Last Updated on December 27, 2021 by GrahamWalsh
There was a new Message Center update this past week talking about some changes to the Microsoft Teams Room on Windows home screen experience. The main update on this is covered in Message Center ID MC306665. This then links to two Microsoft Roadmap items, ID 89066 and 89069.
Let’s look at now vs. what is coming to the home screen. Below we see we have New Meeting, Dial Pad (if you have voice for this resource account), and Cortana if enabled.
We can see that we can New Meeting becomes Meet and Dial Pad become Call. There are also some differences behind the button action too. When you pressed New meeting, you got the page below, which allowed to add people or other rooms to start a call.
When we press Meet on the upcoming release, then we are already straight into a meeting. It is a little different to the experience that you’ve been used to. He’s the default image shared in the message center note. As you will see below, someone has started to call out to Babek from this new Meet screen. This final design could change too possibly.
When you now press Call, you are presented with new call page, where you can add multiple people to a call before you start it.
There we have it, the new Microsoft Teams App for Microsoft Teams Room will roll out in January when you have your device in Teams Only mode or Teams Default. One thing to consider is maybe enrolling the Public Preview, which I’ve detailed here so you can get first hand use of the new workflow once available.
Here’s the exact copy of the text from the Message Center ID for reference in case you don’t have access to the M365 Admin center.
Teams Rooms on Windows are making an alignment for Meet now and calling experiences to Teams desktop replacing “New meeting” control on the Teams room console with Meet (aka Meet now) and replacing “Dial pad” control on the Teams room console with Call. With Meet, users can start an ad-hoc meeting with a single tap and invite participants to it. Calling app provides users functionality to dial PSTN calls where available as well as enable entry point for P2P Teams calls, group Teams calls and P2P federated user calls.
This change is only applicable if the Teams rooms are running in Microsoft Teams only or Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams (default) modes. With this change, all P2P calling and group calling functionality that was previously under “New meeting” button is moved under Call. For customers that use SIP URI calling through Skype for Business, Enter SIP URI entry point is available in Microsoft Teams (default) and Skype for Business mode under Call.
Note: If you aren’t using Teams Rooms, you can safely disregard this message.
This is rolling out on Microsoft Teams Rooms on Windows only.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID: 89066, 89069
When this will happen:
Microsoft Teams Rooms application version 4.11.xx.0 with these changes, will begin in mid-January and is expected to be complete by mid-February 2022.
How this will affect your organization:
From the home page, users can see the new Meet and call buttons, replacing “New meeting” and “Dial pad” buttons.
Users can select Meet button to initiate Meet now which starts a meeting. Users can then add a participant from the roster search control to invite others to the meeting.
Call app provides entry points to dial pad to dial a number (Calling plan required), as well as the ability to search for people in your organization to make a P2P or group call.
- If you have domestic or international calling plan assigned to your Teams Rooms account or have direct routing setup for your tenant with number assigned to the room account, the dial pad is made available for users to dial a number.
- Users can also search for users in your organization or a federated organization for P2P calls.
Users can start a group call by searching and adding multiple people to the call.
SIP URI calling is not yet available in Teams only mode, however you can set your device to “Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams (default)” mode to have SIP URI entry point in the call app.
- Users can also “Enter a URI” button is present in the call app and allows users to dial in a SIP URI.
What you need to do to prepare:
You might want to notify your users about this updated experience and update your training and documentation as appropriate
Cortana Push to Talk Icon Update
To follow on from the User Interface updates, the Cortana icon will also be getting a makeover. I did suggest to the Microsoft Teams product group that the icon was too similar to the Mute icon (that’s right, scroll back up and look 🙂). So, it’s moving to an avatar as per message center post here. See below for what the change will look like.
This update should be rolling out around the end of January 2022. As always, you might need to update some room user guides.
Also published on Medium.