2024
• external presenters can join with their own unique join link
• attendees can experience high-fidelity audio
• maintain the privacy of attendees by hiding attendee names
• extensibility of webinar data to third-party tools by Teams Webinar Graph APIs

Conclusion, opinion and summary

Many amazing things were revealed for Teams during Microsoft Ignite 2023, which will make the experience better and more diverse for users and organizations. To find out more about them, you can look at the following resources.

Resources

• Microsoft Ignite 2023 Book of News
• What’s New in Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Ignite 2023 – Microsoft Community Hub
• Unlocking Efficient and Secure Collaboration with Advanced Collaboration Tools in Teams Premium – Microsoft Community Hub
• Microsoft Teams Rooms and Devices: Microsoft Ignite 2023 – Microsoft Community Hub
• Microsoft Teams Phone news from Microsoft Ignite 2023 – Microsoft Community Hub
• Explore the latest innovations in Webinars and Town Halls for Microsoft Teams – Microsoft Community Hub