Teams continues to go from strength-to-strength, catching up, and in many cases, surpassing competitors. Oxford University has a strong working relationship with Microsoft and has influenced a number of developments through engagement with the Teams User Voice feedback page. Colleagues across the University are encouraged to engage with this resource to influence future developments.
Coming soon
It’s not always easy to know what’s coming so quite often you will notice we say ‘during October’ or ‘in the Spring’, but you can also check the Teams roadmap to see for yourself what is coming soon.
Speaking of which, we hope you have noticed and engaged with our ‘preview’ of breakout rooms. Do share feedback and help make this tool as useful as possible for students and staff here at Oxford.
Another item of particular interest is the new file sharing experience which should be available this month offering a vastly improved user experience. This will give users the chance to share files directly from Teams, introducing similar sharing functionality to our current OneDrive for Business service and the SharePoint Online service (which is due to start rolling out in late November 2020).
And finally, new lobby settings for organisers are now available giving much greater control to the meeting organiser.
28 October update
We heard that Microsoft is doing lots of work on things that you might not be able to see but they will make a difference to your experience, such as enhancing noise reduction on microphones. But one you can see is the greater control you have over settings in meeting options - check it out.
Secure and supported
Just a reminder that Teams is the University’s only supported networking/collaboration software. It has been approved by our Information Security colleagues and is widely used across the organisation.
The University now has over 6000 Teams and, between July and September, had more than 42,000 active users holding nearly 180,000 meetings and creating almost 4.5 million chat messages.
Teams Live Events
Teams Live Events are now available for larger gatherings and broadcasts. This is a new part of the service covered by our licence and is useful when you want to hold virtual online events for larger numbers of participants than a standard Teams meeting. You can find more information on Microsoft’s Team Live Events Page.
Accessible
Like the rest of Office 365, Microsoft Teams is covered by Microsoft’s ongoing commitment to making their services and apps accessible to all. This Accessibility Overview of Teams provides useful information to cover most Teams functionality, from meetings to collaboration, chats and file handling.
Also, transcripts can be produced of recorded meetings. Once Meeting Owners have the Recording functionality enabled for their accounts, they can edit transcripts of recorded meetings as needed.
Nexus365 User Group (NUG) goes online - save the date
Yes, it’s true. We haven’t held a meeting for a while, but now we have a Teams meeting planned for 5 November (we didn’t want you to forget the date) – check the NUG Team for the latest info about the meeting and booking details (in due course).
The NUG is available for any member of the University to join using the code LNJVOFR. It’s a friendly, active group aimed at everyone. Our tips and tricks, and Q and A channels have some particularly useful hints and answers – do check them out and add your wisdom to the collective.
Did you know that pressing your PC space bar in a Teams meeting mutes and unmutes your microphone during a meeting? Much quicker than other ways to do this!
