Microsoft Teams Rooms on Android: New touch and collaboration experiences

Originally posted by Microsoft Dec 2, 2022 Microsoft Teams 0 Comments

This update introduces several new features for Teams Rooms on Android and will be made available through the Teams Admin Center. These new touch and collaboration experiences especially optimize the experience for Neat Board and Yealink Meeting Board, a new form factor for Teams Rooms on Android where audio, video, touch display, and compute are combined in a single unit to instantly transform any space into a Teams meeting space. 

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 101948

When this will happen:

We will begin rolling out in mid-December and expect to complete by late December. 

How this will affect your organization:

Touch awareness and 4K display support

New touch and collaboration experiences includes 4K display support to further enhance meeting experience on large screen devices and touch awareness support which gives users the ability to control the room system from both the Front of Room touch display and the touch console for convenience. To get this experience, the “Enable touch controls” setting on the device must be enabled.

Walk up and use Microsoft Whiteboard 

Users can also quickly start collaborating outside of a Teams meeting with the new, one-touch Whiteboard icon on the home screen. Tapping on this will launch the Microsoft Whiteboard app locally, and it also allows users to start an ad-hoc meeting with their local whiteboard, enabling them to seamlessly switch from local to online collaboration. The “Allow initiate Whiteboard” setting on the device must be enabled to get this experience. See instructions on how to manage Microsoft Whiteboard sharing in Teams here.

Chat notifications

Remote camera Pan-Tilt-Zoom (PTZ) controls from desktop

What you need to do to prepare:

When joining from a Teams Rooms device, users will start to see incoming chat messages to help them participate in meetings on equal grounds with chat notifications. This feature will be enabled by default but can be disabled on the device settings. Users can also temporarily turn this off in a meeting. 

Remote meeting participant can add the PTZ Camera Controls app and control the zoom and orientation of a Teams Rooms camera directly from their desktop during a meeting. To get this experience, the Far end camera control policy must be enabled on the resource accounts. See full instructions here. 

Please plan on updating all Microsoft Teams Rooms on Android in your tenant to the latest version through the Teams Admin Center. Note that the availability of this app update is device dependent. Please work with OEMs to confirm app support timelines. Once devices are updated, you can enable new functionalities through the device settings. You may want to notify your users about these new capabilities and update your training and documentation as appropriate.  

Message ID: MC477020