{"id":237006,"date":"2021-06-17T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-17T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/?p=237006"},"modified":"2022-08-25T16:17:36","modified_gmt":"2022-08-25T23:17:36","slug":"new-hybrid-work-innovations-in-microsoft-teams-rooms-fluid-and-microsoft-viva","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/2021\/06\/17\/new-hybrid-work-innovations-in-microsoft-teams-rooms-fluid-and-microsoft-viva\/","title":{"rendered":"New hybrid work innovations in Microsoft Teams Rooms, Fluid, and Microsoft Viva"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As workplaces open in many regions around the world, I hear from customers every day that they can\u2019t wait to get back to in-person collaboration. I feel it myself\u2014and look forward to seeing many of my coworkers in person one day soon. But even more than that, I look forward to finding new ways to help people connect and engage regardless <\/em>of location and time zone. At Microsoft, we believe that hybrid work is the future of work<\/a> and that to empower their people to succeed in hybrid work, business leaders will need to reimagine their organizations with a new operating model for people, places, and processes<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re also committed to building experiences that put everyone on equal footing\u2014whether they\u2019re together in a conference room in Atlanta, presenting remotely from a home office, or catching up with a meeting recording once the workday begins in Sydney.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Microsoft Teams\u00a0is mission-critical to this vision for a more flexible world of work.\u00a0Teams is unique in that it brings together meetings, chat<\/a>, calls, collaboration, and business process automation in a single app. Since COVID-19 spurred office workers around the world to work from home, we\u2019ve been\u00a0innovating in Teams to\u00a0do things like\u00a0create more natural and engaging meeting experiences<\/a>\u2014enable people to\u00a0connect\u00a0seamlessly\u00a0with those inside and outside of their organizations and provide ways to make remote presentations\u00a0richer and more impactful.\u00a0And as we emerge into this new hybrid reality,\u00a0we are focused on building experiences in Teams that are designed to ensure all voices are heard including\u00a0the people not in the room<\/strong>\u2014empowering everyone to connect and engage, from anywhere and at any time.\u00a0And to make it easier to collaborate synchronously and asynchronously, we\u2019re also announcing new Microsoft Fluid canvas innovations<\/strong>\u2014in Teams and beyond.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But COVID-19 also taught us that meeting fatigue and digital overload is real, and remote work has challenged our wellbeing. To help, Microsoft has built Microsoft Viva<\/a>\u2014our integrated employee experience platform\u2014into Teams, so that employees can find ways to protect time and preserve their wellbeing right in the flow of their work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today we are announcing new innovations\u2014in Microsoft Teams Rooms, Fluid, and Microsoft Viva\u2014all designed to empower your people for hybrid work. Let\u2019s have a look.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Participate on equal footing\u2014at home, onsite, or on the go<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Unlocking better hybrid meeting experiences for everyone begins with designing for the people who aren\u2019t in the room, so that everyone feels like they have a seat at the table, whether they\u2019re joining in the room, at home, or on the go. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can start making hybrid meetings better today with a few good habits that put everyone on equal ground. At Microsoft, we\u2019ve collected and published some best practices for hybrid work meetings<\/a> that we\u2019re recommending to our own employees. These include: joining the Teams meeting even if you\u2019re attending in the room; appointing an in-room moderator to facilitate conversation and track participation; and encouraging in-room participants to turn on their camera (provided they\u2019re comfortable doing so) so that they\u2019re more visible to remote participants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To support our customers in their efforts to create better hybrid meeting experiences for everyone, today we\u2019re announcing enhancements to Teams meetings and Microsoft Teams Rooms built to create engaging experiences for every participant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To help remote participants establish their presence in the room and maximize inclusion, Teams Rooms will expand screen real estate using new video layouts<\/strong> that disperse the video gallery across multiple displays when content isn\u2019t shared. The increased space means remote participants show up larger and more true to life. We\u2019re also bringing more features from desktop to Teams Rooms this summer, to help bring attention to the remote participants engaging in the meeting. These features include live reactions<\/strong>, spotlight<\/strong>, and the ability to pin multiple video streams<\/strong> (coming this fall) and chat bubbles <\/strong>when using the classic video grid layout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Remote participants should also be able to see who is in the meeting room, and what\u2019s happening. Jabra<\/strong>, Logitech<\/strong>, Poly,<\/strong> and our newest Teams device partner Neat<\/strong> are using advanced AI-powered camera technologies to provide new video views optimized for hybrid meetings<\/strong>, allowing every person in the room to be seen more clearly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re also making sure those who speak in meetings are clearly identified. The Teams intelligent speakers from EPOS and Yealink <\/strong>are now generally available and are built for Teams Rooms and use Microsoft\u2019s voice recognition technology in Teams to attribute remarks to the meeting room speaker in the transcript. With speaker attributed\u2014meeting transcription, people can focus on contributing to the conversation instead of taking notes, and those who missed the meeting can see a record of the conversation after the meeting.

