Teams Town hall and Webinar transform connection at scale
Digital and hybrid events have evolved rapidly, and audiences now expect seamless, engaging experiences –-wherever they’re joining from. To meet and exceed those expectations, we’ve continued to invest in Town hall and Webinar in Teams, as announced last May, with features that help you deliver more meaningful, inclusive and wide-reaching experiences across your organization. Today, we’re excited to share that Teams Town hall and Webinar now provide all the familiar features from Teams Live Events, along with the ability to connect into various access points, including Microsoft Teams Rooms in Windows. With upgraded engagement tools, added flexibility, and deep Microsoft 365 integration, hosting large-scale events, including up to 50,000 attendees for organizers with a Teams Premium license, is now simpler than ever. Let’s explore additional feature enhancements and capabilities that are now available in Teams town hall and webinar. Enhanced control for more effective events Professional, engaging events require organizers to have full control over who’s on the screen, what’s being shared, and how the audience experiences the event. Enhancements to the “Manage what attendees see” feature will now offer greater control and confidence, enabling smoother transitions, minimizing distractions, and a polished presentation experience. The following features are now in public preview or generally available: Control when shared content becomes visible to attendees in “Manage what attendees see”. Help prevent accidental screen sharing and ensure a seamless experience by deciding exactly when and what content appears to attendees. This capability is now generally available for meetings, town hall and webinar, and on the Teams desktop app and Teams Rooms on Windows. Preview changes in ‘Manage what attendees see’ before making it visible: Assigned users will be able to preview and stage changes to video and presentation content, then apply them all at once during the live town hall. This helps ensure a smooth transition, mitigate distractions and deliver a seamless and professional presentation. This feature is only available in town hall, and it is in public preview. Add a presenter from the roster: Missing a presenter in an ongoing town hall or webinar? Organizers will be able to quickly add a presenter by calling them directly from the participant roster. Once the user accepts the call, they instantly join as a presenter, automatically joining the green room (if enabled) and the organizer and presenter private group chat. With the presenter designation, they will be able to share content, control the presentation, or interact with other meeting participants. This feature is in public preview. Elevating attendee engagement Creating meaningful engagement in large-scale events can be challenging, especially when you don’t know how your audience is experiencing it. Without real insight, even the best-planned event can miss the mark. Presenters can join as attendees: Now, presenters will be able to experience the event from the perspective of an attendee, helping them spot issues, make real-time adjustments, and improve the overall experience on the spot. This simple shift leads to more polished, engaging, and memorable events that truly resonate with participants. This feature is in public preview. Make every event secure, scalable, and insights-driven With these new features, IT admins gain the tools they need to manage access, maintain control, and support secure, scalable events, while also unlocking valuable insights to drive smarter decisions for future events. Together, these enhancements help reduce risk, improve oversight, and enable more impactful, inclusive experiences. Town hall dial in-details in shared event dialog: Presenters can join a town hall using dial-in details, including the meeting ID and passcode, provided via the town hall share event dialog. They can connect via traditional phone lines (PSTN) or Microsoft Teams Rooms, ensuring participation even without internet or computer access. Once connected, presenters initially join as an attendee and then be promoted to presenter status, allowing them to access either the green room or the live session. This feature is generally available. CVI capabilities for non-Teams users to join Town hall and Webinar: Presenters can now use their own (non-Teams Rooms) video conferencing devices (VTC) to effortlessly join and present in a Teams Town hall, Teams Webinar, or structured meeting. With Cloud Video Interoperability (CVI) integrated into the event form, everyone can see each other and the meeting video without restrictions. Organizers and presenters will receive join codes and instructions to automatically join the call. The trusted CVI device will join as an attendee and then need to be promoted to a presenter. Then presenters on trusted CVI devices can interact with others in the green room before the event starts, ensuring a smooth and inclusive experience. This feature is now generally available. New IT Admin policy settings: ‘TownhallEventAccessType’ gives tenant administrators the ability to control who can attend the town hall created by users from their organization. This setting allows admins to choose between “Everyone” and “Everyone