Latest features in Teams

There have been lots of small improvements to Teams since our last article. Lots of these changes support teaching and learning and are already making a difference. 

As always, we share some of the more useful Teams updates which we hope are helping you already. 

Features now available 

• Multiple account support is now available, enabling seamless account swapping without logging out and in again. Teams will prompt you for credentials to access materials if you are using more than one Nexus account (or even an account outside Oxford University).  
• When you change your channel folder names in Teams, they will automatically be updated in SharePoint so they match.  
• The co-organiser feature means that a colleague can now help you organise and manage meetings.   
• A digital code for meetings is now automatically generated when you arrange your meeting bringing you greater security and control over your meetings.  
• Meeting attendees can now make collaborative annotations on shared screens during Teams meetings while you are presenting. You can also export the comments to use later. 
• Meetings are now automatically closed if they are left open with no activity for five minutes. 
• Speaker Coach is a handy feature that could help you with your presentation skills.  
• Teams chats with distribution groups of up to 250 users are now possible.  

Coming soon 

• An improved search function will let you view full chat conversation threads, a welcome development. 
• One-click departure will let you leave a meeting from all your devices at one time.
• You’ll be able to schedule when comments are shared in Teams chats. 
• Viewing meeting transcripts and attendance reports on your mobile (Android and iOS) will be available. 
• You’ll be able to set Adobe PDF reader as your default reader for PDFs in Teams 
• A new ‘Effective meetings’ feature is being introduced in the Microsoft Viva Insights app, giving you personalised insights and suggestions to help improve your meeting habits. 
• Suggested replies will be available in Teams desktop clients and an expanded range of reactions are also coming soon.   
• Linux Teams client is closing but the Teams web client now offers the same features as the desktop client, giving everyone the same experience, however they join the conversation.  
• You'll be able to automatically view up to 49 video feeds (7x7) in Teams meetings.   

Remember to check the Teams roadmap if you want to find out more about what’s coming next. 

Update on using Power Apps in Teams

There are some apps that can be added to Teams requiring users to have a Power Apps license to configure the app for use. Power Apps is not a supported or licensed part of the Nexus365 service.

Apps requiring a Power Apps license include:

• Milestones 
• Issue Reporting/Manage Issues 
• Ideas/Manage Ideas/Staff Ideas/Employee Ideas 
• Bulletins/Manage Bulletins 
• Inspections/Manage Inspections/Review Inspections 
• Solution Health Hub 

At the moment these apps make use of an unsupported short-term trial license. The full Power Apps license is not available to Nexus365 users, therefore we recommend that you do not use these apps as you will not be able to take these forward beyond the life of the trial. Any Power Apps trial environments will continue to be removed as part of an ongoing housekeeping exercise. 

Teams training, help and advice  

Lots of information about how to get Teams help, advice and training is available via our IT Help website, IT Learning Centre and the Centre for Teaching and Learning.

Don’t forget, any member of Oxford University can join the Nexus365 User Group to stay up-to-date with Teams news, tips, tricks, quick-start guides and more - the joining code is LNJVOFR. 

Top tip 

Easily adjust the brightness of your video to suit wherever you happen to be working. This is particularly useful if you have a window behind you and all people can see is a shadow. Just go into ‘Device settings’ and there’s a handy little switch at the bottom.