M365 Perspective

Interpreter Agent Preview and Teams Phone Extensibility

Enterprise Connect delivered the big ones: Interpreter agent hits preview in March/April (Copilot licence required, MC1038409), and Teams Phone Extensibility arrives as a new contact centre certification with Anywhere365, AudioCodes, Enghouse, Landis and more.

Many thanks to Pure IP, this month's Empowering Cloud Benefactor. I got the latest from Pure IP at Enterprise Connect with Andy Ramos.

Teams Monthly Update Briefing - Enterprise Connect Special

My latest monthly update briefing is here. I cover all the Enterprise Connect news and a couple of snippets from the Microsoft Keynote in under 15 minutes (PowerPoint) - 10 client updates, 9 Rooms and Places Updates and 9 Teams Phone Updates.

Facilitator Agent taking in the room video feed was one of the most interesting new features.

Microsoft Teams News

I had a great week at Enterprise Connect. Thanks to everyone I met and who stopped me to say hello. The next event for me is Comms VNext, April 15-16, Denver, Colorado.

The Microsoft Enterprise Connect keynote highlight was a live demo of Interpreter agent (see it in the update briefing). Interpreter agent gives real-time speech-to-speech interpretation in multilingual Teams meetings. It is coming to preview in March / April (no GA date yet); details are in MC1038409. For the Preview, and I would bet for GA but not confirmed, a Microsoft 365 Copilot license is required.

The most significant new news from the show was "Teams Phone Extensibility," a new capability/certification for Contact Centers to integrate tightly with Microsoft Teams Phone. Teams Phone is used for PSTN connectivity/configuration and number management, and Azure Communications Services is used for the integration. This is essentially the "Power" model in the Connect/Extend/Power Contact Centre Teams integration/certification models.

Dynamics 365 Contact Center will be using this, along with ISVs currently using it and working through the new cerfication: Anywhere365, AudioCodes, ComputerTalk, Enghouse, IP Dynamics, Landis, and Luware. I caught up with Gidi from AudioCodes and Matt from Landis to get their explanations and perspectives. More on the Teams Blog and ACS Blog.

Lots of nice usability improvements are coming to the Teams client. The new chat and channels experience you should know about now; check out the details in our recent briefing. Snap and resize with Windows 11 Snap layouts, resize Teams chat, channels, meetings or activity panes, pop out meetings panels (GA April), and improved client zoom/scaling.

A change that you will want to communicate to your users is the channel Files tab is becoming ”Shared” MC1025217. The idea is that it's a place to access content shared in posts and files in the Team/channel document library in one location.

And hot off the press, Teams admins will need to take action on this one: MC1038684 —Microsoft is rolling out a new Microsoft Managed Policy. Global admins should create exclusion lists to exclude resource accounts that sign in on Teams Android devices.

Enterprise Connect Interviews

Check out these discussions for a deeper dive and thoughts on Enterprise Connect.

Microsoft Teams Devices News

Not too much device news this time. We have got confirmation (roadmap) that Rooms management will be moved to the Pro portal, even for legacy standard and Basic licensed rooms. Facilitator agent is coming for ad hoc and in-person discussion in Microsoft Teams Rooms (MC1020213, Public Preview).

At Enterprise Connect, Cisco announced they are bringing Apple Airplay to their MTRs, no ETA yet. Crestron’s Automate VX 6.4 update brings a new feature for Teams Rooms called Visual AI direction to enhance multi-camera switching. The system works by detecting faces and angles of facial features to select a camera that will deliver the best head-on view of the speaker.