Microsoft Teams Breakout Rooms is getting new features! + other roadmap updates

When looking at Microsoft Teams roadmap today I noticed that Breakout Rooms is getting new features! Scheduled to roll out already in this month are

  • Timer: Organizers can now set a timer for Breakout rooms from the Breakout Room settings. After timer has expired, rooms will automatically close and participants will come back to the main meeting.
  • Keep room configuration and assignments: Room assignment retention provides the ability to persist room configuration and assignment over multiple sessions.
  • Move people across rooms and main meeting when in Breakout Rooms: With participant reassignment capability, organizer will now be able to move joined participants across rooms and main meeting also when rooms are opened.

The roadmap item for “Breakout Rooms Timer and Room assignment retention” can be found here.

It will be possible to Present from PowerPoint to Teams “Present your slides directly from PowerPoint for Windows/Web into a Teams meeting via PowerPoint Live.” and you will be able to Translate slideshow content privately “Translate the slide show content privately in a Teams meeting with PowerPoint Live”. These are scheduled for April.

Microsoft Teams webinars “Custom attendee registration” is in other words “Add a custom attendee registration page to any meeting or webinar to better manage attendance before and after any engagement. Following registration, attendees receive an email confirmation with calendar invite.”. It has been moved to April. At Microsoft Ignite this was rolling out in March-April.

There are also some other changes in release schedule: Custom Layouts, Dynamic Views and Large Meeting support (1000-person meetings) have been moved from March to April.

Windows native notifications in Teams is scheduled for April. “Users can choose to deliver Microsoft Teams notifications via Windows 10 native notifications.”. This can be already accessed by putting on Public Preview.

Other Public Preview feature available already is setting Out of Office inside Microsoft Teams.

And these are not just all features. Including those from above I included in this blog post a snapshot of roadmap items and their current scheduled rollout month. Always check for latest updates directly from the source.

Feature IDDescriptionLast ModifiedRelease
66742Microsoft Teams: Windows native notifications in Teams18.3.2021April CY2021
66586Microsoft Teams: Custom attendee registration18.3.2021April CY2021
68771Microsoft Teams: New Calling Experiences18.3.2021April CY2021
705892×2 video in Gallery view for web meetings in Edge and Chrome browsers18.3.2021May CY2021
70783Microsoft Teams: Teams Multi-Geo Support18.3.2021May CY2021
70808SharePoint and Microsoft Teams: Rich previews for pages and news articles18.3.2021June CY2021
79957Microsoft Teams: Branded Lobby for desktop18.3.2021May CY2021
80599Microsoft Teams: Present from PowerPoint to Teams18.3.2021April CY2021
80601Microsoft Teams: Translate slideshow content18.3.2021April CY2021
80669Microsoft Teams: Lock a meeting from additional joins18.3.2021May CY2021
81372Microsoft Teams: Breakout Room Timer and Room assignment retention18.3.2021March CY2021
81376Microsoft Teams: New bypass lobby option18.3.2021March CY2021
65943Microsoft Teams: Dynamic view17.3.2021April CY2021
65951Microsoft Teams: Large meeting support17.3.2021April CY2021
66054Microsoft Teams: Call Merge17.3.2021April CY2021
68701Microsoft Teams: Out of Office17.3.2021March CY2021
80385Microsoft Teams: Improved Experience in the Meeting Participant Roste 17.3.2021March CY2021
81359Microsoft Teams: Supervised chat17.3.2021April CY2021
66584Microsoft Viva: Viva Connections Desktop16.3.2021March CY2021
70569Microsoft Teams : Follow or Mute Conversations in GCC16.3.2021May CY2021
80421Microsoft Teams: Users can now search in meeting participants from the roster16.3.2021April CY2021
80425Microsoft Teams: Spotlighting multiple Users at the same time in a meeting16.3.2021April CY2021
80600Microsoft Teams: Present from PowerPoint to Teams16.3.2021April CY2021
81354Microsoft Teams: Related Content for Teams Meetings (iOS and Android)16.3.2021April CY2021
81381Microsoft Teams: Outgoing participant video in meetings in Safari16.3.2021March CY2021
66587Microsoft Teams: Custom layouts for meetings15.3.2021April CY2021
70774Microsoft Teams: Anonymous user usage reports15.3.2021April CY2021
70776Microsoft Teams: Custom policy packages15.3.2021April CY2021
70794Microsoft Teams: Customized Website Tab Apps in Team Templates15.3.2021April CY2021
79448Microsoft Teams: Forms Polls in Teams Meetings Improvements15.3.2021April CY2021
80262Microsoft Teams: Prevent PTSN attendees from unmuting in meetings15.3.2021June CY2021
65948Microsoft Teams:  Chat bubbles12.3.2021May CY2021
68774Microsoft Teams: Transcription for 1:1 Calls12.3.2021April CY2021
68777Microsoft Teams: 1:1 PSTN Call Recording12.3.2021April CY2021
70560Microsoft Teams: Revised in-meeting Share experience12.3.2021April CY2021
70664Microsoft Teams: Meeting recordings saved to OneDrive & SharePoint for GCC-High and DoD12.3.2021March CY2021
70769Microsoft Teams: App customization and branding12.3.2021April CY2021
70786Microsoft Teams: Low data mode12.3.2021March CY2021
72168Microsoft Teams: Manage meeting options for GCC-High12.3.2021April CY2021
72169Microsoft Teams: Manage meeting options for DoD12.3.2021April CY2021
80261Microsoft Teams: Improvements for managing attendee audio permissions in Teams Meetings12.3.2021April CY2021
80619Forms: Poll in teams meeting support 1k meeting/webinar12.3.2021April CY2021

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