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Microsoft Mesh generally available in January – Ignite 2023 announcement

Microsoft Mesh, currently in preview, will be generally available in January 2024.

With Mesh, users will be able to create custom immersive spaces tailored to specific business
needs, such as employee events, trainings, guided tours and internal product showcases.
Using a no-code editor, customers will be able to easily customize an immersive event or
the Mesh toolkit to leverage the power of Unity for fully customizable experience.
With the Mesh editor, users will be able to customize immersive experiences to address the
unique needs of the event without writing a line of code. Event creators will be able to
select from a set of ready-to-use immersive spaces, customize them by adding images,
videos and screen share in a shared 3D canvas, and have them show up in an event in an
orchestrated way. Once these objects are added, change the size and position, or put the
video on loop so it fits right into the event. These customizations can then be saved as a
template for anyone in the organization to reuse.

At general availability, additional capabilities will make it easier for speakers to interact
with attendees when hosting immersive events in Mesh. Event organizers will be able to
facilitate a Q&A session by enabling attendees to raise hands. Organizers will see the list of
hands raised, in order, and will be able to call on participants, engaging them directly.
When called on, attendees will be eQectively seen and heard by everyone in the event. This
makes immersive events more eQective and engaging, and brings elements of real-life town
hall experiences where organizers can facilitate a Q&A during an event.

The ability to customize immersive spaces in Mesh will be available in Teams Premium.

New features streamline IT management for Teams experiences – Ignite...

Several new features have been developed for Microsoft Teams to help streamline
processes for IT admins and organizations and include:

Teams Rooms low-friction deployment: Teams Rooms can now be deployed using
Windows Autopilot, in private preview, reducing deployment times from days to just a few
hours. For devices that can’t use Autopilot, Microsoft is introducing a simplified
deployment option with one-time passwords (OTPs), 16-digit codes that will eliminate the
risk of sharing access credentials. OTP will be generally available in November. Remote
Access is coming to the Teams Rooms Pro Management portal and will allow remote
troubleshooting and proactive maintenance, monitoring device health and preventing
issues before they aQect meetings.

Simplifying Teams Phone deployment with shared calling: Shared calling allows admins
to enable groups of users to make and receive public switched telephone network (PSTN)
calls using a shared phone number and calling plan. With shared calling, a single phone
number and calling plan can be shared across a team of users whether that’s a team of 10
people in a small oQice or 10,000 users in an enterprise department – they just need to
have a Teams Phone license through either Microsoft 365 E5 or Teams Phone Standard.
This feature is generally available.

Advanced Collaboration Tools: Advanced Collaboration Tools in Teams Premium
empower IT admins to provide a more secure and self-regulated environment. Priority
account chat controls, in preview, empower users to manage unwanted internal
communications via policies setting. Users are notified about chats from new contacts,
giving them a choice to accept or block the conversations. Advanced collaboration
analytics, now generally available, oQers deep insights into external collaboration
behaviors. It empowers Teams admins to facilitate successful collaboration and mitigate
potential risks of external collaboration.

The new Microsoft Planner brings together to-dos, tasks, plans and...

Microsoft is bringing together Microsoft To Do, Microsoft Planner and Microsoft Project for
the web into a single, unified experience called Microsoft Planner. This experience will first
be available in the Planner app in Microsoft Teams in spring 2024, followed by web
experiences later in 2024. Powerful, collaborative, scalable and assisted by nextgeneration
AI, the new Planner will help everyone eQectively manage their work and
achieve their goals.

The new Planner experience will scale easily from collaborative task management to robust
project management, empowering everyone, from information workers to frontline workers
to project managers, so they can manage their work in one place and accelerate business
outcomes with AI-enabled capabilities. Benefits will include:

• The ability to easily find tasks, so users can focus on the tasks they need to get done
today.
• Helping users work the way they want. Whether for individual tasks or team
initiatives, Planner will enable them to choose the approach that’s best for their
needs.
• Creating project plans with powerful scheduling and resourcing tools. As plans
evolve, Planner will oQer a menu of capabilities to meet unique business needs.
• Copilot in Planner will help users get started with a plan faster with simple prompts
and as the plan evolves, it will add goals and intelligently suggest new tasks to help
keep users informed on progress.

In addition, the Tasks by Planner and To Do app in Microsoft Teams is being renamed
Planner. Microsoft Project for the web will also be renamed over the coming months. Users
of Project for the web can continue to use and enjoy the features they know, under the new
name Planner.

The new Planner app in Microsoft Teams with premium work management capabilities and
AI-powered experiences will be generally available in spring 2024, with the web experience
coming later.

More information:
https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/planner-blog/the-new-microsoft-planner-a-unified-experience-bringing-together/ba-p/3977998