Microsoft Ignite 2020 has been and gone and it was a massive whirlwind of information. Tons of Microsoft Ignite 2020 has been and gone and it was a massive whirlwind of information. Microsoft announced tons of new features and announcements for many of their products.
I’m James Arber, a Microsoft MVP and Unified Communications Consultant. In these articles, I’ll be breaking down everything new for Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Unified Communications.
- Part 1 - Admin, Collab, and Surface (This post)
- Part 2 - Teams Calling and Phones
- Part 3 - Meetings and Devices
Starting off in this article we will be diving into IT Pro, Collaboration and Surface announcements,
Links to relevant Microsoft announcements and Ignite sessions can be found under each heading. Let’s get started.
Microsoft 365 / Teams Admin Centre
Microsoft has put together a blog post wrapping up all the new admin features announced at Ignite 2020. But here is everything I found in the Ignite recordings.
Multi Tenant Support
This feature will allow IT Pro’s to quickly switch between tenants but just clicking the “All tenants” button below the Waffle Button, just like the Azure portal.
Admins will also be able to take a glance at all the tenants they manage and highlight any issues quickly.
More info: Session DB145 @26:00
Bulk Assign Policies to users
New features in the Teams Admin centre will allow administrators to bulk assign policies to Office 365 groups, or up to 50,000 users using filtering.
These policies will cover settings like Calling Polices, Meetings, Live Meetings, Teams and Channel polices, even Call Park.
The Admin portal will even let you see when policies have been applied instead of just asking users to “wait and see” a massive feature for any Teams admin.
More info: Session DB144 @6:30
Teams App Life Cycle Improvements
New features coming to the Teams Admin Centre for app life cycle management will include;
- New App Submission API
- Purchase Licenses for Third-Party Teams apps
- Org specific settings for Apps in the Teams Admin Centre
- Review app permissions globally
- Grant permissions and publish apps from the Teams Admin Centre, rather than installing it in a Teams client and configuring from there.
- Customize the look of the Teams app store for your business
More info: Session DB144 @8:00
Teams Admin Device Management
Some new changes are coming to the Teams Admin Center device management portal including;
- Adding the new Teams Displays category, More on those in Part 3
- Renaming Teams Rooms to Teams Rooms for Windows along with the announced rebranding
- Renaming Teams Collaboration Bars to Teams Rooms for Android along with the announced rebranding
- Adding Device Management alerts, Posts to a Team, person or an external WebHook if a device is offline/unhealthy
- A new Microsoft 365 admin role “Device Admin” allows your staff to just manage meeting rooms, phones and displays rather than everything in Teams.
- The new admin role will also allow administrators to delegate access to external MS Partners like Telstra Purple without giving them Global Admin / Teams Admin rights
More info: Session DB144 @15:50
Teams PowerShell Module Consolidation
For those unaware, Teams administrators have long had to use both the Teams and Skype for Business PowerShell modules to effectively manage Teams. Soon, Skype for Business Online cmdlets are being brought into the Teams PowerShell module to allow reduce admin overhead, simplify rights management and reduce duplicate authentication requests.
More info: Session DB144 @26:00
New Teams Colab Features
Lists in Teams – Rolling Out Now
Similar to SharePoint Lists, “Microsoft Lists” will let you setup Lists with conditional formatting, alerts and rules to action things as needed inside of Teams.
List app on iOS entering preview “Soon”
More info: Session DB136 @25:35
Lists in Depth: http://aka.ms/session/MSLists/Overview
Official Blog Post: Over here on Tech Community
Add to OneDrive – Preview Now
This new feature lets you add folders that have been shared with you to your OneDrive for Business.
No more messing about looking for that link you saved to access the document your working on
Permissions are kept by the original person sharing it so there is no need to worry about the inability to control a document.
