Welcome to the latest edition of the No Jitter Roll. In this edition: Microsoft shared its latest monthly blog, revealing the newest Teams features, and then Crestron announced wireless conferencing capabilities features.
Microsoft Shares February ‘What’s New’ Post
In its February 2022 recap of Teams updates,
Microsoft announced a host of new features for meetings, devices, and its chat and collaboration capabilities.
First for meetings, Microsoft shared:
- Updated companion mode for iOS users: iOS users can join a meeting through a single-tap feature, available on iOS devices and Microsoft Teams Rooms. When iOS users join a call, the audio on the device will turn off automatically to prevent an echo.
- Pin or hide your video in Teams meetings: Meeting attendees can now pin their video to the meeting stage or hide their video from others' screens during a meeting. To pin or hide your video, users can click the ellipsis in the video feed and select "Pin for me" or "Hide for me."
- Open-text question polls for Teams meetings: Word Cloud Poll is a new option for Microsoft Forms polls in Teams, which allows meeting hosts to collect attendees’ responses before, during, or after meetings and then display them in a word cloud.
For chat and collaboration, Microsoft shared:
- Teams channel names and SharePoint folder names now sync: When a user renames a Teams channel now, the corresponding SharePoint folder will be renamed as well.
- Mute notifications during meetings: Users can now mute notifications for all meetings or on a per meeting basis. Users can turn off notifications for all meetings by going to settings -> notifications -> meetings and toggling the Mute Notification button. To turn off notifications during a meeting, they can click on the ellipsis from the meeting window and choose to mute or allow notifications.
- Local time added to people profiles: Contact cards will now display the local time of a user, which can be used to better schedule meetings at appropriate times.
- Pin chat messages: Users can pin a Teams chat message to the top of a channel.
- Chat density: Users can customize the number of chat messages that appear within their chat window. The Compact setting fits 50% more messages on the screen, while the Comfortable setting keeps the chat display as it is in Teams today.
- Group approval requests and mandatory comments now available: The previously announced Teams Approvals integration is now available, which allows users to respond to approval requests within Teams. Additionally, admins can set all approval requests to have mandatory comments from the Teams Admin Portal settings.
For devices, Microsoft shared the following updates:
- Check in and room release for Teams panels: IT admin can now configure Teams panel devices to release reserved conference rooms that are being unused. Additionally, meeting attendees can tap the "Check in" button on a panel to reserve a space.
- Knock-knock notification for front-of-room displays: For Teams panel paired with Microsoft Teams Room, the "Check in" button can trigger a notification to the front-of-room display, informing in-room participants that others are waiting to use the space.
- Meeting update for Teams Rooms on Android: With a Teams Rooms on Android update, users can see more videos on the screen, add multiple spotlighted participants, and use more reactions. Additionally, for rooms with dual screens, videos of remote participants can span both screens when content is not being shared.
- Wallpapers: Admins can customize the home screen for Teams Rooms on Android devices with five wallpaper options. Admins can set them from device settings, and Teams Admin Center support is forthcoming.
- Far end camera control: With a pan-tilt-zoom feature, PTZ Camera Controls, remote meeting participants can control the zoom and orientation of a camera in Teams Rooms on Window. IT admins can also determine which Teams Rooms allow for far end camera control.
- HDMI ingest and sharing: Meeting participants can now plug in an external device via an HDMI connection into a Teams Room on Android and share content automatically from the device. To stop sharing, users can then press the Share icon on the call controls of the home screen.
In addition to these updates, the blog detailed the release of Walkie Talkie capabilities for Teams phone devices, which was previously reported in
this No Jitter article.
Crestron Adds Wireless Conferencing Capabilities to AirMedia
Last week,
Crestron announced new wireless conferencing features to its conferencing system, Crestron AirMedia. With the wireless features, users can join online meetings from their device and leverage existing room peripherals without a wired room connection. Enterprises that have standardized on Microsoft Teams or Zoom can also use AirMedia's wireless conferencing features to provide interoperability capabilities, letting users join external calls or allowing guest users to join calls hosted through another provider.
Crestron AirMedia with wireless conferencing is now available for pre-order, and existing AirMedia 3100 and 3200 Receivers can be upgraded to add wireless conferencing features.
