Feature Focus: Together Mode, Dynamic View, (and More) for Microsoft Teams

Introduction

With more and more of us working from home, and as a new hybrid form of working starts to gain ground, something of a tech arms race has begun. The key players? Zoom, Google, and Microsoft.

With each of these heavy-hitters trying to one-up each other in an effort to dominate the digital workspace, there’s an upside for the customer – plenty of new features to play with.

In today’s Feature Focus, we’ll take a look at some of the most recently announced updates for Microsoft Teams, from July 2020, and discover just how they could help your business work smarter.

Together Mode

One of the biggest challenges all digital workspace tools face is making meetings feel less impersonal.

At the end of the day, Teams meetings are still a series of video feeds flicking from one to the next while someone talks or presents. For the Microsoft Teams development team, this isn’t enough. With their new feature, Together Mode, Microsoft aims to make meeting attendees feel more connected to their colleagues and reduce what they term ‘meeting fatigue’.

So, what is Together Mode for Microsoft Teams? Essentially, the feature will take the video feed of each attendee and place it into a shared background. So, for example, you could all be sitting in an auditorium, around a board room table, or even a coffee shop. The feature uses AI segmentation to bring more focus to people’s body language as a group, rather than as an individual.

You’ll be able to try Together Mode with the auditorium view when it rolls out to everyone in August 2020.

Dynamic View

If you prefer a more traditional Microsoft Teams meeting experience, this next update might be for you.

Dynamic View is a new AI-powered means of managing the attendee feeds and screen-shares within a Teams meeting. Dynamic View works by analysing which attendees are communicating or sharing, then attempts to put focus where it’s most needed. So, for example, Dynamic View might choose to place two people’s desktops next to one another as they share their screens.

Dynamic View is being launched alongside a couple of other tweaks to the way you view Microsoft Teams meetings. One of these, which will be rolled out in August, is the Large Gallery View. Perhaps taking a cue from competitor Zoom, this feature will allow you to see up to 49 video feeds at once on a single screen.

Finally, this update will also bring with it Virtual Breakout Rooms, which allows an organizer to create sub-meeting rooms where attendees can brainstorm privately before coming back to the main meeting.

Smaller tweaks and updates

Together Mode and Dynamic View are the two bigger updates announced in July 2020, but Microsoft also made a few smaller announcements, too.

Here’s the Plain English version:

• Video Filters are coming to Microsoft Teams. Yes, just look those millions of people tweaking their photos to oblivion on platforms like Instagram, you too will be able to add a sleek filter to your video output. Who needs a spray tan anyway?
• Live Reactions are animated emojis participants will be able to send to all during a Teams meeting. If a subtle nod of the head isn’t getting the message across, this might be the next best thing.
• Interactive meetings will soon support 1000 participants. There’s no release date yet, but Microsoft has announced that they’ll soon update Teams to support 1000 people in an interactive meeting. In addition, they’ll also support view-only meetings for up to a whopping 20,000.

Ready to pick a side? Choose Microsoft Teams

As a Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider, it might not come as a surprise that we at Get Support recommend Microsoft Teams for any small to medium-sized business.

With features like those above being added all the time, there’s actually never been a better time to get started with Microsoft Teams. Even better, you’ll also gain access to both standalone and cloud versions of the legendary Microsoft Office suite of apps.

Find out more about how Microsoft 365 could help your business, or just call the experts at Get Support on 01865 59 4000 to learn more.