in Organization including Guests”. This feature is in public preview. Town hall usage reports in the Teams admin center (TAC): Analyzing and understanding your event's performance to make informed decisions for future improvements is now possible with town hall usage reports in TAC. Organizers will gain valuable insights into attendee engagement, participation metrics, and overall event effectiveness. By leveraging these reports, organizers can identify areas for enhancement, helping to ensure that each subsequent event is even more impactful and engaging. This feature is now generally available. Simplify pre-event set up with enhanced control and smarter tools Managing large-scale events can quickly become overwhelming—too many messages, unclear roles, and a clunky experience can make things feel disorganized before the event even begins. These new features help organizers take control early by reducing email clutter, improving how and when invites are sent, and giving flexibility over who manages what. The result? A smoother set up process, with less manual effort and fewer distractions, creating a more professional experience for everyone involved. Specify who can manage the screen: A new option in town hall lets organizers designate who has control of managing the screen during the event. Similar to Teams Live Events, selected individuals will be able to start the event, manage what attendees see, and end the event, helping to ensure a more cohesive event experience. The different options that can be selected are “Organizer, co-organizers, and presenters”, “Organizer and co-organizer only” and “Specific people”. This feature is now generally available for town hall only. Notification management: Help cut down email clutter and stay in control of notifications by choosing when to send updates to presenters and attendees. Once the event is published, any changes to the title, date and time, description, or attendee list will automatically trigger notifications, but only for the people affected. This feature is in public preview. Setting the standard for digital and hybrid event technology For those moments when interpersonal connection matters, hybrid events offer the best of both worlds. By blending live and digital elements, you can reach more people, boost engagement, and future-proof your event strategy. In a time when teams are expected to do more with less, many organizations are finding real value in simplifying their tools for delivering events at scale. Customers who’ve moved from Teams Live Events to Teams Town hall and Webinar are already seeing the benefits: smoother setup, better engagement, and more flexible experience overall. If you are still using Teams Live Events, now is a great time to make the switch. You’ll get all the features you’re used to, plus a lot more. Start exploring town hall and webinar today and see how much easier and more impactful your events can be. For a comprehensive list of features, please visit, Town hall in Microsoft Teams – Microsoft Adoption Start your transition to town hall and webinar today, click here to learn more.Introducing the Queues app: Enabling customer engagement in Microsoft Teams
Every employee in the modern workplace has the potential to be an ambassador for customer engagement. Whether they work in sales, service, health care, or finance, these ambassadors prefer using familiar tools such as Microsoft Teams to simplify their customer communication and care workflows. Today, we are excited to announce the Queues app, a Teams-native solution that empowers organizations to efficiently manage customer engagements, starting with calls.Transforming the workplace with AI-driven innovation
The workplace is evolving, and so are the tools that power it. At the heart of this transformation is a shared goal: to create more meaningful connections, spark stronger collaboration, and make smarter use of every space. That’s where AI-driven innovation comes in. This week we are at InfoComm, meeting with many of our partners to talk about advancements in AI-enhanced workplaces. From more intelligent features available for Android devices to discovering insights that shape strategic space planning decisions, new features for Teams Rooms on Android, Teams Town hall and Webinar in Teams Rooms on Windows, and Teams Phone enable employees and IT alike to modernize spaces with intelligence, collaborate at scale, and optimize the management of spaces. Teams Rooms: More intelligent, inclusive, and easier than ever to manage We continue to enhance experiences and provide additional tools and capabilities, from closing the inclusivity gap between in-room and remote meeting participants in Teams Rooms on Android to introducing new tools that reduce the time it takes IT to deploy and manage rooms. Plus, we’re excited to announce new ways Teams Rooms on Windows can be part of our customers’ town hall and webinar events. Intelligent, inclusive, and easier-to-use meeting experiences Modernizing the workplace adds tremendous value to the spaces where people work. Intelligence in meeting rooms is an integral part of that modernization story, contributing to more inclusive, engaging, and productive meeting experiences for all participants. Speaker recognition and attribution in Teams Rooms on Android Already available in