Recently, Microsoft released the feature to add background effects when using video during Microsoft Teams meetings. This gave the ability to change backgrounds so we could be on a sunny beach, in Minecraft or maybe in a room with plain walls. Articles were written on how to add your own custom images. This consisted of going into your profile files on your device and copying images to the Microsoft Teams app folder. Yesterday I noticed a +New button when I…
Over the past few weeks Microsoft have released the ability to raise your hand during Microsoft Teams meetings. This was a much-anticipated feature that I am sure many will take advantage of. The raise hand feature allows you to notify the host and other attendees that you have something you want to say, whether that is something to add to what is being discussed or maybe a question. When the raise hand button is pressed, the person who is currently…
Yesterday marked one year since I worked my first day as a Hable employee. In these past 12 months I feel I have developed both personally and professionally. Before joining Hable, I worked as an ICT manager in a primary academy trust and prior to that, a technical manager where I managed a team of technicians supporting local schools in Northamptonshire. When I first joined Hable I continued to work with education customers and worked with some of the top…
FAQ Plus Conversational Q&A bots are an easy way to provide answers to frequently asked questions by users. However, most bots fail to engage with users in meaningful way because there is no human in the loop when the bot fails. FAQ bot is a friendly Q&A bot that brings a human in the loop when it is unable to help. One can ask the bot a question and the bot responds with an answer if it is contained in…
As some of you may be aware, Microsoft recently announced that channel moderation was coming to Microsoft Teams. Well, guess what… it’s now here! This means you can now specify who you allow to post new messages to channels, giving you the ability to create channels or even whole Teams without the worry of what messages might be posted. It will enable companies and institutions the opportunity to setup organisation-wide Teams where only a select few users can post, keeping…
Today sees the official launch of the new Microsoft Teams grid view. It gives users an overview of the Teams that they are a member of in a nice organised view. But what else does the new grid view give us? Filtering Teams One new feature that I’m really liking is the ability to filter the Teams that are displayed in your All Teams view. This is a great way to differentiate the types of Teams you are a part…
Rollback a few months and getting post notifications from channels within Microsoft Teams was always a little hidden. We would need to follow a channel, which would then enable us to receive notifications for every activity on that channel. Finally, Microsoft has resolved this and we are greeted with a nice new way of getting notifications from a channel, and what’s better is that we can personalise these notifications so they only appear in our activity or we can turn…
Microsoft Teams has seen quite a few updates over the past month. One that I think has gone unnoticed is the test call feature in the Teams app. How many times do we go to do a call through Teams and worry about our tech working? Sometimes we are even unaware if our tech is working correctly or not. Microsoft Teams now has an option that lets you run a test call; a feature I never knew existed until recently….
As training consultants, we are often asked what is OneDrive and why do we need it? Before I go into why I think it’s essential in our everyday lives – both working and personal – I think we need to understand what OneDrive is. For me, OneDrive is your My Documents but deposited in the cloud on Office 365. It offers a simple, single way to store, share and synchronise files of different types. The files stored within OneDrive are…
Northampton Primary Academy Trust (NPAT) is a vibrant Trust comprising 11 schools, 4,500 students and 750 staff across Northampton Town. The Trust uses a range of Microsoft 365 Education products, including OneNote, Teams, Sway, Skype for Business, OneDrive, SharePoint and Windows 10 to provide a consistent experience for Teachers and drive better outcomes for children. Julia Kedwards OBE, CEO of NPAT explains, “All of the resources, time savings and teaching strategies that we use, we do to enrich children. Microsoft…