Microsoft Teams will get all your organization in a meeting

Assuming your organization has 20.000 employees or less, Microsoft announced that it’s scaling Teams meetings to that many participants.

That is part of a bigger plan of the company to infuse Microsoft Teams with Advanced Communications.

We saw that coming since not long ago they announced an effort to improve communication in Teams by handling A/V redirect locally.

How do I add the Advanced Communications features in Teams?

As we mentioned above, it’s possible to have 20.000 participants in a meeting. However, only the first 1.000 will get to interact. After the limit will be reached, the others will be switched to a view only mode.

Another improvement is the enhanced admin control. The organizer gets to structure the meeting and add the company branding in the background.

Microsoft also promises to add a branded meeting lobby for a more professional look. A more important feature is setting up a compliance recording policy to keep that meeting private.

All the new capabilities will be available beginning this week and can be enabled based on an Advanced Communications plan which you can add to a Microsoft 365 or Office 365 paid subscription.

There is also a 60-day free trial through the Teams Admin Center starting now. You will also be able to contract it from the Microsoft Teams website but you will have to wait until mid-August.

A license will cost $12 per user per month.

Other Microsoft announcements

Good news for some organizations! Microsoft decided to extend the support for Skype for Business (3PIP) phones beyond 2023, so you will be able to use the phones while you organization moves to Teams.

According to Microsoft’s announcement, the list of accepted devices will be expanded:

Additionally, we will be supporting core calling features on SIP phones from Cisco, Yealink, Polycom, and others with Teams. Support for SIP phones will be available in the first half of 2021.

We are bringing a new line of Microsoft Teams phones with physical buttons, high-quality audio, and core calling features at an affordable price.

These phones are designed for common areas and basic information worker scenarios, with options available from AudioCodes, Poly, Yealink starting early 2021.

What do you think about the new Microsoft Teams features? Tell us all about it in the Comments section below.

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