If you rely on Microsoft Teams for video conferencing, whether with your internal teams or with clients (or both), you might be excited to learn about an upcoming feature on Microsoft’s roadmap for Teams.
The company recently announced plans to fix notifications and pop-ups during video calls — something that could save you from distraction and embarrassment while you’re on a call.
To understand how this works, let’s set the stage with a picture.
Scenario: The “Honey I’m Home”
Most of us have been there: we’re standing in front of a room full of people or the digital equivalent thereof. We’re presenting in some shape or fashion, which means we’re sharing our screens.
You’re cranking through your presentation like the pro that you are, and you’ve got your audience right where you want them.
Then, all of the sudden, a little bubble pops up in the corner.
It’s very much not about your presentation or your client or your department. It’s an email or a chat message from your significant other.
And it’s talking about the laundry or the kids or, worse, your plans for a romantic date night.
In the absolute best case, you’re the only one that sees the pop-up. That’s already bad, because suddenly you’re transported from the land of sales or team-building to car line or Il Trattoria or the laundry room.
Even worse is when everyone in your meeting sees the notification as well. At a minimum it’s distracting and unprofessional, and, well, it doesn’t take much imagination to see how this could get highly embarrassing, fast.
Current Workarounds
There are some current workarounds for this sort of thing. You can fully quit your email and chat applications before launching a meeting or presentation — though this won’t necessarily stop other Teams notifications. On an Apple device, you can set yourself to a Do Not Disturb focus mode. Various versions of Windows have something similar, which may be called Focus Assist, Do Not Disturb, or Quiet Hours.
Of course, you have to remember to turn these on, and you’ve got to get them configured properly. Many of us allow an exception to Do Not Disturb for our spouses — generally a good idea! But if you do let your spouse through, then you won’t solve the “embarrassing text from my spouse during a meeting” problem.
Microsoft’s New Solution
Microsoft’s planned new solution to Teams meeting blushes will launch you into a unique new mode during Teams calls, one that completely hides other apps from sight — including their notifications.
It remains to be seen how Microsoft will balance this with the need to pull other apps and windows into your screen share, but we’re excited about the step forward that this represents, and we’ll keep our eyes open to see what the finished solution looks like when it hits a future Windows Update.
This new solution isn’t just about privacy, either: it also helps to streamline performance. As Teams grows more advanced in its presentation options (with things like Together Mode), it also grows more power-hungry. If your computer is struggling to keep up with rendering the call or displaying your screen, it’s likely time to upgrade (we can help with that!). But in the meantime this new feature could be a help: it looks like Microsoft is intending the new solution to put unused apps in a kind of background mode where they won’t need very much in terms of system resources. The idea here is that your PC will be able to devote more to the Teams presentation because it isn’t juggling quite as much in the background.
That’s it for this week’s update. If we can help you with your Microsoft 365 rollout — or any other aspect of your IT needs — reach out to our team today.