Recently, I encountered an interesting connectivity challenge between Exchange calendars and Microsoft Teams. One day, everything was running smoothly when suddenly my Teams room devices began experiencing issues. If this sounds familiar, let me share the troubleshooting journey and solution that could save you considerable time.
May 2025 has wrapped up, and while we’re observing that familiar pattern of a slightly quieter release cycle for Microsoft’s employee experience platform, there’s still some valuable content to explore! The innovation continues, just with a more strategic and focused approach these days.
This month, Viva Engage took center stage with a comprehensive set of updates designed to enhance daily user interactions and overall platform usability. While the update frequency has moderated compared to Viva’s initial rapid deployment phase, the quality and strategic focus of these enhancements really stand out. For organizations invested in Microsoft’s employee experience suite, these May updates definitely worth your attention and consideration.
May 2025 brought us some substantial updates that are set to significantly enhance your meeting management and collaboration capabilities. This month delivered two key features that address long-standing user requests and workflow challenges that many organizations have been navigating for quite some time.
The major highlights include the introduction of Lobby chat functionality and a comprehensive overhaul of external file sharing in chat conversations. These aren’t just incremental improvements – they represent meaningful solutions to real collaboration pain points that teams face daily. The external file sharing enhancement, in particular, addresses what has been a persistent challenge for cross-organizational collaboration.
I’m particularly impressed by how these updates focus on streamlining essential business processes rather than simply adding new features for the sake of innovation. Microsoft appears to be taking a more strategic approach to addressing genuine user needs and workflow inefficiencies. The timing couldn’t be better, as hybrid work continues to evolve and organizations need more sophisticated tools for both internal coordination and external partnership management.
Hey there, Microsoft Viva users! April’s updates were surprisingly light this month – in fact, this is the shortest Viva update I’ve seen since I started tracking these monthly changes. It definitely makes me wonder about the future direction of Viva as a suite of products.
Most of the action this month happened in the communication applications – Viva Connections, Viva Amplify, and Viva Engage. I’m particularly happy to see more first-party integrations becoming available for Viva Connections, which should make the platform more useful for many teams.
This month also brought an important reminder that Viva Goals is being sunset at the end of the year. If your organization is using Viva Goals for OKR management, now’s the time to inform your users and start planning for alternative solutions!
April brings some seriously cool updates to Teams that might actually make office life better. I’m particularly excited about the new @nearby mentions and those preview controls for presenters in Town Halls.
Ever wanted to gather everyone in your building for an impromptu coffee celebration or lunch without sending 15 separate messages? Teams’ new @nearby mention type solves this perfectly. Just type @nearby and instantly notify colleagues who are physically present in your office. “Quick team lunch? We landed the Henderson account!” has never been easier to coordinate.
For anyone who’s ever accidentally shared their screen full of private tabs during a presentation, Teams now has your back. The updated “Manage what attendees see” feature lets organizers and presenters preview what’s going on screen before broadcasting it live to everyone in Town Hall meetings. No more accidental oversharing!
These are just the updates that jumped out at me this month. Check out the full post below for all the other Teams improvements rolling out now.
Which of these new features are you most looking forward to trying? And what’s still on your Teams wish list that Microsoft hasn’t delivered yet? Drop me a comment below!
Ready for a productivity boost? This month Microsoft Viva brings several enhancements that could streamline your team’s communication and collaboration efforts.
Viva Amplify is getting a nice upgrade with two-column layouts for emails (finally!), plus a new “average time spent per user” graph in reporting that gives you better insights into how your communications are performing. And for those of us who’ve been asking for easier collaboration, Amplify is introducing collaborative authoring so multiple team members can work on the same document simultaneously—no more version control nightmares!
Over in Viva Engage, premium users will notice a streamlined “Create new” button that puts Articles and Questions right at your fingertips. Nothing revolutionary, but definitely a time-saver that makes those premium features more discoverable.
What Viva feature has been the biggest game-changer for your team lately? Drop a comment below! And don’t miss the detailed breakdown of each feature below—especially the collaborative authoring rollout starting mid-April that might just transform how your team creates content together.
Hey there, fellow Teams enthusiast! Time for our monthly catch-up on what’s changing in your Microsoft Teams workspace. I’ve got some important updates to share that might affect how you and your team collaborate in the coming months.
First up, heads up about Microsoft Skype interoperability with Teams—it’s heading into retirement on May 1, 2025. After this date, your Teams users won’t be able to chat with Skype contacts anymore.
Got something to say? You’ll soon be able to say it with video! Teams is rolling out the ability to record video clips directly in channels—just like you can already do in chats.
And finally, a small but meaningful change to how we organize shared content. That “Files” tab you’re used to seeing in Teams channels? It’s getting a promotion to the “Shared” tab starting mid-April for targeted release users (mid-May for everyone else). This upgrade combines your document library files with shared post content in one convenient location. Don’t worry—all your familiar functionality stays intact, plus you’ll soon get keyword search capabilities.
What changes are you most excited about? Or maybe you have questions about how these updates might affect your specific workflow?
This month, Microsoft Viva has introduced some fantastic updates that you’ll definitely want to check out. Viva Learning has received numerous enhancements, making it easier than ever for your users to access training resources and continue their learning journey seamlessly.
On Viva Connections, you can now add custom cards to your Connections dashboard, allowing for greater personalization and a more tailored experience. And finally, after a long wait, Viva Amplify now lets you publish your campaigns directly to Viva Engage. This long-awaited feature will enhance your ability to reach and engage with your audience more effectively.
There’s a lot more to catch up on within the Employee Experience suite of products from Microsoft. Stay tuned for more updates and enhancements that will continue to improve your experience with Microsoft Viva.
Have you seen what’s new with Teams? February’s updates are actually pretty cool. The standout for me is how Copilot can now analyze what you are sharing on screen during meetings. It basically watches along and offers insights in real-time—super helpful when you are collaborating on projects.
Microsoft is also cleaning up the Windows system tray icon next month. Nothing major, but it will show your status more clearly, get rid of that redundant “Open” option, and combine your work and personal account icons. Nice thing is you don’t have to do anything—it’ll just happen.
Oh, and if you use Teams on the web, you can finally choose where notifications pop up! Bottom right, top left, wherever works best for you. Might seem small, but it’s great for keeping focused when you’re in the middle of something important.
And honestly, this is just scratching the surface. Microsoft dropped a ton of other updates this month that are worth checking out.
For years, the ice breaker in my calls with people I was meeting for the first time was having them try to pronounce my name. It was always a fun and engaging way to start a conversation. With the new name pronunciation feature in Microsoft Teams and Outlook, those days can be gone!
This feature allows users to record and share the pronunciation of their names on their profile cards, promoting inclusiveness and helping colleagues learn how to pronounce each other’s names correctly.
I've been working with Microsoft Technologies over the last ten years, mainly focused on creating collaboration and productivity solutions that drive the adoption of Microsoft Modern Workplace.
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