The three-day Ignite event kick-started on October 12 this year. And like every year, this year's event brought key announcements related to different Microsoft technologies and products. Here, we will help you give a rundown on all the juiciest updates happening in the Microsoft world.

Microsoft 365

A Fresh Take On Microsoft Planner And Microsoft Project

Project and Planner are coming with exciting features that will help teams keep tabs on their goals more effectively. These features will even help you support your coworker's agility and balance workloads better and faster. The presence of so many features will also help you integrate your business objectives seamlessly with Project and Planner. Also, goal integration will become smoother with the help of Viva Goals. That is how your team will gain stronger visibility of the progress of every project. Moreover, the updates will make it possible for the users to check their tasks through Assigned to Me lists. Besides, the users will be able to plan, prioritize, and execute backlogs of tasks into time-sensitive Sprints. On top of that, there is a brand-new People view within Microsoft Project, giving managers a sharper understanding of their workloads. That way, managers become more empowered to reassign tasks if it is required.

AI And Natural Language Empower Power Automate

Microsoft always believes in delivering automation to the masses. Here is where Microsoft Power Automate kicks into operation. This platform wants people with zero coding knowledge and low technical competence to design complicated flows. That is what Ignite 2022 brought -- a user-friendlier way of creating automation. And that way involved using natural language. The use of natural language will help you describe to an AI system what kind of automation you want to integrate into your business process. Basically, you will have to pick a flow suggested by the AI system, depending on your requirements. And once you pick a flow, the system will bring the right connectors to the fore. Eventually, the flow you built with the AI will be finalized by a flow designer. Best of all, this feature is available in preview and will launch for every Power Automate user down the road.

Outlook Updates Catering To The Hybrid Work Culture

Any Ignite event will remain incomplete if there are no show-stopping Outlook updates. This year's Ignite event had many Outlook updates that are geared toward making hybrid work seamless. And these updates will come to Outlook by the end of this year. These features will help employees stay connected better so that hybrid-work initiatives deliver better results. Like, there is one particular update to help your colleagues understand your location and work hours. That is how your coworkers, who operate in different time zones than yours, can plan their communication with you accordingly. Additionally, the soon-to-be-launched Meeting recap feature will be accessible directly through the calendar in Outlook. And that is just a start. Once these updates are deployed, you will send email reactions to acknowledge correspondences; yes, these reactions are now commonplace on different social media channels and even Teams. Some of the Outlook updates will even help you navigate better and faster through emails using Context IQ and Editor. This way, you will find it simpler to fetch relevant files and people in Outlook.

Microsoft Viva

New Feature-Packed Viva Insights

The Ignite event this year covered different features that will make the experience of using Microsoft Viva Insights more fruitful than ever. Here are the new updates that are ready to revamp Microsoft Viva Insights inside out. Like, after every meeting, you will get the opportunity to use Viva Insights to fill out a survey. This survey will help you note the effectiveness of every engagement. That way, you will eventually get actionable insights from Viva Insights. These insights will help you maximize the returns from every engagement. Viva will help you also set up Quiet Time, which will help you silence every notification that comes from your Outlook or Teams. Moreover, Viva even got some astonishing learning features as well. In the same way, Viva Engage got some brand-new storylines too. Besides these updates, Microsoft Viva comes with so many game-changing upgrades that will make you and your team more productive.

Fresh Learning Features

Viva Learning also got many mentions in this year's Ignite event. Here, we'll help you understand what these updates were. First of all, Viva Learning will now come with exciting learning paths that will streamline how sequenced group training will take place. These learning paths or group training sessions will be available in Viva Learning and can be easily discovered and shared with other users too. Moreover, Viva Learning will also bring a huge array of collections that will help create personalized learning materials. Not just that, but audience targeting will be even simpler and faster within Viva Learning. Why? That is how this platform will help users only view content that matters to them.

