Skip to main content

Microsoft 365 feature roundup – November 22

Published: 23 November 2022

News Category: Staff News

IT Service

Microsoft 365 feature roundup

November 2022

Our feature roundup contains curated highlights from the Microsoft 365 roadmap to help you identify value-adding tools and features that can help to improve the way you work.

This month’s roundup covers a wide range of helpful updates in Microsoft Teams, Viva Insights, Planner and To Do and Whiteboard.

In this month’s update
Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Viva
Microsoft Planner and To Do
Microsoft Whiteboard

Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams: Detailed Call History Feature Update

Users will now get a more comprehensive view into whether calls were transferred or forwarded in Microsoft Teams’ call history. When users go into their call history in Teams, they will now see group calls, transferred calls, and forwarded calls.

To learn more, see View your call history in Teams

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 98455

Microsoft Teams: Leave a meeting from all devices

When a Teams user attempts to leave a meeting or call from multiple personal devices, there have been challenges to fully disconnect from the meeting or call on all devices. With this new feature, there will now be an option displayed to multi-device users in a call that will prompt the user to leave the meeting or call from all devices when selected.
This feature will be enabled for desktop, iOS, and Android clients.

To learn more, see Join a Teams meeting on a second device

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 97397

Microsoft Teams: Automatically view up to 49 videos (7×7) in Teams meeting

Microsoft Teams Meetings currently supports a maximum of 9 videos (3×3) on the screen by default (in Gallery view). For seeing more than 9 videos, user needs to manually select the ‘Large Gallery’ view. With this update, users will be able to automatically see up to 49 videos (7×7) on their screen by default without an explicit action.

However, Large Gallery view will still continue to exist as an option. The actual number of videos seen by a user in Gallery will depend on: hardware/device capabilities, internet bandwidth and whether content is popped out in a separate window or not.

To learn more, see Customize your meeting view

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 86435


Microsoft Viva

Microsoft Viva: Focus Mode in Viva Insights Teams App

The focus time experience in Microsoft Teams is being enhanced for users with Viva Insights subscriptions. Users that have booked time through focus plan will receive a notification as their focus time nears. Upon clicking the notification, the user will enter a new focus mode experience. Focus mode will allow users to set a timer to balance short bursts of productivity with breaks, manage their task list, and tap into mindfulness exercises during their breaks.

To learn more, see Protect time with Viva Insights

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 93424

Microsoft Viva: Meeting Category Trends and Details in the Viva Insights App in Teams and Meeting Category Insights Card in Digest Email

Categories in Outlook and Teams allow users to easily tag, label, and group calendar events. In the Viva Insights app in Teams, using meeting category insights in the Effective meetings tab, users can see a percentage breakdown of how they are distributing their time across their categories.

An upcoming update to this feature will allow users to:

  • See how their meeting time distribution has changed over the last 3 months, the last 4 weeks, and the next 4 weeks under meeting trends
  • View the list of meetings in each category, with details including meeting name, total time spent, duration of each instance, and cadence, under meeting details

Microsoft are also releasing a new card in the Digest email from Microsoft Viva that summarizes their meeting category insights. In this card, users will be able to see up to 3 categories in which they have spent the most time over the last 4 weeks.

This card will show the percentage of time each category contributed to the user’s total meeting time in the last 4 weeks, as well as how that percentage has changed from the previous 4 weeks. The explore more button provides an easy way to navigate to meeting category insights in the Viva Insights app, where users can explore percentage breakdown, trends, and details.

To learn more, see Protect time with Viva Insights

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 98164

Microsoft Viva: Favourite & Snooze updates coming to Daily Briefing Emails

The Briefing email from Microsoft Viva helps users start their day on track by surfacing information to prepare for upcoming meetings, follow up on outstanding tasks as well as protect time for independent work. A few updates are coming to the daily briefing email to provide users with ways to fine-tune their email.


Favourite & Snooze

Currently, content in briefing email is delivered in a pre-configured order. Beginning in October 2022, the briefing email will add ‘favourite’ and ‘snooze’ preferences to provide users the ability to personalize and engage with content that matter most to them. Users will also be able to change their favourite and snooze preferences directly through the settings page.

To learn more, see Briefing email overview

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 93392

Microsoft Viva: Quiet Time Settings in Viva, Teams, and Outlook

To help create better boundaries and protect personal time, Viva Insights will offer the ability to configure quiet time to silence notifications from Outlook and Teams mobile applications, outside of working hours. Users will receive personalized insights through the Viva Insights app in Teams and will be able to set quiet time directly from Teams mobile and Outlook mobile applications.

To learn more, see How can I learn more about using Quiet Time across devices with Outlook mobile

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 85627


Microsoft Planner and To Do

Planner and To Do: Due Date Digest Email design update

Microsoft Planner sends out a daily Due Date Digest email to users who have tasks that are assigned to them and are either overdue, due today, or due in the next 7 days.

Microsoft are releasing a few changes to the email template to improve the visual design and make the task deep links more relevant to the user.

To learn more, see Manage Planner notifications

Example screenshot


Microsoft Whiteboard

The ability to insert links with rich preview is now available in Whiteboard web, Teams and Windows App.

To learn more, see Whiteboard help & learning

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 98080

Microsoft Whiteboard: Insert Online Videos

The ability to insert & embed online Videos (YouTube, Stream, Flip, Vimeo, TED and Slideshare) is coming soon to Whiteboard web, Teams and Windows App.

To learn more, see Whiteboard help & learning

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 98084


Tell us what you think

Tell us what you think

Completing this feedback survey will only take a few minutes and you will help to shape future Microsoft 365 roundups. 

Please access the Form using the link below:

Microsoft 365 roundup feedback survey


Back to top