Microsoft Roadmap Weekly: One of the long-awaited Teams features coming soon, and more

While a lot of exciting developments took place last week in the realm of tech, it’s been more than two weeks since Microsoft released a Windows Insider build, and the reasons are still unknown. Fortunately, though, Microsoft didn’t abandon its commitment to informing us in advance about new features coming to Microsoft 365. It’s that time of the week again when we bring you all the latest additions Microsoft made to its roadmap page last week. We also explain their potential impact on your productivity.

A lot of users have complained on the Microsoft Community website that the Teams macOS client is missing the menu bar icon, which comes in handy for checking for “at-a-glance information” like the presence status, and it is also the place where you receive all your notifications. This is already available on Teams Windows client and will now be available for Mac users as well next month, according to Feature ID: 416069 on the Microsoft roadmap page.

Queues app for Android

If you have a Teams Phone and a Teams Premium license, you can use the Queues app. However, this is limited to desktop users. From December onwards, if your Teams Phone is certified under the Microsoft Teams Phones Certification Program, you’ll also be able to use the Queues app to manage call history, handle incoming calls, and more (Feature ID: 416282).

New network strength icon

Microsoft also has major Teams features planned beyond next month. One of those is coming in the form of a new network strength icon in November. As the name suggests, Teams will understand the strength of your network connection and the icon will indicate you should conserve bandwidth if you’re experiencing networking issues. As per Feature ID: 414513, this is coming in November this year.

A couple of handy features for IT admins

Microsoft also has plans to introduce a couple of new Teams features for IT admins in the next few months. If we go by last week’s Feature ID: 415247, IT admins will be able to designate an email address for receiving ‘Report a problem’ submissions from users in Teams Rooms on Android. This is coming in November. Another layer coming in December then (Feature ID: 416284) will allow IT admins to “manage and add contacts to Teams phone devices deployed in shared spaces through the Teams admin center,” helping users call important contacts more quickly.

New features for Teams Rooms on Android

Microsoft announced a host of new features for Teams Rooms on Android in the last few months. While some of them have recently been rolled out, the company listed another set of Teams Rooms features on its roadmap page last week.

One of the capabilities Microsoft is planning to add is support for 3×3 video gallery on dual displays for Teams Rooms on Android. That means 3×3 on each screen, increasing the total number of presented videos to 18 (Feature ID: 415239). In addition, Microsoft is also planning to introduce “Swap screen” capability for Android users (Feature ID: 415243). If you’re an admin, it’ll now be possible to “switch the screens of Teams Rooms on Android devices in dual display mode remotely.” And lastly, Microsoft will want to know how likely you’ll be to recommend Teams Rooms on a scale of 1 to 5 (Feature ID: 415245). All these changes are coming in November of this year.

3 Microsoft Outlook: New sorting options for macOS, and more

The new Outlook for Windows is now available for everyone, and to make the app even better, Microsoft keeps adding more features to it. By the end of next month, the new Outlook for Windows will allow users to categorize individual emails within the conversation views (Feature ID: 416450). Another capability coming to the new Outlook for Windows next month is the ability to disable sharing folders with individual users (Feature ID: 415467). What’s more, if you’re a Mac user, you’ll also be able to sort by flag status, flag due date, and flag start date in November (Feature ID: 416091).

2 Microsoft OneDrive: New confirmation dialogues

Compared to Teams and Outlook, Microsoft announced far too few features for OneDrive last week. It announced only one functionality, but it’ll impact pretty much everyone who manages files on OneDrive. Coming this month is a confirmation that will trigger when you’re about to delete shared items (Feature ID: 415705). You’ll also see a similar UI format when you mass delete on OneDrive.

1 Copilot for Microsoft 365: Control how it responds to your queries

Source: Microsoft

Copilot is a pretty useful tool in Microsoft 365. And in the coming months, you’ll see it becoming more helpful. By the end of this month, IT admins will be able to block Copilot from making “inferences or evaluations about people or groups,” when responding to queries in Teams (Feature ID: 411568). This will be available across all Teams clients. According to Feature ID: 416065, Microsoft will also allow Copilot for Microsoft users to restrict sites from content discoverability. This will be available in December.

Microsoft may not release the above features in the said month

Although Microsoft mentions release timelines alongside of the features it describes on its roadmap website, it’s an open secret that the company can delay certain capabilities. In other words, release timelines on the roadmap page are always subject to change. That said, we’re hopeful that most of the above-mentioned changes will arrive on time.