Microsoft Teams Room on Android Update (1449/1.0.96.2023031201)

In the last blog, we looked at Microsoft Teams Roon on Windows updates 4.16 that improves the overall UI changes and new features that Microsoft brings to meet the feature parity issues between MTRoW & MTRoA platforms.

This blog will look at the MTRoA update 1449/1.0.96.2023031201 released in March'2023.

This version brings new features and improvements that enhance the meeting experience and device management. 

In the new UI, the Adhoc meeting experience is improved to meet with the MTRoW experience. Now you can tap on "Meet" it will instantly start the meeting. So, you can prepare for screen sharing/Invite others etc whereas, in an earlier release, it will take you to the participant search option.

Now the whiteboard app is moved to the front page. If you are using a touch-enabled screen, you can instantly initiate the whiteboard and collaborate like in Surface Hub.

Under the "More" option, you now have the option to "Join with Meeting-ID" to join the Teams meeting. This is one of the great improvements on MTRoA platforms. This feature only supports Teams meeting now, but MTRoW with 4.16 supports Teams and Zoom meetings. Will soon, MTRoA also will support both platforms.

Though it's best practice to invite the room calendar for the best experience, there are lots of situation users go with their phone and wants to join a meeting. Join with the Meet-ID option will help to support that use case.

New Video Layouts -

Teams Front Row -  is a new feature that enhances the hybrid meeting experience for both in-person and remote participants. It allows the meeting room display to show a dynamic view of the remote attendees and the meeting content, chat, and other relevant information. It also enables the in-room camera to capture the entire room and use AI to crop and zoom on the active speakers, making them more visible and engaging for the remote participants. Teams Front Row is designed to make hybrid meetings more productive and inclusive.

Font Row Experience when no content is shared -

Font Row Experience when content is shared-

In this view, you can see the meeting chat on the right, and the Meeting title will be at the bottom.

Meeting Control Options -

You can enable/disable chat bubbles, Turn on/off live captions, turn on/off the remote control.

Now you can share your computer audio with remote participants through HDMI cable. This is at end user-level settings, and this can be managed meeting level.

Manage Teams meeting Audio/Video for participants. -

You have more control to manage your meeting from the remote console. You can enable/disable the attendee's microphone and camera settings.

You can easily move the participants to different roles e.g, Attendee/presenter.

You can manage the individual participant's Microphone, Cameras, Spotlight up to 7 participants in the call, pin the participant in the FoR display for personal view etc.

Teams Room Admin Level Settings -

If you have enabled Inbound calling, you can block the calls with no caller-ID. Now MTRoA rooms support emergency locations. Configure your network topology and assign the emergency call routing policy if you allow outbound calling options from conference rooms.

If you have a touch-enabled display, you can enable "Enable touchscreen console." So, you can start the meeting and manage the meeting controls right from the display itself. It also allows collaboration on the whiteboarding app.

You have the option to change the FoD and console wallpaper. Currently, we don't have the option to upload custom wallpaper. I hope Microsoft makes that possible one day.

Bluetooth beaconing in Teams is a feature that allows users to discover and join nearby meetings without having to enter a meeting ID. This feature can enhance the meeting experience by making joining a meeting from your laptop easier and faster using the "Remote Audio" option. 

You can manage room audio/video/microphone/video layouts etc, using Room Remote option. Check this article for information.

Enable/Disable the whiteboard option on this device.

Enable/Disable chat bubbles - You can individually manage them in the meeting even if enabled here.

Teams Room Pro features -

Microsoft Teams Room Pro license supports E2EE meetings and watermarking on the video and consent sharing. The organizer needs a Teams Premium license to work in MTR rooms for this feature.

Extend Room Reservation -

- On the Teams Room console, tap the Meeting icon on the bottom right corner of the screen.

- Tap the Extend button next to the current meeting name and duration.

- Choose how long you want to extend the meeting for and tap Confirm.

- The meeting will be extended and the room will remain booked for the new duration.

