Everything new for Microsoft Teams from July 2021

As is the case every month, Microsoft released a mountain of features to Teams across a range of devices and categories.

What you need to know

• Microsoft rolled out a long list of features to Teams in July.
• The new features include automatic meeting recording, call transferring between devices, and a new emoji picker with over 800 emojis.
• There are also several new features focused on education and government versions of Teams.

Microsoft Teams is a rapidly evolving app that regularly gains new features and options. While we often cover individual features as they roll out, it can be difficult to stay up to date on everything that's new. To make things easier, Microsoft gathers together every new feature that comes out each month. Here's what's new from July.

Meetings and webinars

Microsoft Teams gained several new features for meetings last month. As meetings are the core of the app for many people, Microsoft works to expand their capabilities. Meeting organizers can now automatically record meetings, including single meeting occurrences and series of meetings.

It's now possible to lock a meeting from additional join attempts. People can use this to keep latecomers from attending or to avoid distractions during a meeting.

You can also view more people in Large Gallery view, thanks to support for paging.

Here's everything that rolled out for Teams meetings in July:

• Find a meeting recording based on what was said with Microsoft Search
• Lock a meeting from additional joins
• Slide translate in PowerPoint Live in Teams
• Teams Meetings Auto Recording
• Paging on Video Gallery
• Organization-wide background
• End user Real-time telemetry for meetings
• Related Content for Teams Meetings for mobile
• Hard audio mute includes PSTN attendees in meetings
• Support for Human Interface Devices on Windows Virtual Desktop

Calling

Teams now supports transferring calls between desktop and mobile devices. This feature actually started rolling out in June, but Microsoft highlights it in the company's July roundup.

Microsoft also added support for speed dialing to Teams on mobile devices. Lastly, Session Border Controller now supports Direct Routing for Microsoft Teams.

Devices

Microsoft Teams Rooms received an update for Windows in July, as did Microsoft Teams Rooms Managed Services. There are also several newly certified Teams devices.

• Dell UltraSharp Webcam
• Poly EncorePro 515/525 USB headsets
• Poly Studio P15
• Yealink MVC640 intelligent Microsoft Teams Rooms system
• Crestron Flex Microsoft Teams Rooms Advanced Kits

Chat and collaboration

Microsoft released over 800 emojis to Teams in an expanded emoji picker. You can select emojis by clicking on them within categories or using the short code picker to add emojis with text.

Teams now supports Immersive reader and Inline Message translation, improving its accessibility. Microsoft also added a set of guided meditations and mindfulness exercises from Headspace to the Viva Insights app in Teams.

Management, security, compliance, and privacy

Microsoft rolled out several features for developers, management, and security. Developers can now configure Teams apps to utilize a "main stage." This gives developers greater control over how apps look during Teams meetings.

Here's everything that rolled out in these categories for Teams:

• App risk evaluation
• Left navigation updates in Teams Admin Center
• Teams Multi-Geo Support
• Safe Links Protection for Microsoft Teams

Education

There's an entire separate Tech Community post from Microsoft dedicated to what's new in Teams for education, but the company also highlights some new features in its main post:

• Engage students with class teams from Canvas
• Group Assignments
• New "Return for edit" Assignment option
• Filter assignments by class in main assignment view
• Education tailored deployment plan in Teams Advisor
• Education policy wizard now automatically incorporates new features and policies
• Cortana now available for education customers
• Suggested Replies in chats now available for educators

Government

Features often roll out to government versions of Teams after they're first launched. The following features are rolling out now to customers in the US Government Community Cloud (GCC), US Government Community Cloud High (GCC-High), and United States Department of Defense (DoD):

• Virtual Breakout Rooms
• Guest Access
• Together Mode for Teams Rooms
• Teams Meetings Auto Recording
• Live reactions in Teams Meetings
• End user real-time telemetry for meetings
• Spotlighting multiple users in a meeting
• Organization-wide background
• Live Events with Live Caption
• Large meeting support
• Windows 10 Native Notifications in Teams
• Chat preview notification settings
• Missed activity email
• Device management capabilities
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