Teaching at the university will remain online in 2021; although you may already know some of the tweaks, look at the overview of all the useful new features available in MS Teams.
For the group rooms, we have been waiting for a long time since the beginning of the massive usage of MS Teams. At the end of 2020, Microsoft developers listened to users and prepared so-called breakout rooms for them, which are available for both desktop and mobile applications. These group rooms can be activated in a scheduled meeting only by the meeting organizer, who can select the number of rooms from 1 to 50. Participants then will be assigned automatically or manually to those rooms.
After clicking the Create Rooms button, the pre-created rooms will be displayed on the right side. Participants in a room will be displayed after clicking on the side arrow next to the room. When the organizer is ready, clicking on Start Rooms button, he will open a call in every single room. Participants are notified by a message that they will be moved to another room, where they can also chat in addition to the call.
The meeting organizer can also move between rooms, rename them, or cancel some. And by three dots in the Group Rooms, he can write announcements of high importance to all rooms. To end room calls, click the Close Rooms button.
Another novelty is the new look of the call join window, displayed on the desktop application. First, you need to select the sound option to activate the join button. Be careful - not to use the Do Not Use Sound option, which will also mute the incoming sound.
Don't want to be interrupted by sudden online calls, or do you need to move away from your computer? In the web and desktop application, you can now set the duration of the state you entered.
After the meeting creation, you can use the Add a tab button to select the Forms application to prepare the required questions before the meeting. During the meeting, the Forms application icon will appear in the top menu, and as a presenter, you will have the option to start voting for all participants in the call. Then close the poll and export the results.
For meetings through the team channel, the tab cannot be added in advance, but within a meeting chat, you can add a poll that is saved to the creator by Forms.
No more unwanted background noise and other distracting surroundings noises during Teams calls. The desktop application now offers call noise cancellation - try it for yourself!
As of 1 August 2024, the ESRI ArcGIS Desktop licence, which was previously available to all MU employees and students, will no longer be available at Masaryk University. As an alternative, we recommend switching to the more modern ArcGIS Pro, which offers a modern user interface, greater stability, more advanced features and better user support.
Do you want to know the news about Microsoft 365 tools used at the university? What changes and improvements await us in 2024? We have prepared a webinar for you, where we will not only summarize all the current information, but also look at tips on how to work (together) more securely and efficiently in Microsoft 365.
