Personal Features for Teams Are Available in Preview
- Paul Thurrott
- Jun 22, 2020
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Microsoft today announced a set of new personal features in Microsoft Teams that are now available in preview on mobile.
“[The] need to connect, collaborate, and jointly organize our lives is why we expanded Microsoft Teams beyond work groups,” Microsoft corporate vice president Liat Ben-Zur announced. “In March, we announced new features in Teams on mobile (iOS and Android) designed to bring you closer to your friends and family. The new features start to roll out in preview to the Teams mobile app today and will be fully rolled out in the coming weeks.”
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New features include:
Text chat and video calling. Now, you can stay connected with friends and loved ones through
messaging and video calling, and not just coworkers. You can create groups for chats and calls, or chat or call one-on-one. Microsoft says that it’s “goal is that Teams will become the messaging hub for all your personal chats and video and voice calls, with fun features like sharing GIFs, photos, videos, documents, and even location already integrated.” In other words, yes, Skype is on the way out.
List, document, and calendar sharing. You can now stay organized with individuals or groups by sharing lists, documents, and calendars all within the group dashboard.
Collaborate and share documents. Teams integrates with your other Microsoft 365 apps so you can easily share from Word, Excel, and PowerPoint right from within the Teams app, Microsoft notes. “Whether you’re planning your family budget or trying to prepare your kids’ summer schedules.” Documents are stored in OneDrive and can be accessed from anywhere.
Location sharing. Teams location sharing will make it easy to share your location and find family and friends.
Securely store and share information. Teams comes with a Safe that lets you securely store and share important information like passwords, rewards numbers, and login information. You can share right from the Teams app so that your family can access the home Wi-Fi password, your streaming service login, or other information, which is protected by two-factor authentication and end-to-end encryption.
“As we roll out the preview over the coming weeks, we look forward to collecting your feedback to help us evolve and improve the experience over time,” Ben-Zur adds. “General availability of the new features, as well as expanding features to the desktop and web versions of Teams, is expected later this year.”