Microsoft announced breakout rooms in Microsoft Teams last year. Now, Microsoft is adding persistent breakout rooms; the ability to reassign participants when rooms are open and the ability for organizers to set timers for breakout sessions.

Organizers can now set a timer for Breakout rooms from the Breakout Room settings. After timer has expired, rooms will automatically close and participants will come back to the main meeting.

Room assignment retention provides the ability to persist room configuration and assignment over multiple sessions. With participant reassignment capability, organizer will now be able to move joined participants across rooms and main meeting also when rooms are opened.

When this will happen

Rollout will begin mid-April and should be complete by late April.

How this will affect your organization

Organizers who are configuring and managing Breakout Rooms on a Teams desktop client will have access to below three options. For participants, the feature is supported by all devices and clients that support breakout room participation.

1. Room assignment retention (new default behavior)

Participants remain assigned to their breakout rooms unless the meeting organizer chooses to change them. The assignment persists across subsequent sessions or recurring meetings.

2. Participant reassignment while rooms are open

Organizers may reassign joined participants across rooms and the main meeting room when the breakout rooms are open. Currently reassignment works only when breakout rooms are closed.

3. Set timers for breakout sessions

Organizers can set a timer for all breakout rooms created in a meeting session via the Breakout rooms settings panel.

When the organizer has set a timer, the clock will show participants the time left in the room (countdown) rather than time elapsed. 

The timer alerts participants that the breakout room session will close in 60 seconds. Then the organizer can choose:

• to automatically redirect participants to the main meeting room (auto-move On) or 
• to provide participants with the option to return to the main meeting room or disconnect. Should the timer expire before participants take action, they will see an alert informing them that the session has ended which contains a button to return to the main meeting.

Notes

• Once the organizer opens a timed breakout room, participants are invited to join; the timer starts when the first participant joins.
• If no participants join, the breakout room will not open.  
• If all participants leave a breakout room before the timer expires, the room will close automatically. 

What you need to do to prepare

You might want to notify your users about this new capability and update your training and documentation as appropriate. 

Learn more: Use breakout rooms in Teams meetings will be updated after launch.

Microsoft first announced the chat bubbles feature in Microsoft Teams in July 2020 with the other features like Together mode, Dynamic view, Live reactions, view-only meeting experience, etc.

During Microsoft Teams meetings, chat has become a lively space for conversation and idea-sharing, and offers an option for people to participate in the discussion without having to jump in verbally. But it can be challenging to pay attention to video feeds, presentations, and chats all at the same time.

Currently, Teams users need to manually open a chat window to view the chat screen. Now thanks to this new chat bubbles feature, chats sent during a Teams meeting will surface on the screens of all meeting participants, making the chat more central to the conversation. So, with chat bubbles, meeting participants can follow the chat on the main screen of a meeting without having to open the chat window.

Enable/Disable Chat Bubbles in Microsoft Teams meetings

Chat bubbles in Microsoft Teams meetings will be enabled by default. But, the users will have an option to disable the chat bubbles during a meeting from the ellipsis in menu as shown below:

Release Timeline

Microsoft will begin the rollout of chat bubbles feature in mid-July and it will be complete by late July.

The ability to reply to a specific chat message is a highly voted feature on the Teams UserVoice forum. Also, this feature has already been available on the iOS and Android mobile apps. Now, with this update, Microsoft Teams Desktop users will receive the long awaited ability to reply to specific messages in chat from the message actions menu.

When chatting in Teams, users will be able to reply a specific message and the original message will be quoted in the reply text box, helping everyone in the chat to more easily understand the message’s context. Quoted replies will be available in 1:1, Group, and Meeting chats. This will help bring more context into conversations.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 81113.

Release Timeline

• Standard Release: Rollout starts in mid-September and it is expected to be complete by early October.
• GCC: Microsoft will start rollout in mid-October and expects to complete it by early November.

How this will affect your organization

Users have already been able to do this on mobile apps but will now be able to use this feature on Microsoft Teams Desktop as well.

Microsoft Teams desktop users will be able to hover on the specific message, click on message actions menu (…), and select Reply option to reply a to specific chat message.

Known Limitations

• Quoted reply is a chat feature. It is not available for Microsoft Teams channels.
• This feature is supported in chats with external users as well except for Skype for Business and Skype for Consumer users.

What you need to do to prepare

You do not need to do anything to prepare for this change. Once available users will be able to use this feature on their Microsoft Teams desktop client.

Tech giant Microsoft is introducing yet another feature to the Microsoft Teams that will allow meeting organizers to create a custom registration page for any meeting (although the feature is designed for webinars). This feature will be available for meeting organizers using Microsoft Teams desktop applications (Windows/Mac) as well as Teams on the web.

Adding a custom attendee registration page to any meeting will help to manage attendance before and after any meeting. After registration, attendees will receive an email confirmation with calendar invite.

How this will affect your organization

By default, this new meeting registration feature will be available to all users in tenant.

The meeting organizer can set up a custom registration page from the Meeting scheduling form. The organizer will then customize and save the registration page in a pop up window.

