New: Microsoft Teams Coordinated Meetings

Microsoft Teams gets a boost in video conferencing thanks to a new feature called Coordinated Meetings. This update allows organizations with Microsoft Teams Rooms devices and the Surface Hub to sync all of their devices with each other.

If you own or work for a company that has such devices, ranging from wireless headsets to smart conference hubs, you can join a meeting on one device and all other compatible devices in the room can be connected to the same meeting.

The idea behind this feature is to sync all of these devices to provide the best meeting experience. This may mean that audio is picked up by one device, while another provides the camera for video, disacenting devices that aren’t needed to prevent audio feedback or other annoying distractions.

In fact, the whole allows you to bring together the best features of a lot of devices in one meeting; that’s something you can’t do with Zoom. However, it will require some configuration, as each device will need its own Exchange Room mailbox.

You can set up coordinated meetings on a Teams Rooms device with a touchscreen, or you can set up a whole range of devices from a central location using an XML configuration file. However, the latter method is probably more suitable for IT departments.

But once everything is set up, you should have a meeting room that is perfectly configured for video conferencing.

Such a new feature may be very much focused on business use. But for people who work from home and participate in Microsoft Teams meetings from outside destinations, this should make for a more enjoyable meeting experience. A sophisticated meeting setup means there’s less chance of hearing someone’s heavy breathing if they’re too close to a video conferencing device – and that’s a victory for everyone.