2023 is almost over. Almost. And if you haven't already left for your Christmas vacation? I can only hope you are starting to wrap it all up for the break. I know I am. The ebbing off at work is a great opportunity to catch up or pack in some fun stuff, and for me one of those things is getting personally reacquainted with Microsoft Teams which is changing rapidly having shipped some great new adds into 2.1. Last time, we looked at personal invites to everyone in a channel meeting which was a big gap that was finally filled. This time, we'll look at a new channel creation experience, as well another new experience giving admins the ability to create frontline teams using Microsoft Entra attributes right through the TAC. Why are these things so valuable? In terms of the new channel creation experience its an easy-to-hand, highly visible way of creating a channel and yet it's also a strategy for curbing the creation of Teams. If people don't have to scroll 20 teams down to create a channel in a specific team then they are - probably - more likely to do so. In terms of the frontline teams experience this is a wizard blending Dynamic Membership in Microsoft Entra ID and Teams Templates. Perhaps its an elephant in the room - but creating teams, adding every user and every app manually can take time. Maybe it's too much time when you have hundreds to teams to manage where many of those teams need to be simple, standardised and purposeful to audiences who typically need a focused team and set of apps. So let's see how we go.
Teams Real Simple with Pictures: Send Personal Invites to everyone in a Channel Meeting
Teams has had a lot of big adds in the past year: Mesh, Copilot, the transition of Live Events to Town Halls, the integration with Microsoft Defender XDR, and so much more. The cadence is as rapid and exciting as ever. And when we see these big ticket items released, it is also quite natural to wonder: these are awesome, but hey, what is going on with that unresolved or underdeveloped item I keep feeding back about and which appears to be lost in the backlog? Busy on busy was like that. And so was the correction for pinning messages. It's fair to say that most of them do come in the end. And for old die-hard Teams lovers like me, it's a big deal that one of the longest unresolved features in Teams history has finally been shipped - this is the ability for everyone in a channel meeting to receive a personal invite. Now, this has been problematic for years - I mean I can remember articles on tech community as far back as 2018/2019 and if you look around online there are some quite complex ones which delve deep into the Microsoft 365 admin settings and all. My personal opinion? People shouldn't have to subscribe to groups or anything like that. It should just work. It's a meeting. Those who are in the channel ought to be invited to it just like any other meeting. So now we can - in classic or Teams 2.1. And whilst this will be a very short blog, it's a really useful one, because it may instill confidence in those who shun channel meetings because they never knew whether attendees will receive an invite in their personal calendar, or if they would show up. Better late than never right? You bet.
Teams Real Simple with Pictures: Setting up a Mesh Event and Installing the Mesh App
Last week, a cocktail of corp work and Airlift meant I had to skip my usual sunday night blog spot: but having swallowed much of that the last few days I am keen to get back on it and pick up where we left off with Microsoft Mesh. Previously we took a first glance at Immersive Spaces and how these could be accessed through a Microsoft Teams Meeting whether that meeting were scheduled or ad-hoc. We looked at the features. We looked at the pre-reqs. How you can transition between the different environments. All up? It was a good experience. And one that I happily relayed back to my good friend Vesa [Nopanen] since Vesa is, after all, Mr Metaverse. It really did improve my opinion of metaverse within the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. And I'm sure we'll see loads more development and innovations over the coming months and years. But Today? I'm going to pivot and setup an event through the Microsoft Mesh portal itself. That's right - there is a Mesh Portal. And there is a Mesh App too. And whilst I know that to be able to set up Mesh events (as in standalone Mesh Events independent of Microsoft Teams Meetings) you'll need a Teams Premium Licence as you need the said licence to be able to access this portal. Now, I haven't attempted to set one up prior to this blog. I have been too bogged down and stuck in the mud on the other commitments to my own business and to Microsoft which are both long and various. So its a good old fashioned exploratory today. And since Mesh is in public preview I am just going to be upfront and state that I don't know - nor have any insider knowledge - whether Premium will be the minimum licencing requirement for the Mesh Portal and the ability to set up Mesh Events in the future. Maybe it will. Maybe it won't if it fails to encourage adoption and usage. As always time will ultimately tell - but since the Mesh Portal probably won't look anything like it does today a year from now, it's a good time to get stuck in early.
Teams Real Simple with Pictures: A first look at Mesh Immersive Spaces
Last week we looked at the new Town Hall functionality set to replace Teams Live Events. And as promised we are going to venture again into the meeting/events space by looking at the introduction of Mesh Immersive Spaces into public preview. For many, these spaces will constitute the next step forward with Microsoft Mesh after the introduction of Avatars into Teams. But what are they? By definition they are 'three-dimensional (3D) immersive space(s), helping virtual meetings/events feel more like face-to-face connections. [They] have unique attributes that create a perception of being physically together [with]in a 3D digital space, including spatial interaction, co-presence, and immersion' (Microsoft, 2023). In other words they are designed to be active meeting experiences as opposed to passive, and to have a level of immersion which you may not get from a standard Teams meeting, or even an in person experience. And whilst on the face of it they may seem to be a natural fit for remote workers or orgs which operate in hybrid in order to equalise the meeting experience, they are very much as you will discover applicable for all. If you have ever used platforms such as the recently retired AltSpaceVR you may already be familiar with such an experience in principle. Now it is here in the Microsoft Teams classic client; soon to be 2.1. It's time to try it out - and I am pretty sure I'll be writing many more blogs on Microsoft Mesh over the coming year as this is just the tip of the iceberg. Its good to see Microsoft prrogressing with their Metaverse offering.
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