Microsoft has unveiled a new ‘community’ feature in Teams for android and iOS devices. As the name implies, this new feature will allow users to connect, share and collaborate with each other. They can now create and manage a group with their work colleagues, college mates and like-minded people. It also provides them access to meetings, event scheduling, documents, video calls, chats, and photo sharing.
“Community owners have the complete authority to set community guidelines, regulate settings and moderate all content by adding or removing members” Microsoft said. An event can take place virtually, in-person, or in hybrid modes. To attend an online event users can directly join by clicking on the shared link, copy-pasting the URL, or dial-in information. Whereas, for in-person- events, participants will get venue details or specific directions via virtual map.
As of now, the community feature is only available on mobile, however, the company has promised that it would soon arrive for desktop customers as well. It can be found on the ‘home screen’ tab in the Teams mobile application. Users must have a Microsoft account to join and current members can invite others by sending a QR code. They need to select “create new community” and “create from scratch” to make a new profile. Users also get to choose a name, picture, emoji, or description for their profile.
Microsoft has also announced that “in the year 2023, people will be able to access SignUpGenius in Teams to hire volunteers, organize events and manage new sign-ups”.