If you’re not yet familiar with Microsoft Teams, 2021 may be the year to start utilizing the popular team-collaboration software. Currently, the software has over half a million commercial users, and it is rapidly growing.
Coronavirus helped skyrocket demand for the software throughout 2020, as employees were forced to work remotely from home. It appears that this demand is set to continue for the foreseeable future. As a result, Microsoft is jumping at the opportunity to roll out new updates that will attract even more customers as well as fulfill the demands of current users.
So, what can we expect from Microsoft Teams in the new year? In this article, we will show you what’s new and discuss why your business may want to consider joining the masses and start utilizing the innovative team-collaboration software.
What’s New in Microsoft Teams for 2021?
It probably comes as no surprise that COVID-19 has influenced the majority of the updates due to come out in 2021. The massive demand for enhanced team collaboration, meetings, chat, and workflow management has pushed Microsoft to focus on these key features.
It’s also been a great boost in innovation for software developers like Microsoft who have been forced to create more user-friendly collaboration features based on the specific needs of remote working. Here’s what’s new in 2021 for Microsoft Teams.
More Attendees
Virtual events have now become an essential feature for a huge number of businesses across the globe. While employees are forced to work from home, events, training, and seminars must go on.
To support companies, Microsoft will increase the attendee limit to 20,000. This will significantly help large businesses and event companies to continue with their operations in a virtual and interactive setting.
Annual conferences, company announcements/updates, training, and seminars can continue with the ability to include all employees around the world right from their desks at home.
Concurrent Events
Let’s say you have a company-wide training week. You have twelve departments with 10,000+ employees, and all are required to take part in the new training program. In 2021, Microsoft teams will allow you to host 50 events across one tenant.
What does this mean? It means you could run 50 separate training events simultaneously with employees dipping in and out of each one as they’re required to. There is a huge potential here to save money, time, and resources, streamlining your events.
Longer Meetings and Events
Currently, Microsoft Teams allows for a maxim of four hours’ broadcasting time. From January 1st, 2021, you will get a maximum of 16 hours to play with. Great news for any business or events company with extensive seminars or training events to roll out next year.
We’re positive that this update will be a major game-changer for some of Microsoft’s larger, multinational clients.
Attendee Planning Limit to Be Extended
As mentioned above, you will get an increased maximum of 20,000 attendees from 2021, but you will also get an extended limit of 100,000 attendees that can be planned using the Microsoft-365 Assistance Program.
This program will not only help you organize your event, but it will organize your schedule, help you rehearse your content, help with test runs, and even give advice on the coordination and production of your event.
Hold the phone on that new phone system!
One of the killer features of teams is the ability to add traditional voice capability and dial-in conferencing. You can now take your fully-featured office phone system with you anywhere you are and access it using the familiar Teams application on your laptop or mobile. There are also a range of handset, meeting room phones and video room systems you can add, replacing your legacy office telephone system.
Is It Time to Sign up to Microsoft Teams?
If you don’t already know, the basic Microsoft Teams software comes free with your Microsoft-365 license. You can also extend the functionality of Microsoft Teams with plugins and integrations with many other popular applications and services, such as Microsoft Dynamics, Salesforce, Hubspot and more, with over 250 integrations and counting.
As we move into the new year, it’s unpredictable what will happen. We may be set for at least another three to six months working remotely, and the use of team-collaboration software will become critical to the success of your business.
Microsoft Teams can help you to efficiently organize your staff, improve communication throughout your organization, and allow the workforce to stay connected at any time and from anywhere. Used to its full capability, you could organize a global workforce that functions the same as, if not better than, when they were in the office.