Teams Rooms on Windows, now Teams Rooms on Android can identify who is speaking during live transcription, ensuring clear and precise voice capture for every participant who has enrolled their voice profile. Speaker recognition happens in the cloud, extending the value of existing speakers in your Teams Rooms. This feature enables intelligent meeting recap, enhancing the value of Teams Copilot by attributing content and actions to individual speakers, and enables AI-enhanced audio and video experiences for meeting participants. Note: for voices to be identified, participants will need to set up a voice profile. It’s easy and secure to enroll your voice in Teams settings. Learn how to set up your digital voice profile. Available in Teams Rooms Pro. Learn more. Teams Town hall and Webinar: Collaboration at scale The landscape of digital and hybrid events is evolving rapidly, and organizations need tools that are intuitive, dependable, and designed to engage audiences at scale. That’s why Microsoft has enhanced its Teams platform with powerful updates to town hall and webinar, making it easier than ever to plan, manage, and deliver impactful events. Building on the foundation of Teams Live Events, these new capabilities offer greater flexibility, deeper engagement, and seamless integration across the Microsoft ecosystem. Read more at the blog. Join Teams Town hall and Webinar as an attendee from Teams Rooms on Windows You can now join town halls, webinars, and structured meetings in Teams as an attendee from Microsoft Teams Rooms on Windows. Now, both attendee and presenter roles are supported for these large-scale events in a Teams Room on Windows. This feature is available in Teams Rooms Pro. Teams Town hall screen management privileges in Teams Rooms on Windows When the Teams Room on Windows is a co-organizer or a presenter in a town hall, privileges can be granted to start or end the event, manage what attendees see, and promote attendees as presenters, ensuring a smoother and more organized event experience. This feature is available with Teams Rooms Pro. Device and space management made easier We continue on our mission to deliver unified experiences and portals for IT admins to manage workspaces and the devices in them. The Pro Management portal is now the one-stop portal for all Teams Rooms on Windows, and Android settings, device health signals, and management capabilities are becoming available on the portal with every release. We’re excited to bring these new features to the IT admin experience, enabling management at scale of Teams Rooms and other shared spaces in the workplace. AI assistant in Pro Management portal Administrators serve a wide range of internal customers; now there is an assistant dedicated to them. The AI assistant in the Pro Management portal provides product help and information specific to each customer’s device environment. Admins can significantly reduce the time spent searching for answers and quickly resolve "how to" inquiries with this assistant, which efficiently retrieves information from product documentation and even product team office hours. It offers comprehensive answers to questions about Teams meeting spaces and management solutions and delivers data and insights specific to inventory in their environment. For example, it can provide details regarding the number of rooms equipped with dual displays, enumerate all devices across various locations running a specific application version, and present numerous other relevant details to help admins manage and plan. This functionality is available through Teams Rooms Pro. The assistant is distinct from Copilot or an agent, therefore no additional Copilot license is required. Auto detection of room audio in BYOD rooms expanded to audio devices with video The room audio auto-detect and pre-select feature for BYOD (bring your own device) rooms in the Teams desktop app, released in October 2024, now also activates the video component of composite audio-video peripherals (e.g., video bars) and automatically uses that camera in Teams. This ensures that Teams users in BYOD spaces, after plugging into an audio-video peripheral, can automatically default to both the audio and video feeds of that device to easily enable high-quality meeting experiences. Learn more. Expanded and enhanced peripheral support for BYOD spaces We continue to deliver new ways that help admins inventory and analyze usage of all the spaces in their environments. With room and desk peripheral support expanding to include docking stations and webcams, Teams users can seamlessly connect and utilize audio and video peripherals for enhanced experiences in BYOD spaces, like desks. IT admins can benefit from automatic association of devices to a space, device inventory, and detailed reports for peripherals in the Teams Rooms Pro Management portal. Reports in the Pro Management portal for desks are now available for customers with a Teams Shared Devices license required for a room. GCC-H support in Teams Rooms Pro Management GCC-H customer tenants now have access to the Teams Rooms Pro Management service and portal, enabling them to use the device lifecycle management features of the solution while meeting high security and privacy standards. Learn more. Streamlined, unified role-based access controls (RBAC) for Teams device management IT admins now benefit from unified role-based access controls across both the Teams admin center and Teams Rooms Pro Management portals. This simplifies device management and ensures seamless support for users transitioning between the platforms or managing both environments. Learn more. Poor call quality signals in Teams Rooms Pro Management Teams Rooms Pro Management now provides a signal for poor call quality and helps identify the root cause, making it easier for Admins to create tickets and proactively solve issues. This feature is available with Teams Rooms Pro. Call quality reports for BYOD rooms in the Pro Management portal As with Microsoft Teams Rooms, admins can now access detailed call quality reports for BYOD rooms with associated peripherals in the Pro Management portal. These reports include call history and session details that help diagnose network, audio, and video issues. Reports in the Pro Management portal requires a Teams Shared Devices license for the room. Teams Phone devices: More productive calling and collaboration As AI continues to weave deeper into the fabric of workplace tools, Microsoft Teams Phone devices are evolving to help users achieve more productive calling and collaboration. One of the latest innovations, Copilot summary for transferred calls, brings AI-powered productivity directly into the flow of work. With this feature, when a call is transferred via a Teams Phone device, users can prompt Copilot to generate a concise summary of the conversation. This summary acts as a briefing for the receiving colleague, ensuring they’re fully informed when picking up the call. Users can review and approve the AI-generated notes right on the device before completing the transfer. By delivering context at the moment it’s needed, this feature reduces the need for repetitive explanations and helps teams stay aligned—no matter where the conversation started. This feature is available now. Delivering on the promise of the AI-Powered Workplace We’re building intelligent solutions that help our customers unlock new levels of productivity and flexibility wherever work happens. From streamlining daily workflows to reimagining how teams connect, these tools aren’t just keeping up with change, they’re driving it. The future of work is here, and it’s more dynamic, connected, and impactful than ever. With Microsoft Teams Rooms, Places, and Teams Webinars and Town halls, we continue to unlock the greater potential of the modern workplace to shape more connected, efficient, and impactful ways of working together. Resources Find out more about speaker recognition: Get more out of hybrid meetings with Teams Rooms and Copilot | Microsoft Community Hub Get more information about the latest innovations in Teams Town hall and WebinarQueues app for Microsoft Teams now generally available
In today's fast-paced world, customer centricity is more important than ever. As organizations strive to meet the evolving needs of their customers, the demand for faster response and resolution times continues to grow. Whether you are an employee calling into your helpdesk or a customer reaching out to support, one thing is clear: delivering consistent and enriching experiences is at the core of an organization’s success.New partner-provided calling solutions are available for Microsoft Teams users in India
Each month, over 17 million users worldwide rely on Teams Phone for smart, seamless, and secure communication and collaboration. As we add to these capabilities, we’re focused on providing flexibility and choice, expanding the availability of Teams Phone to new markets. Microsoft has partnered with local operators to give Teams customers with operations in India additional choice to enable calling capabilities in Teams. We are excited to share that new Teams Phone-powered solutions from Airtel, Tata Communications Limited, and Tata Tele Business Services are now generally available. Leveraging the Operator Connect platform, these three operators have developed and will sell and support full-featured telephony solutions for Teams users in India, in compliance with local market regulations.
Teams Premium enhances scheduling in Microsoft Bookings
In today’s fast-paced world, efficient scheduling is key to keeping businesses running smoothly. Whether you're a consultant, healthcare provider, or small business owner, the challenge of coordinating appointments can feel overwhelming. This is where Microsoft Bookings steps in—a powerful tool designed to simplify and streamline the process of scheduling and managing appointments. Now, we are ready to take scheduling to the next level! Introducing advanced features in Bookings accessed through Teams Premium license. The advanced features are designed to further simplify scheduling, improve client communication, manage workflows, and enhance overall efficiency. What is Microsoft Bookings? Microsoft Bookings is an online scheduling tool that enables businesses to manage their appointments seamlessly. It allows you to create customizable booking pages where customers, clients, or colleagues can easily schedule time with you or your team without the usual back-and-forth communication. As part of Microsoft 365, Bookings offers a convenient and professional way to handle all your scheduling