When a meeting organizer uses the custom registration option, those who are invited will receive an email with the registration link.

Considerations when using this feature

• By default the registration page will be accessible only to the users from the same tenant.
• Meeting organizers who want to schedule a public webinar which allows anyone to register will need to contact an admin. Admin will grant you the ability to create custom registration forms for public webinars. This ability is specific to the meeting organizer, and not the meeting.
• Once permissions granted, meeting organizers can use the registration page for any public meeting, until the permission is revoked by Admin.

Monitor registration activity

The meeting organizer can monitor registration activity via the registration report download that is provided on the Meetings Details tab before, during and after meeting.

What admin need to do to prepare

Admin need to assess and determine the proper settings for their tenant. Admin need to manage meeting organizer access to the registration feature and whether this registration page is available only to internal attendees:

• The policy AllowMeetingRegistration parameter is Enabled by default (Enabled/Disabled).
• The policy WhoCanRegister parameter is Everyone in your organization by default (Everyone or Everyone in your organization). This is user-level policy that can be assigned to a specific user or a group.

These policies can also be managed via PowerShell.

• Edit an existing Teams meeting policy by using the Set-CsTeamsMeetingPolicy cmdlet.
• Create a new Teams meeting policy by using the New-CsTeamsMeetingPolicy cmdlet and assign it to users. 

Current Limitations

Currently Recurring and channel meetings do not support the registration functionality.

Release Timeline

Microsoft will roll out this feature in early April and it is expected to be complete by early May 2021.

Microsoft is currently rolling out the Live Reactions feature in Microsoft Teams Meetings. This Meeting Reactions feature allows users to react to participants during a meeting.

When meeting reactions are turned on, Raise hand icon in control bar will change to Reactions icon. Currently Reactions are available only on Teams Desktop and Teams Mobile apps. Support for meetings on web, breakout room systems, or surface hub will be available later in the year.

In a Teams meeting, participants can choose from four different reaction types – like , heart , applause , and laugh – and send it to meeting attendees from the new reactions and raise hand flyout in the control bar.

Meeting participants will see the reaction displayed over your position in the meeting stage area, and you’ll see the reaction displayed on your “ME” box at the lower right corner of meeting stage area. Here’s how it looks like:

When content is shared, the reactions will float over the content for more engaging experience. This applies to Desktop, Window, PowerPoint, and Whiteboard sharing.

How to Enable/Disable Reactions in Teams meeting?

Meeting reactions will be ON by default in your tenant. Admins can change whether users have reactions ON or OFF by default by using the AllowMeetingReactions policy.

To disable meeting reactions by default, you need to set –AllowMeetingReactions parameter to false using Set-CsTeamsMeetingPolicy cmdlet.

If admin turns reactions OFF by default for users, meeting organizers can still enable reactions in their meetings from the meeting options page.

Current Limitations

• Reactions are not supported in web, breakout rooms, or surface hub meetings.
• Limited reaction types (only positive reactions, no neutral and negative reactions).
• In large meetings with no content being shared, you will miss the reactions sent by people who are not positioned in meeting stage area.
• The person sharing a Desktop or Window will not see reactions unless they keep the meeting window open.

Additional Tip

When meeting reactions are turned on, Raise hand option will be moved to flyout menu. To quickly raise and lower hand you can use the Ctrl+Shift+K shortcut in Microsoft Teams.

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Last year in the month of July,  Microsoft announced a new dynamic view feature along with bunch of other features in Microsoft Teams (See video below). Dynamic view is a redesigned and optimized meeting stage that will optimize your experience of consuming shared content and engaging with video and audio participants.

Dynamic view automatically optimizes shared content and video participants in Microsoft Teams meetings. This feature also enables new controls for you to personalize the view to suit your preferences and needs, such as the ability to show shared content and specific participants side-by-side.

Microsoft will begin rolling out this feature at the end of May and expected to complete by mid-June. Currently this feature is available in Microsoft Teams public preview.

How this will affect your organization

Once this feature releases, all users will get a new optimized visual experience in Teams Meetings. This feature allows users to have more control over how they experience video meetings in Microsoft Teams.

Dynamic view in Microsoft Teams meetings will enable:

• Video and audio participants to be shown separately,​ with audio participants appearing as avatars (avatars can be either initials or a profile picture).​
• Shared content to appear larger, with more participants being visible
• Users to pin or spotlight particular people in the meeting and make them appear larger than other participants
• You to view Together Mode alongside shared content
• Users to pin the participants gallery at the top of their screen

What you need to do to prepare

Users will need to restart their clients to enable the change after release.

You might want to notify your users about this new capability and update your training and documentation as appropriate.

In the show this week, Paul and Steve discuss a cyber attack reported against Azure AD Connect that inflicted a vast amount of damage to a business, Snapchat filters in Teams, two new changes to the Graph API and Microsoft Teams Rooms on Android, and more!

The post Azure AD Connect Cyber attacks, New AI features for industry, Fun Teams Features & more: Practical 365 Podcast S3 E25 appeared first on Practical 365.