Note: You can only extend a meeting if there is no other reservation for the room in the next 15 minutes. If there is a conflict, you will see a message on the screen and you will need to find another room or end your meeting on time.

Teams Rooms supports 3rd party meeting platforms to join WebEx or Zoom meetings via Direct Guest join method using WebRTC protocols.

Teams Room Remote on MTRoW & MTRoA Rooms

In our last blog, we looked at how to use the "Room Remote" option to control the meeting without needing an additional room console or having someone moderating the room from their personal mobile in the room.

Room Remote allows you to join and manage meetings, adjust audio and video settings, change the layout, and more from your laptop.

Please check if you still need to. 

Now the "Room Remote" feature was also extended to windows PC.

Prerequisites to use the Room Remote -

• You need to be signed in to the Teams with the same tenant account that the room is signed in to.
• It supports only Windows.
• You must be in the same room.

Room Remote on the MTRoA Room -

Long press the "Room Name" from the participant list, and in the pop-up, select the "Console Room System".

In the Room Remote console, you can manage the below room console options,

• Turn On/Off the Video.
• Mute/Unmute.
• Start the live captions.
• Change the Video layouts e,g Gallery, and Front Row.
• Room Volume control.
• Disconnect from the meeting.

Room Remote on the MTRoW Room

You can control all the features above, but MTRoW supports only "Galley" video layouts.

Teams App Update (4.16) on the Microsoft Teams Room on Windows

Teams room on windows update 4.16

If you are using Teams room devices in your organization, you might be interested in the latest windows update 4.16, released on March 28, 2023. This update brings some new features and improvements to the Teams room experience, bug fixes, and security enhancements.

Improved UI -

The latest update for Teams room brings a new and improved user interface that enhances the meeting experience. The new UI features a simplified layout, larger icons, and easier access to common actions. You can now join, share, and manage meetings with just a few taps on the touch screen. The new UI also supports dark mode and high contrast settings for better visibility. 

Microsoft is standardizing UI across the Windows and Android platform to use better usability.

With this update, MTRoW will show the calendars on the front room display just like in Android.

Improved Video layout: 

Teams room devices now support a new video layout that optimizes the screen space and shows more participants at once. You can also switch between different views, such as gallery, large gallery, together mode, or content-only mode, by tapping on the screen and selecting the desired option.

You can customize the display for Front Row view what to show on your left/right side of the front room display,

You can enable/disable the meeting chat option when using the "Focus on content" layout.

Enhanced spotlighting:

Teams room devices now allow you to spotlight up to seven participants at once, making it easier to focus on the speakers or presenters in a large meeting. You can also spotlight yourself if you want to draw attention to your video or content. To spotlight someone, tap on their video and select Spotlight. To remove the spotlight, tap on their video again and select Remove spotlight.

Bug fixes and security enhancements: 

Windows update 4.16 also includes several bug fixes and security enhancements that improve the performance and reliability of Teams room devices. For example, it fixes an issue where the device would freeze or crash when joining a meeting with a large number of participants. It also updates the device firmware and drivers to address some security vulnerabilities.

Live reactions:

You can now express your emotions and feedback during a meeting using live reactions. These are animated emojis that appear on your video feed and disappear after a few seconds. You can choose from a variety of reactions, such as applause, thumbs up, heart, laughter, and more. To use this feature, tap on the Reactions icon on the meeting controls and select your reaction.

Content camera support:

If you have a Teams room device with a content camera, you can now use it to share physical content such as whiteboards or documents during a meeting. The content camera will automatically detect and enhance the content, and you can also use digital ink to annotate it. To use this feature, tap on Share content on the meeting controls and select Content camera.

Join a meeting with an ID:

Now you can join Zoom and Teams Meeting with meeting-ID.

Teams meeting control:

You can manage to turn on/off live captions, Enable/Disable chat bubbles, and Enable/Disable Room Remote.

Invite this Room -

It's more of an instruction on how to invite the room from your laptop to connect to the Teams meeting.

