Microsoft Teams News
An Important one for all the Microsoft Teams Admins, Microsoft Teams clients older than 90 days that are not updating will be blocked from the service. An in-app warning banner will appear 60 days before the app is blocked (30 days for VDI). This started on April 11th for Windows and starts on May 6th for VDI and May 15th for Mac. Details and screenshots of the messages in MC1047923.
Microsoft General Channel is back by popular demand! If you didn't know it was gone, you can skip over this 😂. Initially, Microsoft planned to block the use of General as the name for the first channel of a new team (MC814583). But after feedback, General is back, with the option to choose your first channel name. Details in MC1048628.
Finally, two nice feature additions are coming June/July, Detect sensitive content screen shared in meetings. (Teams Premium) and Share PowerPoint control with all presenters concurrently (finally, the end of 'Next slide please'?).
Teams Contact Center Certification Changes and Licensing Enforcement
A name change in Microsoft Teams Contact Center Certification, “Unify” is the new name of Microsoft Teams Contact Center certification Integration model that was called "Power" in what was Connect (SIP with Direct Routing), Extend (Graph APIs) and Power (ACS) certification options.
Unify integration uses ACS and relies on "Teams Phone extensibility" (lower case e), the name for the technology that ISVS and Dynamics 365 Contact Centre use to integrate to Teams and would use if they want to certify as a Unify solution. A good update from the docs team explains Unify here.
No solution ever certified for "Power" as Microsoft were still finalising the API/SDK/ACS story, even though the name "Power" has been around for years. Now with Teams Phone extensibility, we should soon see some Unify-certified contact centers coming through. I'll be watching closely and will keep you updated.
Also, in the contact centre, if you use an Extend Certified Contact Centre, this is one to check in your environment. From June, Microsoft is enforcing users' need for a Teams Phone license for Extend Contact Centres and Attendant Consoles. From their blog “As part of Microsoft’s feature parity with Teams Phone extensibility, we’re announcing the enforcement of Phone System license checks for Bot-initiated transfers to Teams users.”
Effective June 2025, Teams users will still have the option to transfer calls to other Teams users manually, even if they don’t have a Teams Phone license but Bot-initiated transfers and add participant requests to non-Teams Phone licensed users will be blocked. This is always how the licence requirements have been documented, so it's not new, but it was never technically enforced, so there is a risk if you didn't have your users licensed.
Teams Rooms and Devices News
Management of all Teams Rooms on Windows devices, irrespective of their licenses, will be moved to the Teams Rooms Pro Management portal on May 1, 2025.
Basic and Standard licensed Teams Rooms customers have access to a subset of features that equate to what they had in the Teams admin center, so they don't get the full management capabilities of the Pro license, as you would expect.
Teams Rooms on Windows devices will no longer be available in Teams admin center (TAC) after June 1, 2025.
Microsoft Teams Rooms on Android will be moving too, giving one portal for all rooms management, but we don't have an ETA on that yet. Details in the blog from Microsoft and MC1041960.
I feel like a broken record talking about this, but AOSP firmwares continue to roll out for Microsoft Teams Rooms and Devices. May 15th is a big date! From this date, Microsoft will start proactively updating devices. These are not pausable! Devices will update based on the phases set in Teams Admin Center; Validation: 0-15 days; General: 16-45 days (default); Final: 45-60 days. Check the blog for the latest dates on your device's firmware.
Make sure you have configured your Intune settings (here is Michel Bouman explaining how to do it in 1 minute).
New devices this month: Shure certified a USB Podcast Mic and headset for Teams, the AONIC 50 GEN 2 UC Headset and MV7+ Microphone. Biamp certified their Vidi 280 camera for Teams Rooms, and 20 2N intercom devices hit the SIP gateway compatibility list (though a £120 per device fee applies).
Copilot and AI News
Just one update, but a big one. Starting on May 1, 2025, Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat (the version included with no extra license) will be pinned by default in the navigation bar of Teams, Outlook, and the Microsoft 365 Copilot app.
Admins can change the pinning settings by selecting an option to pin Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat to the navigation bar. Make sure your users are ready for this change. Details in MC1045945