Microsoft Roadmap Weekly: Better collaboration in Teams and Outlook improvements

It’s that time of the week when we bring you the latest set of features Microsoft added to its roadmap website. Unlike last time, though, you’ll find mention of a couple of noteworthy enhancements for Outlook, one of the best email apps. Besides, this week’s update also sheds light on Microsoft’s latest plans regarding two other popular Microsoft 365 apps, including Teams, and Whiteboard.

3 Microsoft Teams: new ways to use Live Share, more power to organizers over meeting recordings

Live Share to Chat, Channel, and Collaborative Stageview tabs

This week’s roadmap update includes two new Teams features, and both are currently being worked on for release in the next couple of months. Coming next month is improved Live Share support (Feature ID: 389141). Microsoft is working on adding Live Share to Chat, Channel, and Collaborative Stageview tabs in Teams.

Microsoft Teams currently allows users to work on shared content during meetings using Live Share. However, the limitation is that Live Share is only available in Meeting Stage and Side Panel Tabs in Teams. However, from next month, apart from those places in Teams, Live Share will be accessible in Chat, Channel, and Collaborative Stageview tabs for Macs and desktops. It’ll also be available on the Teams web client.

Teams meeting recordings will be saved to the meeting organizer’s OneDrive for Business

Among many capabilities that will introduced to Teams in May is a change that will impact those who save Teams meeting recordings. Instead of saving the recordings to the OneDrive for Business folder of the person who initiated the recording, Teams will save them to the meeting organizer’s OneDrive for Business (Feature ID: 116251).

According to Microsoft, this change will give meeting organizers more control over who has access to those recordings and how and whom they can be shared with, thus helping organizers manage who has access to those recordings stored in OneDrive for Business.

2 Whiteboard: Sticky Note Visual Refresh

Microsoft is planning to add a visual refresh to Sticky Note in Whiteboard next month (Feature ID: 376847). Although the company is tight-lipped about what the proposed visual refresh will look like, we guess that it’ll be similar to what Microsoft introduced in the new Sticky Notes app on Windows.

This makes sense because it’ll bring design consistency to Sticky Notes across platforms. No matter what platform you access it from, you get a familiar experience.

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Folder tags in Search Folders

In one of our previous weekly roadmap digest, we reported that Microsoft is working on new Search Folders for the new Outlook for Windows and the Outlook web client. This is still slated to arrive next month. But alongside that, there will be a new feature for Search Folders in April (Feature ID: 388915).

When you set a specific parameter to filter certain emails in Search Folders, Outlook shows you all the emails that come under that parameter. But from next month, Search Folders in Outlook will also display a “folder tag” within the message list. Folder tags indicate the folders each of those emails originally belongs to.

Share to Teams button in the new Outlook for Windows

While the new Outlook is web-based and has a different design than the classic Outlook, Microsoft is making sure the former has all the important features available in the classic Outlook. Adding the “Share to Teams” button to the new Outlook for Windows is a step in that direction.

When you select an email in the reading pane, you’ll see the button in the ribbon of the new Outlook for Windows. This way, you’ll be able to share email content directly to Teams from the new Outlook. The button is said to be available next month (Feature ID: 387809).

Take the release timeline with a pinch of salt

Microsoft failed to deliver on its promises on multiple occasions. Although you won’t see it written anywhere, the release timelines Microsoft mentions are not carved in stone and are subject to change. Microsoft can delay any of the aforementioned features without any notice. However, we remain steadfast in our commitment to bringing you the latest roadmap updates every week. We’ll be back with another Microsoft 365 weekly post next week.