Share feedback with Microsoft -

Share the content using HDMI cable or use wireless cast -

How to enable it?

• Manually update a Microsoft Teams Rooms device.
• Once the Teams App is updated, it doesn't automatically enable the Teams new experience. For now, you have to enable the feature through  XML file.

                     <SkypeSettings>

          <TeamsRoomsNewExperience>true</TeamsRoomsNewExperience>

</SkypeSettings>

• The background image will span into Room Console and Front Room Display.
• Now you can see the room calendar information on the FoD.
• If you are using custom image for branding or to display room instructions, you have to update them to fit with new UI changes.
• Make sure your systems is updated to latest windows updates.

Microsoft Teams Client 2.0 is released in Public Preview

Originally Microsoft Teams 2.0 was announced in June 2021, which has lots of performance improvements e.g., Memory, CPU, and Disk Utilization. I have updated more details in the below article.

https://m365community.blogspot.com/2023/02/microsoft-releasing-new-microsoft-teams.html

Microsoft Teams 2.0 is released in the Public Preview (Early Access) today (March 2023).

In the Teams update policy, a few options were included, and some option was enhanced.

• Login to Microsoft Teams Admin Center.
• Navigate to "Teams" and select "Teams update policies"
• Create a new policy to limit the number of users using the Early access features.

In the Update policy, now you have the option to "Force" users to use "Public Preview"/Early Access instead of asking users to switch profiles/clients.

Now the policy is added a "Use new Teams client" option for Teams 2.0 option.

•  Not Enabled - Continue to use the current Teams client.
• Users can choose - This option enables users to choose to install Teams 2.0 and use it.
• Microsoft Controlled - Microsoft controls the client release.

Once the Teams upgrade policy is assigned to the user, it takes ~1 hour to replicate. Once you are in the EA profile, you will see the "Try the new Teams" client option.

Once you choose it will automatically download the Teams 2.0 client and see the full list of Teams 2.0 features.

After installation, the Teams client will start in the "Preview" version.

Since not lots of features are available you can easily switch between Teams 2.0 and Teams (legacy).

Teams Channel Conversation -

• Now the chat conversation is top to bottom. You can pot and check the most recent activity at the top.
• You can now Pop out that conversation in its own window.
• You can control the "Replay" to your conversation right from the post.
• Easily switch between "Post an Announcement".

• In the chat conversation, it will identify the remote participant's local time zone setting and suggest you schedule a chat message.

Teams Real-Time monitoring

 

Microsoft Teams is a powerful collaboration platform that enables users to communicate and work together seamlessly. However, sometimes meeting quality can suffer due to various factors such as network issues, device problems, or user errors.

One of the new features that Microsoft Teams offers is Real-Time Monitoring (RTM), released in Nov'2021 - which allows admins to access real-time call quality analytics for scheduled meetings and Meet Now sessions. 

RTM is a dashboard that shows detailed information about each participant's device, network, audio, video, and content sharing performance during a meeting. Admins can use this data to identify and resolve any issues that may affect meeting quality.

What are the benefits of Real-Time-Monitoring (RTM)?

RTM is a valuable tool for admins and support teams who need to ensure meeting quality for their users. 

• It provides real-time visibility into meeting performance for internal users and Teams devices such as Teams Rooms, Surface Hub, Teams Display, and Collaboration Bar. For privacy reasons, you cannot see real-time telemetry data for external or guest users.

• It allows admins to join scheduled meetings remotely and see the same data as the participants, without affecting the meeting experience or consuming additional resources.

• It helps admins to diagnose and resolve issues such as poor audio quality, video freezing, content sharing lagging, or network instability during a meeting.

• It supports proactive troubleshooting by alerting admins of any potential issues before they impact meeting quality.

• It enables admins to provide feedback and guidance to users on how to improve their meeting experience, such as changing their device settings, network connection, or meeting environment.
• It supports various client platforms and devices. You can see real-time telemetry data for participants using desktop clients (Windows, Mac, Linux), web clients (Edge, Chrome), mobile clients (iOS, Android), and Teams devices (Teams Rooms, Surface Hub, Teams Display, Collaboration Bar). 