needs, ensuring both you and your attendees are always in sync. Bookings can be used across various industries, for different internal & external scenarios. Premium features in Bookings, included with Teams Premium With a Teams Premium license, users can enjoy advanced scheduling features in Bookings like SMS notifications and Scheduled queue. SMS notifications for appointments Microsoft Bookings users with a Teams Premium license can now send SMS notifications for appointments scheduled by either customers or staff. These notifications provide automated confirmations, service details, updates, and reminders, helping customers stay informed and reducing missed appointments. This functionality is generally available for US, UK and Canada. The assigned staff member needs a valid Teams premium license. Attendees, customers or partners need a valid United States, Canada or United Kingdom phone number before they can receive SMS notifications. This functionality will also be available for Netherlands in Dec 2024. Admins can turn off SMS in their organization by following the steps in this article: Manage granular controls for Shared Bookings | Microsoft Learn Scheduled Queue The queue functionality in Bookings is a powerful feature tailored for staff, providing real-time visibility and control over incoming appointments. This feature enables schedulers and admins to have a consolidated view of all appointments for the day in chronological order across the booking page they manage. With this view, they can better manage the load of incoming appointments and reassign delayed appointments to available staff. Staff can also self-serve on busy days by assigning the unassigned appointments to themselves, helping to balance workloads across teams or specific services. Additionally, SMS and email reminders can be sent to keep customers informed, enhancing overall transparency and ensuring a smooth appointment experience for everyone involved. This capability will be available in Bookings for users with a Teams Premium license in early 2025. Ready to revolutionize scheduling? Upgrade to Teams Premium and enjoy the advanced scheduling experience in Bookings. For more details about Bookings, refer to the documentation here: Microsoft Bookings | Microsoft Learn
Frontline Fridays Session 2: Driving successful adoption and delivering value for frontline workers
Empowering frontline workers isn’t just a business priority — it’s a strategic imperative. With the rapid acceleration of digital transformation across industries, organizations are reimagining how they connect, support, and elevate experiences for frontline employees. At Microsoft, we’ve had the privilege of working in deep partnership with hundreds of customers and millions of frontline employees in retail, manufacturing, healthcare, and other industries to unlock the full potential of their frontline workforce through Microsoft 365. Join us for an interactive session built on real-world learnings and insights to explore guidance on crafting a strategy that’s practical, people-first, and, most importantly, generates the results you care about most. REGISTER HERE FOR ALL FUTURE SESSIONS: Empowering frontline success Session 2: June 12, 6:00 - 7:30 PM Pacific (UTC-7): Driving successful adoption & delivering value for frontline employees (Register Here) Session 2: June 13, 9:00 - 10:30 AM Pacific (UTC-7): Driving successful adoption & delivering value for frontline employees (Register Here) Why this session matters Frontline employees are often the first to engage with customers, products, and services, yet they are too often the last to benefit from modern digital tools. This session will distill learnings from hundreds of customer and partner engagements to provide a blueprint for driving meaningful impact across your frontline operations. What sets this experience apart is its practical, people-first approach. It’s about how to plan for solving real problems to unlock measurable value through the right combination of strategy, purposeful technology, and user adoption. We’ll talk about how to balance getting initial value realization quickly against the literally limitless scenarios that you could enable. What to expect This isn’t your typical webinar, bring your questions and ideas based on your own experience! We’ll explore strategies together through discussion, live Q&A, polls, and ideation activities. We’re confident you’ll walk away with tangible ways to enhance and optimize your frontline strategy right away. The session has been carefully designed to ensure relevance, engagement, and key takeaways in 4 areas: User-centered solutioning: Every digital investment starts with the frontline employee in mind (or at least it should!). We’ll explore common challenges and goals as well as how Microsoft 365 can help meet them to help ensure you are delivering value for both your employees and your bottom line. We’ll share best practices for delivering inclusive, intuitive, and impactful solutions. Common starting points and critical considerations:No two organizations are alike; however, we see common patterns that inform how to get started with transformative experiences for frontline employees. We’ll discuss common starting points and unpack critical considerations, both technical and non-technical, that can