For those unfamiliar, the Breakout Rooms feature was first introduced in Microsoft Teams last year, allowing users to create group-specific rooms for more effective discussions and exchanges of ideas in smaller teams.
- Learn more: How to create a Microsoft Teams account
New meeting and innovative room features are being added to Microsoft Teams.
The recent Breakout Rooms feature has been updated with better control measures and now it has a new functionality allowing meeting organizers to select managers for the groups. These managers can oversee rooms, schedule appointments, customize Microsoft Teams meeting settings, and open/close Breakout Rooms.
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It's worth noting that users need to be part of an organization to manage rooms and access room settings. Additionally, Microsoft has confirmed that presenters can manage one room at a time. Currently, only meeting organizers have the ability to manage multiple Breakout Rooms simultaneously.
Microsoft Teams' group-based room creation feature is receiving new options:
- The ability to create or delete rooms in batches and add/change names of individual rooms.
- You'll be able to configure meeting options for each room or adjust settings using a timer.
- Groups can pre-assign participants and easily choose managers for Breakout Rooms.
In addition to updating the Breakout Rooms feature, Microsoft is introducing some new meeting features for Teams. The latest Microsoft Teams update will allow meeting participants to pin their own videos on the main page of the Teams meeting. Pinned videos will appear alongside other participants.
Furthermore, users will have the option to hide their own video preview appearing at the bottom right corner of the meeting. You can disable the self-view mode in Teams from the meeting settings.
Microsoft is also experimenting with other enhancements. For instance, the company will allow managers, teachers, or moderators to delete messages from others. Currently, you can only delete your own messages and cannot delete messages sent by others within the company/organization.
This new moderation feature is designed to improve the quality of online education and will be initially released for Microsoft Education users, then gradually rolled out to Microsoft Teams users in GCC, GCC High, and DoD channels by the end of this year.
Another experiment underway is the application of the Mica design style of Windows 11 to the Teams app windows, but this feature will be exclusively reserved for Microsoft Teams 2.0.
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