How to access RTM?

RTM is available for admins who have one of the following roles: Teams Administrator, Teams Communications Support Specialist, or Teams Communications Support Engineer. 

To access RTM, follow these steps:

• Go to the Teams admin center (https://admin.teams.microsoft.com).

• Under Users > Manage users, select a user and open the Meetings & calls tab on the user's profile page.

• Under Recent meetings, you will see a list of meetings that the user has attended within the past 24 hours for which real-time telemetry is available, including any in-progress meetings. If the meeting is not in progress or does not have real-time telemetry data, it will show up in Past meetings.

• To see additional information about participants of a meeting that is in progress, find the meeting in Recent meetings and select the link under the Participants column to subscribe to the data.

• To see the telemetry for all the users for an in-progress meeting, select the Meeting ID.

Note: For a meeting to show up under Recent Meetings, a Teams admin must have clicked on the meeting in RTM while the meeting was in progress to begin the flow of real-time client telemetry. It's not subscribed to the RTM data by default.

What are the metrics and measures available in RTM?

RTM shows various metrics and measures that indicate the performance and quality of each participant's device, network, audio, video, and content sharing during a meeting.

• Device information: This includes the user name (for internal users only), IP address, regional location (based on IP address), device model and manufacturer (for supported devices), operating system version (for supported devices), and connectivity type (wired, WiFi, or WWAN).

• Network metrics: This includes jitter (the variation in delay between packets), packet loss (the percentage of packets that are lost or discarded), round trip time (the time it takes for a packet to travel from sender to receiver and back), bandwidth (the amount of data that can be transmitted per unit of time), and network MOS (mean opinion score).

• Audio metrics: This includes audio bitrate (the amount of data used to encode audio per unit of time), audio packet loss rate (the percentage of audio packets that are lost or discarded), audio jitter buffer (the buffer that compensates for jitter by delaying audio playback), audio concealment ratio (The percentage of all call seconds that had concealment events due to lost data. )

• Video metrics: This includes Round Trip Time (The time it takes for a packet to travel from sender to receiver and back), Bitrate (The amount of data used to encode video per unit of time), Frame Rate (The number of frames per second of video the client is sending), Loss Recovery Attempt Rate (The number of times requested from the network loss causing the video to freeze), Video Source Freeze Count (No.of time source camera didn't generate new frames), Bandwidth (the amount of data that can be transmitted per unit of time).

• Application Sharing -You can check the content sharing inbound/outbound network details that include Bitrates, Packet Loss, Frame Rate, Harmonic Frame Rate, Normalized Freeze Duration (Freezing that is observed on the receiving side), Audio/Video Sync.

CPU and System Battery - These are the new metrics and measurements that Microsoft recently included on the RTM.  System CPU Usage - (Indicates whether the system resources are high relative to Teams app then it indicates system performance issues), Teams App CPU usage ( Amount of CPU used by Teams app during the call), Battery level ( Indicates whether the system on the charge or remaining battery in the system).

Limitations- 

• PSTN, 1:1 Calls, and Group calls are not supported in RTM.

• Teams CVI (Cloud Video Interop) Calls. e.g Poly, Bluejeans 

• Cisco WebEx Room device joining via WebRTC (Hybrid Calendaring).

• Real-time telemetry is only available for presenters of scheduled live event. It's currently not available for live event attendees.

• Real-time telemetry data is available for a meeting under Recent meetings for 24 hours after the meeting has ended. After 24 hours, you can't access the data and the meeting moves to Past meetings. If a meeting is longer than 3 hours, real-time telemetry will only be available for the last 3 hours.
• Telemetry isn't available in real-time when using older versions of Teams. 
• It will show the RTM data only from when you started the subscription. e,g if there is an ongoing call and somebody reports an issue, you want to see the old RTM details, it will not show.