What's NEW for your Teams and Webex desktop apps
Webex Teams Accessibility Support; UIT; Webex; Desktop App; Webex Meetings Desktop App The Cisco Webex Meetings desktop app allows you to access your most commonly used Webex Meetings site controls all in one place. You can use the Webex Meetings desktop app to easily view your upcoming meetings, start and join your meetings, and connect to a. Webex Meetings – on your desktop: Webex Teams – on your desktop: Schedule meetings: From the Meetings app or your email calendar: From the Teams app or your email calendar: Ad-hoc meetings: Using Meet Now and share the link: Start the call from within Teams, with one or a group: Share screens::: Chat during meeting:. Download Microsoft Teams now and get connected across devices on Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android. Collaborate better with the Microsoft Teams app. Difference Between Teams and Webex The 21st century workplace is unlike the traditional workplace where team collaboration could be confined to office spaces. The modern workplace is progressively transitioning into a space where collaboration and synchronicity are central, and team collaboration expands beyond traditional work hours and office spaces.
With the popularity of teleworking and online collaboration over the past few months, the developers with Microsoft Teams and Cisco Webex have been busy improving our meeting experience. Read on to find out how you can start using most of these new updates now and what’s coming soon.
Microsoft Teams
Calamity makeupteach to be happy. Microsoft Teams has tweaked the desktop app to improve your meeting experience. Most of the updates, like pop-out meetings, can be switched on now (see steps in this post)
Other features are being fine-tuned and will launch within the next few days.
Pop-out meetings and docked meeting controls
Currently, a Teams meeting appropriates your entire Teams interface. But calls and meetings will soon automatically pop out into their own window so you can move a meeting to the most convenient spot of your screen and continue to access the rest of your Teams app.
Meeting controls will also park in the upper right of the meeting window – out of the way and never hidden.
Meeting notes
Webex Teams App Download
Take notes within the meeting window – they’re saved in the channel’s Notes tab. To open the side pane and start taking notes, click the More options (…) ellipsis menu in the meeting controls bar and choose “Show meeting notes.”
Live captions
A great new universal design feature is live captions. Using the Microsoft Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) technology service, Teams detects what is being said and creates a caption in real time, giving meeting participants a more inclusive experience. Just start a meeting and activate live captions from the More options (…) ellipsis menu. Please note that meeting captions are not saved.
Focus mode
To pay closer attention when content is shared, temporarily close other participants’ video feeds by clicking the More options (…) ellipsis menu in the meeting controls bar and choosing “Focus mode.”
Large gallery view and together mode
With large gallery view, see up to 49 video streams at once (ten or more attendees sharing video). For something fun and different, together mode mimics a conference room (five or more participants sharing video).
Find either option in the More options (…) ellipsis menu.
Switch on Teams features TODAY
- Open the Teams desktop app
- Click your profile icon (top right)
- Click Check for updates (any updates could take a moment to install)
- Click your profile icon again
- Click Settings
- Under General, click this option:
Turn on new meeting experience… - Close Settings
- Quit Teams
Mac – app menu bar/Force Quit
Windows – task bar/right click/Quit - Restart Teams
To learn more about Teams meetings and these exciting new features, visit this Microsoft Office Support page.
Improved Cisco Webex Experience
Earlier this month, Webex launched the new 40.9 in-meeting experience, and like Microsoft Teams, updates the interface through several optimized and improved features.
Intuitive audio and video settings preview
Webex Teams Desktop App Download
The audio selection menu has been moved to a more prominent position over the Join Meeting button. Now you’re less likely to forget checking audio settings BEFORE joining your meeting.
Also, the larger preview window lets you actually check your “meeting face.”
Prominent meeting controls
Meeting controls no longer clutter the meeting space but now reside at the bottom of the meeting window. They’re also intuitively grouped: Mute and Stop Video are grouped together, then the other options like Share and Record, and finally, the Participants and Chat open/close panels are conveniently on the right.
The control buttons also have drop-down menus and sport easy-to-read labels to help you quickly share, record and find the all-important Mute option. However, if you’re short on screen space, the controls automatically adjust to an appropriate size.
The audio button also signals when you are speaking (it turns green) to let you know if you need to adjust the volume or device.
Breakout Rooms – The Most-Requested Feature
One of the most-requested features in both Teams and Webex is the ability to use breakout spaces within a meeting. This allows a smaller group of attendees to have a private discussion and then rejoin the larger meeting.
Teams
ITCS has been working with Microsoft on this feature for the past few months, and ECU users are now able to test and report feedback before the final version is launched. Look for details in a future article.
Webex
According to Webex, breakout sessions will be available by the end of September. See this breakout session article from Webex to learn about this much-anticipated feature.
Post expires at 11:36am on Wednesday September 15th, 2021
Without optimization, Webex app messaging works as-is in a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) environment. The full Webex app experience also includes calling and meetings, which require video and audio media processing.
Because of a limitation known as the hairpin effect, calling, meeting, and accompanying video capability are not supported without optimization. The additional bandwidth required for calls and video creates a bottleneck at the data center because the media flows from one user to the data center back to another user. As a result of this unoptimized media path and the lack of easy access to peripherals such as device speakers, microphone, and camera, the user experience is not ideal.
To fix the issue of the hairpin effect, the Webex VDI plugin extends the Cisco collaboration experience to virtual deployments so that users can use the full messaging, meeting, and calling functionality that the Webex app provides.
Class notes and homework handoutsmacs history. To reduce latency and to enhance media quality, the VDI plugin optimizes the media workflows by streaming media directly between users on thin client endpoints and leverages the hardware of the thin client machines to handle media processing. This media path does not go through the hosted virtual desktops (HVDs). The result is a stable and full-featured calling and meeting experience for your VDI users.
In this architecture, the Webex app is installed on the HVD in your VDI environment and required VDI plugins are installed on the user's thin client (typically a lightweight system, like a repurposed laptop or desktop).
Using a supported Linux or Windows-based thin client, users access the Webex app on the HVD from a remote virtual desktop environment. With supported versions of Webex, users can use all of the built-in messaging, meetings, and calling on Webex functionality on their thin client. Additionally, you can integrate Webex VDI with a Unified CM or Webex Calling environment, so that users can use supported call features. You can also deploy the full featured meetings experience by installing the Webex Meetings VDI plugin.
Note | The Webex on the virtual desktop still processes lightweight data such as the call signaling and retrieving configuration from the cloud. |
For new features for each release, see the Release Notes for more information.