Microsoft Teams just got some new personal features with an intention to bring friends and family together. Microsoft Teams has mostly been a working app for official meetings, collaborations, online classes, etc but now with these new features, you can add your friends and family, chat, call to coordinate, make some plans, and have fun together. Although Teams already had a video calling feature, there’s a lot more for you to know about these personal features.
Let’s learn about these features in detail.
How to use Personal Features in Microsoft Teams
The personal features were made available for the general public on March 17 for all three available platforms- web, desktop, and mobile. With these new features, users can now connect with their friends and family better. While the new group chats will help you make and coordinate the plans better, the video calls will make you feel that you are actually sitting with your loved ones. These features are designed specially to bring you closer to your loved ones in these tough pandemic times when we can’t really see or meet each other.
Video Calls in Microsoft Team
I know, video calls are not a new feature for Teams, in fact, every video conferencing app has it but here it’s a little different. How about bringing all your loved ones in a dining room virtually or may in your drawing room?
[Images source – Microsoft]
Yes, that’s what the new video call feature is all about. It will make you feel that you are actually sitting with your loved ones in the same room. This feature is named Together Mode. It has a variety of virtual environments like a coffee shop, a family lounge, a summer resort, and much more.
Just imagine, how exciting it would be to feel everyone in the same room while talking on a video . Definitely more engaging and fun than the standard video calls.
Furthermore, you can also use the live emoji reactions and GIFs to make your conversation even more interesting and engaging. One of the best parts here is that not everyone needs to signup for Teams to use this feature. You can simply start the together mode and send the meeting link and they can join via their apps or even from the web platform without evening logging in. They can join the meeting using any device, a mobile phone (Android/iOS), Windows PC, or Mac.
Another great feature here is that if you miss a group video call from your friends or family, you can catch up anytime, read the entire chat and be a part of the conversation. Yes, the chat done during the call remains there even after the call is done.
Make Plans In Chat Room
Making plans and bringing everyone on the same page has always been so difficult and time-consuming right? Not anymore. With the new personal features added in Microsoft Teams, you can make a giant plan with your gang easily. Firstly, making a chat room is so simple now. You just need to add their email or phone numbers to add them and yes, same as the video call option, it is not mandatory for the attendees to be a Teams user. They can still check the messages and respond via SMS text messages.
Once a group chat is created, you can assign tasks, make a to-do list, decide the dates, etc, and the other participants can not just see them but also edit the task details or check off the completed tasks from the to-do lists.
How easy! Isn’t it?
Also, you can convert any message into a task and add it to your tasks list. For example, your mom sends a message in the group that you are running out of bread, you can simply convert it into a task and add it to your grocery list then and there.
Create Polls in Chat
Taking the decision is the toughest thing when you are making a plan with many people. Deciding upon what to do on the coming weekend, what to order for dinner, which movie to watch together, date, time, etc, is the biggest task while making a plan with your gang, whether it’s a hiking trip with friends or a family party. This is where Polls help. With Teams, now you can create polls in your chat room and everyone can vote as per their preferences. How easy will it become to decide upon a date with such polls.
So, when the poll is completed, everyone can see the result and add it to their calendars or take the action accordingly. If you don’t want to add a poll, you can share an open spreadsheet in the chat wherein everyone can add their favorite restaurants or movies, and then you can make a decision.
All the content shared in the chat like the photos, shared tasks, web links, events, etc, is very well organized in the dashboard view. You can quickly jump on to the chat and check the shared information.
The balance between work and personal life
Now, this is very important. When you use Microsoft Teams for both work and personal use, it is very important to balance them out. All your contacts, files, chats, and other details for each of your accounts are kept separate. You can quickly switch between the two accounts simply by clicking on your profile.
Overall, these new personal features added in Teams will make certainly bring us closer to our friends and family. If you have been using Teams only for your work, just click on your profile to add a personal account now to enjoy these features.
You can download the iOS, Android, or desktop app to get started today.
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