And we\u2019re thrilled to announce the new Teams Rooms on Surface Hub experience<\/strong>. Surface Hub is purpose-built for teams to meet and co-create, wherever they work, and the next generation of Teams on Surface Hub brings more of your favorite meetings features and controls from the desktop to the meeting room\u2014including a modernized meeting stage, Together Mode scenes, and PowerPoint Live. Coming this fall, the new Microsoft Whiteboard experience will also be available on Surface Hub, so everyone can draw and ink on the same digital canvas.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can find more information on these Teams Rooms and partner announcements on our Teams Tech Community Blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To empower remote participants to initiate and facilitate whiteboard sessions, we\u2019ve created a completely new, hybrid work-focused Whiteboard experience<\/strong><\/a> where all attendees can visually collaborate across the same digital canvas. Available in summer 2021, new features will enable anyone to bring existing content to Whiteboard to co-author<\/strong>; and new templates<\/strong> will help groups start ideating faster, improving their ability to follow along with contributors, and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Effective hybrid meetings require every participant to be able to present, and experience a presentation in a way that\u2019s engaging and inclusive. New PowerPoint Live<\/strong> features help create a shared space for collaboration and contributions from everyone in the meeting. Slide translate<\/strong> allows attendees to see the presentation in their chosen language, for instance. And with our new inking<\/strong> experience, you can annotate your PowerPoint as you present\u2014or use a laser pointer<\/strong> to call attention to key points. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And look for these latest features in the Teams mobile app<\/strong> as well. You can now access PowerPoint Live and Dynamic view on your mobile devices. Custom background is also now on iOS and coming soon to Android.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Collaborate in the flow of work<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To work effectively in hybrid and asynchronous models, people need a super-rich canvas that both creates and maintains context before, during, and after the meeting. Fluid components are atomic units of productivity that help you get your work done in the context of chat, emails, meetings, and more. Recently, we announced new Fluid components<\/a> in chat to create live, collaborative experiences that can be edited in real-time and shared across Teams and Office apps. And today, we\u2019re announcing the expansion of<\/strong> Fluid components<\/a> for<\/strong> Teams meetings, OneNote, Outlook, and Whiteboard that make it easier to collaborate synchronously and asynchronously across Teams and Office apps. <\/strong>We’re also announcing new chat features that further support asynchronous collaboration, so you can keep the work moving forward in between meetings. Pin a message<\/strong>, providing your chat members with quick access to critical content anytime, and reply to a specific chat <\/strong>message maintaining context within the ongoing conversation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Meetings have increased significantly over the past year, along with unstructured communications. Research from our Work Trend Index<\/a> shows the average Teams user is sending 45 percent more chats per person per, week than they did one year ago. And ad-hoc, unstructured meetings are on the rise as well. To help manage this digital overload, new Fluid components in Teams meetings make it easy to co-create an agenda, take notes, and assign tasks, right within the Teams meeting, and access persistent recap content whenever you need it. And the note, agenda, and tasks from meetings will be automatically “placed” in the new meeting notes home of OneNote. While the meeting is underway, take the discussion a step further by ideating and brainstorming together by creating and editing live Fluid components in Whiteboard. Fluid components can also be leveraged across Outlook\u2014in email or the calendar\u2014making it easier to manage your time, agenda, notes, and tasks across apps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Protect time and prioritize wellbeing<\/h2>\n\n\n