Engaged Storyline Explained

The new updates planned for Viva Learning will help any company easily update its employees' posts with relevant images, links, and a bunch of other relevant content assets. The updated content will then appear on any user's Storyline. This way, employee engagement will go to a whole new level and even maximize the interactions with the top brass. Moreover, the users can leverage Engage Storyline to create Stories; this feature, however, is still in the preview mode. In simple words, this feature is identical to Instagram Stories. This feature will enable the users to create bite-sized videos and photos and share them with everyone across the organization. All in all, these features will help better connect with employees—and the presence of this feature becomes all the more important at a time when the global workforce is barreling toward embracing the hybrid work culture.

Microsoft Teams

Teams Premium

Microsoft added a new add-on to its Team suite. This add-on is called Microsoft Teams Premium. This new add-on is meant to make every interaction on this collaborative business app more personalized, securer, and more intelligent than ever. The main highlight of Teams Premium is that the IT team may now make every engagement on this platform more personalized and outcome-driven. Moreover, Teams Premium will bring customized backgrounds and logos for not only meetings but also lobbies. Additionally, Teams Premium will also bring the capability to set custom scenes for the Together mode. On top of that, you will even get the ability to see extensive recaps of previous Team meetings, just in case you missed jotting the important points down. And if data security has been top of mind for your business, then Teams Premium will bring advanced meeting protection capabilities to boot. Teams Premium will also bring real-time translation capabilities for a whopping range of 40 spoken languages. Lastly, since webinars have become all the rage during the COVID-19 pandemic, Teams Premium will also help users organize advanced webinars too. This feature will be available in the preview mode from December this year, and it will be updated on Teams worldwide from February 2023.


Mesh Avatars

What are Mesh avatars? These avatars allow you to change how your display image will show up on Teams. Basically, your Mesh avatar is your animated version that will appear when you have turned off your camera. But how do you use Mesh avatars in your Teams account? To begin with, install the Avatar app on your Teams. You may design up to three avatars with countless customization options. Once you build an avatar, you may use it during a Teams conference call. Get your avatar by selecting the option "Effects and Avatars" from the main menu before you join a meeting. Not just that, but your Mesh avatar is capable of producing many gestures if you want it to react to a conversation in the call. This feature can be used in the private-review mode now.


New Features For Teams Meeting

Microsoft Ignite brought out a range of features that will make every Teams meeting more engaging and productive. Here are some new features that the Teams will have in the future. First up, you'll have cameo available. Basically, cameo is a PowerPoint experience that enables you to seamlessly integrate your cam feed into a presentation in real-time. So, now, the cameo feature will also help you tailor how you will appear on every slide you share on Teams. Likewise, there'll be Excel Live sessions where you can collaborate deeply with your team while you are discussing something on a spreadsheet. This particular feature will roll out in October this year. Similarly, meeting organizers can now assign seats to specific participants in the Together mode -- or they can select the Together Mode for all the participants.


Suite Of Collaborative Apps

Teams can be integrated with different apps that will take your experience of using this collaborative platform to a whole new level. Here are some of the apps slated to be released for Microsoft Teams specifically. 3M, alongside Microsoft Teams, is all set to launch a brand-new Post-IT® app. This app will help digitize your handwritten notes. All you need is your phone or laptop cam to do that. Through this app, you will easily translate your handwritten notes on your digital whiteboard. You will even get iHeartRadio -- this app will help you listen to music while you are working; not just that, but this app will help you share your favorite radio stations with your coworkers. iHeartRadio is the first-ever music app on Teams. Last but not least, there are many exciting apps that can be integrated with Teams; these apps include Zendesk, Zoho, ServiceNow, and Workday.

Making The Most Of These Upgrades With A Microsoft Gold Partner

We are a Microsoft Gold Partner with capabilities in helping businesses use Microsoft's emerging technology and latest business applications. That is what makes us a strategic partner in helping businesses unlock the full potential of Microsoft technology updates. We have years of experience working with VB.NET, C#, .NET, Microsoft CMS, and databases. Moreover, we have capabilities in helping businesses make the most of Microsoft business applications—MS Dynamics 365 Business Central, MS Dynamics 365 Finance, MS Dynamics 365 CRM, Power Automate, etc. We even have extensive experience in migrating workloads seamlessly to Azure Cloud so that businesses can enable digital transformation. So, connect with our Microsoft experts today. That way, you will take the first step toward using new technologies and applications so that your teams improve outcomes more consistently.