Overview

Microsoft is continually enhancing its Teams functionality.   Many of the new features for virtual collaboration are now available to Acadia users. 

For more information about existing and upcoming features: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2020/07/08/reimagining-virtual-collaboration-future-work-learning/

Highlighted Features:

1. Pop Out Meetings/Calls
2. Meeting Controls
3. Large Gallery
4. Together Mode
5. Meeting Notes
6. Focus Mode
7. Spotlighting
8. Participants List
9. Allow or Deny attendees to Unmute

Activate New Meeting Experience 

Enable the new meeting experience user setting:

1. Click on Avatar (or initials) on top right of Teams, and click Settings.
2. Check the Turn on new calling and meetings experiences check box,
3. Restart the Teams.

These settings will eventually be enabled by default, this action allows you to activate them immediately.

Note: After turning on the setting and restarting, if you still see calls and meetings in the main Teams window or the meeting bar at the bottom of your screen, go to your profile pic again and select Check for updates. Once that is done, Quit and Restart Teams.

Features

Meetings and Calls Pop Out Windows

After turning on the new experience and restarting Teams,  you’ll notice is that any calls and meetings will pop out into their own window, separate from the main Teams window. Like this:

Meeting Controls

• Meeting controls are moved to the top of the meeting screen. They’re docked there so you always have access to them (without jiggling your mouse) and they’re out of the way of the content and video that’s being shared.

Large Gallery View

• Large gallery view lets you see up to 49 video streams at once. This view is available when there are 10 or more attendees who are sharing video. To switch to large gallery, go to More options (…) in the meeting controls > Large gallery.

Here’s what it looks like:

Together Mode

• Together mode lets you feel like you’re in the same shared space with everyone in the meeting. (It might be even more fun than Large gallery.) It’s in the same menu as Large gallery, just below it. You can flip between Gallery and Together Mode. Here’s Together mode:

Together mode is available when 4 or more participants are sharing video.

Both Large gallery and Together Mode are being rolled out gradually over the next few weeks. If you don’t see them right away, check again later.

Meeting Notes

• Meeting notes are now taken directly on the meeting’s Meeting notes tab in the main Teams window. (This is one of the benefits of having the meeting in a separate window.) To access or take notes from within the meeting window, select More options (…) > Show meeting notes and you’ll see the usual side pane come up. In the pane, there is a Take notes button that brings you to the Meeting notes tab.

Focus Mode

• Focus mode is available when content is being shared. If you’d like to pay close attention to content, without the distraction of seeing video feeds, Focus mode is for you. It’s available in the meeting controls under More options (…) > Focus mode.  
• If you liked the full screen view, it’s still available in meetings that happen in the main Teams window. Microsoft is working on bringing that to the new experience as well. Then, you’ll have both Focus mode and Full screen view.

Spotlighting

• Spotlighting allows anyone in the meeting to be enlarged with the remainder of the attendees to show up at the bottom
• To spotlight someone, right-click their video and select Spotlight.
• You won't be able to spotlight a video if your view is set to Large gallery or Together mode.
• If you record a meeting in which someone's video is spotlighted, the video won't be spotlighted in the recording. This is just a temporary limitation, though—stay tuned for updates.
• For now, you can only spotlight one video at a time.

Participants List

• If you are a Teams meeting organizer, from a meetings' Particant pane you can save a record of participants who attended it. To download the meeting attendance report during the meeting, click the Show participants icon and then select Download attendee list. The report will be downloaded as a .CSV file that can be opened in Excel and it contains the name, join time and leave time of all meeting attendees.

• 

Allow or Deny attendees to Unmute

• When you are organizing the meeting request, select the meeting, then go into Meeting Options

• If you are in the meeting, select the Participants List, then select the three ellipses (...) and click on Don't allow participants to unmute

Common questions

Has screen sharing changed? How do I share my screen?

No big changes here. In the meeting controls at the top, select Share screen. The screen choices you have will come up from the bottom of the meeting window just like they did before.

To stop sharing your screen, select Close screen share in the meeting controls. It’s the icon next to the Leave button.

Why are message extensions grayed out? I like to send polls in meeting chat.

Microsoft is working on it. For now, if you want to send a poll or use other message extensions in the meeting chat, go back to the main Teams window, select the meeting chat (either via the Calendar or the list in Chat), and do it there.

What about InVision Freehand whiteboard and Meeting Notes?

Microsoft is working on that, too. For now, like with meeting extensions, go back to the main Teams window, select the meeting chat (either via the Calendar or the list in Chat), and do it there.)

Will live events also open in their own window?

No, not yet—that functionality is coming soon.

Thank you to: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-teams-blog/new-meeting-and-calling-experience-in-microsoft-teams/ba-p/1537581 for the content.