Collaborating with Teams

Enhancements and improvements to Teams are constantly being shared with the world - some are large, many are small, but all are intended to improve our experience with using Teams.   

As we settle into the new term, we thought it was time to share some Teams features that have come online in the past couple of months. We hope you've noticed them but if not, here are a few you might find useful.  

Recent features  

• Recording and transcription now happen simultaneously. You can turn the transcription feature off if you want, but it can be really handy. Here's how to record in Teams and our captions and transcripts help page. Teams Recording can be applied as a policy to your account, see the Teams recording help page for the application form and further details. 
• Forms polls for Teams meetings are available to help you conduct more engaging and productive meetings.
• Participant reports are automatically available to the meeting organiser when the meeting has concluded. 
• Meeting invitations are getting a formatting update to make meetings easier to join. 
• Switch views for participants during meetings more easily than before. A new pop-out menu will appear on the left of your screen during meetings, allowing you to select between Gallery, Together Mode and other views to get the most out of your meeting experience.  

Coming soon  

At the moment, over 200 updates are in development or rolling out! It’s hard to keep track of all these changes, but Microsoft’s Teams roadmap is a handy guide to what’s coming next. You can also find answers to popular Teams questions on our new-look Teams pages.   

• Schedule your out-of-office in Teams and your Outlook calendar and automatic replies will be updated too.
• Several enhancements for breakout room presenters are planned for roll-out very soon.
• A rich new file and sharing experience is coming to Teams, bringing it into line with the way items are shared from OneDrive for Business and SharePoint. 
• Before joining a meeting, you will be able to use video filters to subtly adjust lighting levels and smooth out facial features to customise your appearance. 
• 

  Whiteboard participants in Teams and on Web will have additional facilitation features and it will be easier to see who added content to the board.

• A new search experience in Teams will make finding messages, people, answers, and files faster and more intuitive.

Teams training, help and advice  

The Nexus365 User Group (NUG) is a thriving online community where you can ask questions or see the latest Teams news. You'll also find tips, tricks, quick start guides and more. Any member of Oxford University can join - the joining code is LNJVOFR. 

Still confused or not using useful features you know are there somewhere? Our instructor-led or LinkedIn Learning courses are a great way to enhance your skills. Just search for 'Teams' in the course listing on our IT Skills website.  

If you have a question about good practice for teaching with Teams, please contact the Centre for Teaching and Learning (CTL) or check the CTL website which has lots of useful information.   

Did you know? 

In 2020-21, Oxford University staff and students held no fewer than 1.6 million Teams meetings! How many did you organise or attend?