inform your implementation and adoption strategy. You’ll get actionable recommendations based on your business drivers and frontline context. Adoption at scale: To get the most out of your investment, your employees need to use it. We’ll cover key elements to ensure adoption is happening and ways to leverage M365 capabilities to actually enable it. Success stories: Learn from real-world examples of organizations delivering experiences that solve problems and bring value. We'll share common mistakes we see customers make so you can avoid them in your own organization. When we're done, you'll have: A framework to define problem statements and build scalable frontline solutions Best practices for technology integration and user engagement Inspiration from successful transformations across industries Insights into tailoring your adoption strategy for maximum impact Ready to Reimagine Your Frontline Workforce? Whether you’re just getting started or looking to elevate your frontline transformation, this session will equip you with the tools, insights, and inspiration to help you go from the Art of the Possible to the Art of the Practical. Don’t miss this opportunity to gain valuable insights, practical recommendations, and actionable strategies you can start implementing right away. Business Decision Makers, IT Pros, and Change Managers welcome! We look forward to seeing you. REGISTER HERE: Empowering frontline successFrontline Fridays Session 1: Deploying Microsoft Frontline Solutions - Best Practices and Strategies
In today's fast-paced business environment, frontline workers play a crucial role in ensuring operational efficiency and customer satisfaction. Microsoft Frontline Solutions offer a comprehensive suite of tools designed to empower these workers, streamline processes, and enhance productivity. This blog gives you a sneak peek into the first session of Microsoft Frontline Fridays - "Deploying Microsoft Frontline Solutions - Best Practices and Strategies", highlighting key insights and actionable strategies. REGISTER HERE FOR ALL FUTURE SESSIONS: Deploying Microsoft Frontline Solutions - Best Practices and Strategies Session 1: May 29, 6:00 - 7:30 PM Pacific (UTC-7): Overview & Deployment Best Practices and Strategies (Register Here) Session 1: May 30, 9:00 - 10:30 AM Pacific (UTC-7): Overview & Deployment Best Practices and Strategies (Register Here) Introduction to Frontline Fridays Frontline Fridays is a series of expert-led sessions aimed at providing clarity on Microsoft's suite of tools for frontline workers. These sessions address common customer challenges, define use cases, and share resources to help organizations launch, adopt, and support their employees effectively. An overview of this session The session "Deploying Microsoft Frontline Solutions - Best Practices and Strategies" is structured to provide a comprehensive overview of Microsoft's tools for frontline workers, along with practical deployment strategies and best practices. Here's a summary of the session: Introduction: The session begins with an introduction to Frontline Fridays; a series of expert-led sessions aimed at providing clarity on Microsoft's suite of tools for frontline workers. Overview of Microsoft Frontline Solutions: This section covers the key components of Microsoft Frontline Solutions. Example Customer (Woodgrove Grocery): The session uses Woodgrove Grocery as a practical example to illustrate the deployment of Microsoft Frontline Solutions. It discusses the current state of their tools and systems, and the desired business value from the deployment. IT Deployment: This section provides detailed information on identity provisioning, device management, and Teams deployment, including demos and screenshots. Next Steps and Call to Action: The session concludes with next steps and a call to action. Throughout the session, there are various demos, screenshots, and practical examples to help attendees understand the deployment process and the benefits of Microsoft Frontline Solutions. REGISTER HERE: Deploying Microsoft Frontline Solutions - Best Practices and Strategies
Keep your Microsoft Teams in VDI client up to date to ensure the best user experience
In the fast-evolving world of collaboration tools, Microsoft Teams stands as a cornerstone of productivity. But as with any modern software, staying current isn’t just about accessing the latest features—it’s also about ensuring your tenant is up to date on the latest security, performance, and compliance. This is where the concept of Teams sedimentation becomes critical. In this blog, we want to cover some of the key terms that IT Admins for VDI need to understand as we move into stricter minimum version enforcements, and end of availability of Classic Teams. What Is Teams Sedimentation? Sedimentation refers to the accumulation of outdated Teams client versions across an organization. These clients, often left behind due to manual golden image update processes in non-persistent VDI, or legacy deployment practices on Server Based Computing, can become incompatible with the Teams services over time. Microsoft governs Teams under the Modern Lifecycle Policy, which mandates that desktop clients remain up to date to stay supported and functional. Enforcement of this policy is achieved via two main mechanisms. When a