Microsoft Expands Access to Fluid Framework in Teams, More

Microsoft announced that it is expanding the availability of Fluid components in Teams, Outlook, OneNote, and Whiteboard. These components make it easier to collaborate synchronously and asynchronously across Teams and Office apps, Microsoft says.

“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,” Microsoft corporate vice president Jared Spataro says. “Fluid components are atomic units of productivity that help you get your work done in the context of chat, emails, meetings, and more.”

At Build 2021, Microsoft announced new Fluid components in chat to create new collaborative experiences with real-time editing shared across Teams and Office apps, but only in private preview. This week’s announcement represents an expansion of that availability. And there are some new features, too.

The details are a bit light, but Microsoft says that the new Fluid components for Teams meetings make it easy to co-create an agenda, take notes, and assign tasks, right within the Teams meeting, and then access that content whenever needed. The meeting agenda, notes, and tasks from meetings will be automatically placed in a new Meeting Notes section in OneNote. During the meeting, participants can brainstorm together using live Fluid components in Whiteboard. And users can also access Fluid components in Outlook email and calendar so you can manage your schedule, agenda, notes, and tasks across apps.

Microsoft also announced other new collaboratives experiences. It plans to roll out front row in Teams “over the course of this year.” This a new mode in which the video gallery is at the bottom of the window and the meeting is accompanied by contextual meeting information like the agenda, tasks, and notes. New video layouts for Teams meetings can work with multiple displays, and Teams Rooms is getting live reactions, spotlight, and the ability to pin multiple video streams and chat bubbles when using the classic video grid layout.

And in addition to all the Teams hardware we’ve already learned about this year, Microsoft is bringing Teams Rooms to Surface Hub via a next-generation Teams client for this platform that features a modernized meeting stage, Together Mode scenes, PowerPoint Live, and, this fall, a new Microsoft Whiteboard experience with co-authoring and new templates.