Wow, what a year it's been....

One of my favorite new Microsoft Teams features -
Live Transcription

This is a great way to further engage new colleagues, younger personnel, or mentees in the "meat" of your meetings on Microsoft Teams.  And - it's available now. 

Realizing I haven't blogged at all over the last year is, I suppose, one of those personal self-discoveries we were all challenged to learn over the last year due to the seismic impact of Covid-19.  One thing we've all become better at in work and personal life is virtual / video meeting.  

For Teams, there are some great enhancements to administration, sharing, engagement, and live events - but one that I want to highlight is Live Meeting Transcription.  

​Do you participate in regular or recurring meetings?  Perhaps for strategic planning, project management?  Following our Women's History Month theme, do you find that - as a woman - you might be expected to capture action items and notes for your meetings?  Your life in Teams is about to get easier.  Besides being a tool that you can utilize to break the group habit of expecting the woman in the group, or the new hire, or the junior member to take meeting notes - now you can turn on Live Transcription.  ​

This article provides a good overview and demo, and this MS Doc info provides some detail. At the time of drafting this blog entry, neither had step-by-step instructions so I've created them here, with a screenshot below. 

• Transcription must be enabled by a Global admin, and depending on your tenant seat volume, it could take 48-72 hours to deploy globally.  
• Visit 365 Admin Center
• Visit Teams Admin Center
• Select Meetings / Meeting Policies tabs at left
• Create new or modify an existing one (I added the one for my tenant to Global policy, because I want to empower everyone to use technology to do some of their lesser-value, time impact work)
• Under Audio & Video heading, turn on the slider for Allow Transcription

Caveats: 

• Right now there is no automated Governance around the Teams Transcription creations in the Teams channel. 
  
• Someone from a recurring meeting group would still need to scan transcriptions for ACTION ITEM or FOLLOW UP or a few key phrases to capture those from the meeting. 
  
• I suspect a PowerAutomate / Flow is on the horizon that can help with this, or perhaps the AI in Viva will do this for users in the near future. 

But for now:  Please, set your team free of taking manual meeting notes!

ALSO:

There are a TON of great new features that the Work From Anywhere shift has illustrated, and the Microsoft Teams folks have worked to quickly implement.  Chris O'Brien, a Microsoft MVP and prolific information sharer, has blogged about the Big 4 groups of announcements from the March 2021 Virtual Ignite, and you can read more about Viva, Compliance, Azure, and Teams here.  ​

Teams Announcements Summary by Chris O'Brien, Microsoft MVP