Teams client in VDI is: 60–90 days out of date, users begin to see in-app alerts (dismissible warning banners, shown at application launch time) Over 90 days out of date, a blocking page appears, preventing access until the client is updated by the user (in persistent VDI) or the Admin (in non-persistent) This policy ensures that both users and Admins receive value from a wide range of benefits: End User benefits IT Admin benefits Improved Performance and Experience Staying up to date ensures that users benefit from the latest performance enhancements and a smoother, more reliable Teams experience—especially with the new SlimCore media engine. Policy Enforcement and Lifecycle Compliance Staying current aligns with Microsoft’s Modern Lifecycle Policy, which mandates up-to-date clients for support and functionality. Access to New Features Users on current versions can take advantage of the latest collaboration tools, UI improvements, and integrations that enhance productivity. Supportability Running consistent, supported versions across the organization reduces variability and simplifies diagnostics and support. Admins can use the Teams Admin Center and Call Quality Dashboard to monitor client versions and proactively manage updates. Security and Compliance Updated clients receive the latest security patches, reducing exposure to vulnerabilities and ensuring compliance with organizational policies. Avoid End-of-Life Penalties Classic Teams will reach end of availability on July 1, 2025. Users still on Classic Teams will face blocking pages and degraded performance if not upgraded. Why is keeping up-to-date more important than ever in VDI? With the release of the new optimization for VDI (based on the SlimCore media engine used in native Windows Teams as well), Microsoft will automatically update SlimCore based on the Teams version you have on the VM. If Teams is not auto-updating, neither is SlimCore. This is not a good place to be on – while all the Teams cloud services and most of the Teams app code is auto-updating (even if you used the disableAutoUpdate registry key for non-persistent VDI), you are now running a disjointed combination of components that are all out of sync. This will inevitably lead to poor user experience. Understanding Teams Builds Outdating Schedule In order to understand when a specific Teams version will become outdated, you should monitor this table (updated every Friday) and always use the next version release dates to calculate. As an example, let’s look at version 25031, released on March 4 th . The clock for a version only starts ticking after the next one is released, in this case 25044 on March 13 th . So we add 60 and 90 days to March 13 th and we end up with dismissible banners being shown on June 6 th and blocking pages on June 29 th . Important: Microsoft starts the rollouts on those dates on lower Rings like the public preview channel – it might take a few additional days to reach 100% of the user base). Build GA 60d Warning 90d Blocking 24335 Jan-9 Apr-4 May-4 25007 Feb-4 Apr-17 May-17 25017 Feb-17 May-4 Jun-4 25031 Mar-4 May-17 Jun-17 25044 Mar-13 Jun-7 Jul-7 25060 Apr-7 Jun-22 Jul-22 25072 Apr-22 Jul-7 Aug-4 25094 (latest version) May-13 TBD TBD What about the supported Server Operating Systems for VDI? End-of-support dates for Microsoft Teams on Windows Server 2019 and Windows Server 2022 are October 2025 and October 2026, respectively. For further information, check this link. We encourage customers on Windows Server 2019 to migrate to Windows Server 2025, which is now fully supported in VDI while it's in Mainstream Support, until October 2029. If you want to reach out to us regarding any Windows Server question, please fill this form. What about Classic Teams As we are rapidly approaching the End of Availability date for Classic Teams (July 1 st 2025) – we are urging customers to upgrade to new Teams as soon as possible – while we are allowing customers to run Classic Teams until that date, you must be using a relatively recent version of the product (1.8.00.4966). Come July 1 st , VDI users will see a blocking page urging them to upgrade or use Teams on Web (which is not supported and NOT even optimized, incurring in server-side rendering penalties on CPU/RAM/BW). How can you query for the existing Teams version in your organization? Teams Admin Center has Usage reports (under Analytics and reports) that you can use to spot old versions. Call Quality Dashboard can be used as well. Conclusion We encourage you to talk to the multiple teams in your organization that have jurisdiction over image management practices and validation, and share the update cadence that is expected for Microsoft Teams. An up-to-date Teams client will provide the best user experience, latest fixes, and, because of the new optimization architecture, an up-to-date SlimCore media engine.Introducing Microsoft Frontline Fridays: Your Guide to empowering frontline workers