More info: Session DB136 @26:15
Demo: Session DB136 @10:30 and @15:45
OneDrive in Depth: http://aka.ms/session/OneDrive/Overview
Tasks – This Calendar year
The new Tasks feature Integrates ToDo and Planner into the same place inside Teams.
Create tasks from @mentions in Word, Excel, Powerpoint or Messages in Teams
More info: Session DB136 @24:30
Demo: Session DB136 @10:00, @12:50, @13:45 and @15:45
Tasks in Depth: http://aka.ms/session/tasks/Overview
Project in Teams – End of 2020
Project for Teams will allow users to create new Projects and Roadmaps directly inside Teams.
Meaning there is no need to integrate Project Web as a Browser Tab anymore!
More info: Session DB136 @25:00
Surface Devices
Surface Duo – Teams “Double Landscape” Mode
If you don’t know about the new Surface Duo, it’s a new dual-screen device from Microsoft that looks to the taking on the concept of a small phone that opens up to do work.
Unlike the current trend of folding-screen phones, however, Microsoft is embracing the fact there is a clear divide between the two displays.
Allowing separate apps to run on each display or span across both with different workspaces on each.
Surface Duo Overview: Session DB137 @2:00
For example, the Teams app can split content and video across the two screens. Showing the content on the top screen with the meeting participant video down the bottom.
We hope you can switch the content and video, however. As the camera is on the top screen and would make for considerably better eye contact.
Teams Double Landscape Demo: Session DB137 @3:50
Surface Hub
New Surface Hub 85-Inch – Pre Orders Now – Ships Jan 2021
Along with the Surface Duo, Microsoft announced the new SurfaceHub 2 85 Inch with an 85 Inch 4K screen, using the same processing card as the SurfaceHub 2S allowing for ease of management and repair.
- New Steelcase Mounts
- Specially designed “Curved” package for fitting in elevators
- Pre-Order available now @ $21,999 USD
Surface Hub 85 Inch Overview: DB137 @5:00
Surface Hub – Duals Screen Meetings with Coordinated Meetings Experience – Available Now
Microsoft gave us a demo of the new Surface Hub coordinated join features. When the primary device joins the meeting it brings up the whiteboard for collaboration with the second device joining muted and displaying the meetings shared content.
This feature also works with a Teams Meeting room and a Surface Hub, giving the best of both worlds.
Surface Hub Coordinated Meeting Experience Demo: DB137 @11:00 and DB156 @16:30
More info on Coordinated Meetings: Teams August Updates
How to set it up: Docs.Microsoft.com
Windows 10 Team 2020 update – “Next Month”
A quick bit of introduction here. Windows Team, not to be confused with Microsoft Teams is a special hardened build of Windows specifiacally designed for devices like the Surface Hub with many features removed to reduce the attack surface of the device.
Until now Surface Hubs have been running a Windows 8 based build of Windows Team.
Microsoft has announced that it will be releasing the new Windows 10 based build of Windows Team “Next month”. Changes include;
- Free update to Surface Hub 1 and Surface Hub 2s via Windows Update
- Better Deployment and Manageability
- Azure AD, Single Sign-on, Conditional Access and non-global admins
- New MDM policies, FIDO2 security keys
More Info: Session DB137 @16:00
Surface Hub 2S with Windows 10 Pro/Enterprise – No Date
Along with the new Windows Teams announcement, Microsoft showed off the ability to install full Windows 10 Pro/Enterprise on a Surface Hub 2S to allow for a large canvas workspace for working with traditional win32 apps. Basically turning it into a big PC.
- Finger Print reader dongle plugs into side camera port for ease of logon
- In use at today in preview at UNSW,
- The demo includes Dr Kellerman integrating with Philips Hue to stop the camera washing out and X-Split so he can change scenes
Windows 10 pro was also mentioned in DB137 and the keynote, but no announcements on the release date.
Announcement: Key04 @11:00
Surface Hub with Windows Demo: DB137 @18:30
Next up
We go into all the announcements for Teams Calling and Phones in Part 2