As if it wasn’t enough that most of us (if not all) are in the middle of the process of replacing the old Teams client with a new, faster and in my opinion now much better Teams client. There have been (and will be) also many new features and updates. As usual, it’s a good idea to stay as updated as possible if you don’t want to miss out on any goodies. The latest edition of “What’s New in Microsoft Teams” for April 2024 offered a wealth of information about updates and news. For my part, the following functions were most welcome and interesting.

Hide the “General” channel

Finally! Creating posts or storing files in the General channel is usually as unstructured (read sloppy) as having a “Miscellaneous” folder on a file server. Always create channels that correspond to the different main contexts you have dialogue about in the respective teams and now hide General. (You are forgiven for using the General channel only when you have a concrete need for a General channel. Everything else is flawed structure. 🫣)

Ask Copilot to elaborate on its initial response.

It’s not that often (yet) that you get a perfect answer from Copilot from the start, now you’ll be able to ask Copilot to clarify and refine its answer. But as always, the better questions (Prompts) you ask based on good data, the better the answers.

Choose your own picture for a group chat.

It’s probably widely known that I’m one of those people who gets allergic reactions when I see people using group chats instead of channel posts. Regardless of that fact, being able to choose your own picture for a group chat can be a useful and fun feature. (BUT avoid group chats and make sure to have your dialogues in relevant channels in relevant teams instead. Private chat groups are private and thus Information Silos.🫣)

Context-based file attach suggestions.

Based on what you have written in your post, you can get a suggestion as to which file you wish to attach to the post. This should help you find the relevant file faster. Here I am still a bit skeptical, so I will look into this more closely before I start cheering).

Voice isolation for better sound in your meetings.

Audio can never be too good so this is a very welcome feature👂

Easier to create new Teams and/or channels.

Always good when things get easier but personally I prefer when new Teams are created using a provisioning app. For those of you who don’t yet have a provisioning app, this update can make life a little easier when actually setting up a Team or channel. (However, my advice is that you instead, using PowerApps, build and start using a provisioning app so that you create teams based on a controlled process so that you ensure the right name standard, the right number of owners and the right settings))

Less context switching with “Sign in with multiple accounts across clouds”

I welcome anything that minimizes context switching.👍

Calendar notifications now also in Microsoft Teams

Being able to accept meeting invitations in and from Teams is positive. The less I need to use Outlook the better. I want to be able to do most things directly in Microsoft Teams. 📆

More info and the possibility to influence the functionality of Microsoft Teams

If you want to read more detailed information about said functionality or additional news, you will find it in What’s New in Microsoft Teams | April 2024. If you have requests for additional functionality, you know that you can make suggestions yourself on Team’s feedback portal.

Header Image by Markus Winkler on Unsplash