You can now collaborate in Microsoft Teams meetings with Excel Live

Earlier this year, during Microsoft Inspire 2022, Microsoft launched Excel Live, a feature that lets Microsoft Teams meeting attendees collaborate on Excel workbooks in real time. With this feature in place, the user will no longer need to share their screen during meetings which at times disrupts the orientation.

With Excel Live now generally available, Teams users will now be able to collaborate on Excel files directly within the meeting window as it supports Sheet Views. “The workbook loads for each participant at the optimized zoom level with flexibility to adjust zoom based on their preferences”.

However, Excel Live comes with three known limitations. First up, the feature can only be used in meetings with up to 25 attendees and they must all come from the same organization. Secondly, recordings can only be made in audio format, you cannot make Excel Live meeting video recordings. And finally, Web support to start sharing will work only in Public Preview, it will not be available for general release.

To access the feature, launch Microsoft Teams and join the meeting, select the Share option, then head on over to the Excel Live section. From this point, select the spreadsheet you want to share with meeting attendees. And finally, click on the Share button to share the spreadsheet. You will however need to have full sharing permissions.

In other related news, Microsoft launched Teams Rooms Pro which is designed to provide an integrated experience and bridge the gap between physical and digital workspaces. Microsoft Teams will soon let users view the entire chat thread in search results.