UCStatus Podcast Episode 64: Microsoft Ignite 2024 Special

Dec 3, 2024

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Hello Readers, I hope you’re well.

Welcome to Episode 64 of the UCStatus Podcast. This episode features me (@randychapman), Mark Vale (@markvale83) and Shawn Harry (@shawnharry).

This week we focus on all the stuff we (I) found intertesting from Microsoft Ignite 2024 in Chicago. I happened to be there this year for the first time which was awesome. I do hope to go again in the future.

Microsoft published blog posts on new things for Teams and Copilot announced at Ignite

There were a lot of great sessions, but only a couple focused on Microsoft Teams, and in particular, devices. This is one I refer to a lot in this podcast episode. Presented by Ilya Bukshteyn, Pete Daderko and Kerry Perez Heffernan at Microsoft. I attended this live in person. But there is a recording

Un lock smart collaboration with Microsoft Teams

Other notewoprthy Teams Sessions

Here’s the list

Copilot

Copilot Actions:
- A new AI agent feature called Copilot Actions was introduced, allowing users to automate repetitive tasks within Microsoft 365 Copilot.
New AI Administrator Role:
- A new role called AI administrator was announced, specifically for managing and overseeing AI and Copilot administration in organizations.
Copilot in Microsoft 365 Admin Centers:
- Copilot will be available in the Microsoft 365 admin center, Teams admin center, and SharePoint admin center, with general availability targeted for January 2025. This feature will help optimize routine tasks, generate insights, and enhance decision-making for IT professionals.
Copilot in Teams admin center
Copilot in Pro Management Portal
New Agents and Tools:
- New agents in Microsoft 365 were introduced to unlock SharePoint knowledge, provide real-time language interpretation in Microsoft Teams meetings, and automate employee self-service.
Copilot Agents:
- Agents can automate and execute business processes, ranging from simple prompt and response tasks to more advanced and fully autonomous agents.
Copilot Control System
- help IT professionals confidently manage Copilot and agents securely.
Copilot file summary – upload a file to Teams and let Copilot summarise the contents
Copilot in Teams can analyze content shared on-screen

Places

Places is now Generally Available
Recommended in-office days with Copilot
Managed Booking with Copilot
Places Finder
Workplace Presence
space analytics with Copilot
team guidance
quick book

Now a detour talking about licensing. How to decide who needs what license or feature from a specific license, and how to manage it once you do.

Random Teams News

Storyline integrated in Teams
New chat and channel experience
Loop workspaces in a channel
Name pronunciation in profile cards
Skin tone setting for emojis and reactions
Live transcription in Teams meetings support for multiple spoken languages
Intelligent recap for calls from chat and ‘Meet now’ meetings
Disable copying of live captions, transcripts, and recap for meetings
Translated intelligent meeting recap
Active meeting protection notifications of sensitive screenshared content
Meeting sensitivity upgrade notification based on shared file
- A meeting sensitivity upgrade can now be triggered when an attendee shares a file in a Teams meeting chat or during a live share that has a higher sensitivity setting. The meeting’s settings can be upgraded either automatically or via a recommendation to the organizer, to inherit the same sensitivity setting as the file shared in the meeting.
Moderated meetings in Teams
- Moderated meetings gives organizations with Information Barrier (IB) tenants the option to allow users with conflicting policies to join the same meeting in the presence of an approved moderator
Email verification for external participants to join Teams meetings
Brand impersonation phishing protection
- personal block
Block malicious users from your organization
- admins can block specific people for a list of users
New admin policy to prevent bots from joining Teams meetings
Support for SMS text notifications to attendees in Microsoft Bookings app
New calendar experience in Microsoft Teams
Enhancements to iPad Teams calendar
New expanded gallery view for minimized meeting window
Navigate meetings and messages hands-free, with the power of AI in the driver’s seat [iOS]: Available now in public preview

Town Halls & Webinars

Support for 50k attendees
DVR Capability
Event Chat
Watermarking in Webinars
Out of the box experience for eCDN
Embed support

Teams Rooms and Devices

Speaker recognition: Generally available for Teams BYOD rooms in early 2025
Auto-association of peripherals in BYOD rooms
Speaker attribution in BYOD rooms
Automatically set presence in BYOD rooms
Dual display enhancements on Teams Rooms on Android – up to 18 video tiles on dual screen MTRs (3×3 on each display)
Cloud IntelliFrame video feeds on Teams Rooms on Android and mobile devices
Usage reports for bookable desks in the Teams Rooms Pro Management portal
Copilot in Teams Admin Centre
AI assistant in the Teams Rooms Pro Management portal

Teams Phone

Survivable Branch Appliance (SBA) can now support outages for up to 7 days: Generally available now
Delayed simultaneous ring settings
Queues app available on Teams phone devices
Callback for Call Queues
Speed dial support on line keys
Collaborative call delegation on Teams phone devices
- Teams phone device users will soon be able to share access to their phone line with a specific group of users, without a structured delegation system. This enables group members to receive and initiate calls on behalf of others, enabling a simple and collaborative communication experience.

Thanks for listening! Catch you next time.

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