Are you ready to enhance the way your frontline workforce operates with Microsoft's suite of tools? Join us for Microsoft Frontline Fridays, a series of expert-led sessions designed to help organizations maximize productivity, security, and efficiency for frontline employees. Check out our full series schedule below and register now: Session 1: May 29, 6:00 - 7:30 PM Pacific (UTC-7): Overview & Deployment Best Practices and Strategies (Register Here) Session 1: May 30, 9:00 - 10:30 AM Pacific (UTC-7): Overview & Deployment Best Practices and Strategies (Register Here) Session 2: June 12, 6:00 - 7:30 PM Pacific (UTC-7): Driving successful adoption & delivering value for frontline employees (Register Here) Session 2: June 13, 9:00 - 10:30 AM Pacific (UTC-7): Driving successful adoption & delivering value for frontline employees (Register Here) Session 3: June 26, 6:00 - 7:30 PM Pacific (UTC-7): Streamlining Operational and Corporate Communication (Register Here) Session 3: June 27, 9:00 - 10:30 AM Pacific (UTC-7): Streamlining Operational and Corporate Communication (Register Here) Session 4: July 10, 6:00 - 7:30 PM Pacific (UTC-7): Optimizing Operational Efficiency - How to do more with less, at scale (Register Here) Session 4: July 11, 9:00 - 10:30 AM Pacific (UTC-7): Optimizing Operational Efficiency - How to do more with less, at scale (Register Here) Session 5: July 24, 6:00 - 7:30 PM Pacific (UTC-7): Turbocharging your Employee Home Experience through Customization (Register Here) Session 5: July 25, 9:00 - 10:30 AM Pacific (UTC-7): Turbocharging your Employee Home Experience through Customization (Register Here) Session 6: August 7, 6:00 - 7:30 PM Pacific (UTC-7): Adding agents to your workforce: Transforming frontline efficiency with AI (Register Here) Session 6: August 8, 9:00 - 10:30 AM Pacific (UTC-7): Adding agents to your workforce: Transforming frontline efficiency with AI (Register Here) Why attend Microsoft Frontline Fridays? This series is tailored for organizations looking to explore or optimize their use of Microsoft’s frontline solutions. Key benefits include: Comprehensive Insights: Gain an in-depth understanding of Microsoft’s solutions for frontline workers. Expert Guidance: Learn best practices from Microsoft specialists to maximize the impact of these tools. Interactive Q&A: Get real-time answers from product experts to address your specific challenges. Hands-On Experience: Participate in live demos and interactive activities to build confidence with the platform. What to expect These engaging sessions will provide expert insights, interactive learning, and practical resources to help you deploy and optimize Microsoft’s frontline solutions. Recordings and materials will be shared after each session, and you can choose to attend all or just the ones that interest you. Session Schedule: 1. Microsoft Frontline Solutions: Overview & Deployment Best Practices and Strategies Learn what Microsoft has to offer in the frontline space and how to successfully deploy Microsoft’s frontline solutions with a structured approach. This session covers planning, pilot deployment, environment setup, and app set up to ensure a smooth rollout. Also, learn how to protect frontline workers and organizational data with identity management, secure access controls, device management and secure & compliant solutions that lay the foundation for your tailored frontline environments. 2. Driving successful adoption & delivering value for frontline employees Whether you are shifting from an existing employee engagement solution to Microsoft 365 or expanding M365 experiences to new frontline users or scenarios, managing change in how employees get work done can be the most challenging aspect of technology implementations. In this session, we'll discuss best practices and key considerations related to enabling faster, more successful end user adoption to help your organization get the most from your investments. We'll share real-world learnings and patterns of success based on direct engagement with hundreds of customers across every industry (and we expect we'll learn new things from you too!). 3. Streamlining Operational and Corporate Communication Discover how Teams supports both top-down communications—like community announcements and leadership updates—and local frontline coordination using tools like chat, channels and Walkie Talkie, keeping everyone connected in real time without relying on non-compliant consumer apps. 4. Optimizing Operational Efficiency - How to do more with less, at scale Discover how Microsoft's Frontline solutions can help meaningfully re-engineer your existing business processes to be more efficient, easier to use, and measurable for a digital first and emerging AI world. Learn about everything from off-the-shelf schedule and task management to learning in the flow of work, along with integrating with third party systems of record like your workforce management, inventory and ticketing systems. 5. Turbocharging your Employee Home Experience through Customization Explore rich integrations with third party applications, unique and complex task flows, and home-grown apps, all presented in a single pane of glass. 6. Adding agents to your workforce: Transforming frontline efficiency with AI Learn about how to leverage Microsoft Copilot Chat and agents to optimize frontline workflows - such as relevant, reliable information retrieval, automating repetitive tasks and orchestrating multi-step actions. By participating in Microsoft Frontline Fridays, you’ll gain the tools and insights needed to empower your frontline workforce, enhance efficiency, and secure business operations. Register for the session here.
