Microsoft 365 News This Week

SharePoint and Teams: Folder in site visibly connected to channel

Beginning in late May, Microsoft will be releasing an update to the Teams service that will make it easier to know which folders in your SharePoint library have a Teams channel associated with them. In addition, you can see this directly in the SharePoint UI. This new feature will be implemented on the Teams desktop and web.
This shared association between Teams channels and the corresponding SharePoint folders will help eliminate confusion across all Microsoft 365 endpoints. In addition, it will provide greater clarity for users they'll be able to easily move from a SharePoint folder directly to the corresponding Teams channel. To maintain this association, users will not be permitted to rename and delete any folders within your SharePoint library that have an associated Teams channel.

Microsoft Teams: Call Merge
If you've ever been in a one-on-one call with someone in Teams and were hoping to rope another set of colleagues into the chat via a call merge, you're in luck. Microsoft is bringing call merging to Teams on desktop.
This update will apply to both Teams VOIP calls and PSTN calls.

Microsoft Teams: Lock Meetings

Microsoft Teams will soon allow people on desktops to lock their meetings. Once the feature rolls out, meeting organizers will be able to prevent people from attempting to join a meeting.
Microsoft Teams already allows organizers to decide who can enter a meeting, but people could potentially see several requests to join a meeting once it's started. An organizer could turn these down, of course, but that requires action on the part of the organizer. Having to do this could be distracting and irritating. By being able to lock a meeting, an organizer can just stop requests altogether.

In addition to making things a bit easier for meeting organizers, the feature can also help meeting organizers know who is within a meeting. Once you have dozens of participants in a meeting, it can be difficult to keep track of who joins. This upcoming feature will make it easy to lock a meeting once all the desired participants arrive.

Windows 10 Office App

Right now, the Office app on Windows 10 is more of a hub to get you to other ways to access files and documents. If you don't have the standalone Office apps installed, the Office app on Windows has a button to take you to a webpage to download them. You can also see all of your files and documents within the Office app but clicking on them takes you over to a web browser.
Soon, Microsoft will turn the Office app into a progressive web app in June. With this update, you'll be able to open files and documents directly within the Office app on Windows. To start, you'll only be able to view files, but the ability to edit will come in the future. You'll also be able to open multiple instances of the Office app.
The updated Office app isn't intended to replace the dedicated Office apps on Windows 10. The Office programs within it are the web-based versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other apps.
The improved unified Office app on Windows will be somewhat similar to the Office apps on iOS and Android. These unified Office apps for mobile devices let you jump into and edit files and documents.

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