Microsoft 365 News 06-17-2021: New Teams Features Include Live Transcription, Attendance Reports

In Microsoft 365 news this week, the supplier announced the implementation of various new Teams features, including chat bubbles that show on all participants’ screens in meetings, live transcription with speaker attribution, and attendance reports. Keep reading to learn more about updates to Teams and other Microsoft 365 apps.

New Features

• • Microsoft Lists: Automatic list syncing to Windows devices
    • What’s happening: To allow offline access, end users’ lists will now automatically sync to their Windows devices. This new feature is made possible by a general-purpose sync engine implemented and updated via the OneDrive sync app’s update mechanism.

• • Microsoft Teams connected team sites
    • What’s happening: Microsoft has announced a new feature that will establish a coordinating SharePoint team site when you create a team in Microsoft Teams. Additionally, you’ll be able to connect existing SharePoint team sites to new teams in Microsoft Teams.

• • Teams chat bubbles
    • What’s happening: Microsoft is changing how chats sent during a Teams meeting appear. Previously, you needed to open the meeting chat to see messages. With the implementation of this new feature, chat bubbles will show up on all participants’ screens.

• • Microsoft Lists Progressive Web App installation option
    • What’s happening: End users can now install the web version of Microsoft Lists as a Progressive Web App (PWA). This is possible in any browser that supports PWAs (excluding Safari), including Firefox, Microsoft Edge and Chrome.

• • OneDrive Progressive Web App installation option
    • What’s happening: End users can now install the web version of OneDrive as a Progressive Web App (PWA). This is possible in any browser that supports PWAs (excluding Safari), such as Firefox, Chrome and Microsoft Edge.

• • Open and Edit Excel for the web workbooks with ActiveX
    • What’s happening: In response to end user feedback, Microsoft has introduced support for opening and editing workbooks with ActiveX, Form controls and other legacy art objects. This serves to improve the user experience in Excel for the web.

• • New PDF viewing color modes in OneDrive for Android
    • What’s happening: OneDrive for Android end users can now view PDFs in day, night and sepia modes.

• • @mention ability in Microsoft Lists
    • What’s happening: When adding comments to list items, end users will now be able to @mention colleagues. Those who are mentioned will be able to click a link that will take them to the comment for review. Note: This feature isn’t supported in Internet Explorer browsers.

• • Microsoft 365 Scheduler service
    • What’s happening: Microsoft 365 is introducing a new service, Scheduler, that allows a digital assistant to arrange meetings via email. If you’re a licensed end user, you can simply add the assistant to an email chain to direct it to take over scheduling.

• • Teams meeting attendance reports
    • What’s happening: Meeting details will soon include a tab with attendance info related to Teams regular meetings.

• • Live transcription in Teams meetings
    • What’s happening: Microsoft is introducing a feature for live transcription with speaker attribution in Teams meetings to make it easier for attendees to follow conversations.

• • Teams mobile app immersive reader
    • What’s happening: With the new Immersive Reader feature for Teams mobile, end users will be able to hear messages and posts read aloud. This feature was already available for the Teams desktop and web apps.

• • Custom app submission notifications for admins
    • What’s happening: To streamline the custom app approval process, Microsoft is introducing a feature that will alert admins in a dedicated Teams channel whenever a developer submits an app.

• • App confirmation prompt in device code flow user experience
    • What’s happening: To enhance security, Microsoft has added an app confirmation prompt to the device code flow to ensure users are logging into the correct app.

• • Additional prompt in OAuth 2.0 device authorization grant flow protocol
    • What’s happening: To improve security, Microsoft is adding another prompt in the device code flow when an end user logs into an app. The new prompt ensures the user is signing into the intended app and is meant to combat phishing.

Updated Features

• • Updated web player for video in Microsoft Stream
    • What’s happening: Microsoft has announced the introduction of a new look and feel for the web player for files housed in SharePoint and OneDrive. These improvements increase accessibility for screen readers and keyboard navigation.

• • Expanded Microsoft Compliance Manager abilities
    • What’s happening: With the new release of pre-configured assessment templates, Microsoft is enhancing the abilities of Compliance Manager to go beyond Microsoft 365 assets.

• • Large Gallery preview tag removed
    • What’s happening: Microsoft has removed the preview tag from the Large Gallery feature.

• • Updates released for Microsoft 365 Apps
    • What’s happening: The supplier has released updates to Microsoft 365 Apps for the following channels: Current Channel, Monthly Enterprise Channel, Semi-Annual Enterprise Channel (Preview), Semi-Annual Enterprise Channel.

• • Enhanced Microsoft Defender for Office 365 events
    • What’s happening: Microsoft is updating the data around Email Detections within the Office 365 Management API to better serve clients utilizing the information around detections for customized tools.

Announcements

• • Rollout paused for joining Teams meetings with digital meeting ID
    • What’s happening: Microsoft previously announced the planned implementation of a Microsoft Teams Meeting ID feature that will allow end users to join meetings by inputting a digital ID. The supplier has decided not to move forward with the deployment of this feature as planned and is currently considering alterations based on end user feedback.

• • Retirement canceled for Fire Share Embed dialog
    • What’s happening: Microsoft previously announced plans to phase out the File Share Embed dialog from Office for the Web. After considering client feedback, however, the supplier has decided not to retire this feature.

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