Microsoft Teams update will add a whole new dimension to your presentations

Collaborative annotation comes to Microsoft Teams

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Microsoftis readying a new feature forcollaboration platformTeams that could introduce a greater level of interactivity to virtualpresentations.

As explained in anew additionto the company’s product roadmap,Microsoft Teamsusers will soon benefit from a “collaborative annotation” feature that allowsvideo meetingparticipants to make notations on shared content.

The roadmap entry reveals few specifics, but explains that presenters will be able to activate collaborative annotation mode for all participants, or just themselves.

Microsoft Teams presentations

Since the widespread transition toremote working, vendors in the collaboration software space have put a significant amount of energy and resources into enabling effective virtual meetings and presentations, with mixed results.

A common problem faced by companies is that a loud minority tends to dominate virtual meetings. Although this is also true of in-person meetings to an extent, the nature of video meetings means that less assertive team members often struggle to make themselves heard.

Over the last two years, Microsoft has rolled out a number of new Teams features designed to make meetings more interactive and reduce the likelihood that participants coast through meetings unnoticed.

Why Slack isn’t afraid of Microsoft Teams or any other competitor>Microsoft Teams update offers a glimpse at the future of collaboration>The unlikely CEO beating Teams and Zoom at their own game

For example, Microsoft upgraded its large gallery view, allowing for up to 49 participants to appear on-screen at any given time, and rolled out a new mode that places all attendees on a sharedvirtual background.

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The company also introduced new-look breakout rooms, which split large meetings into smaller group sessions, incentivising contribution from a wider variety of attendees.

The new collaborative annotation feature is the latest example, giving presenters an easy way to involve the audience directly and collaborate on shared content in real-time.

The update is still currently under development, but should roll out to all Microsoft Teams users by the end of June.

Joel Khalili is the News and Features Editor at TechRadar Pro, covering cybersecurity, data privacy, cloud, AI, blockchain, internet infrastructure, 5G, data storage and computing. He’s responsible for curating our news content, as well as commissioning and producing features on the technologies that are transforming the way the world does business.

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