What’s happening and when

Microsoft has updated Teams to bring improved features and functionality, such as:

  • Faster loading speeds and lower memory use
  • Threaded conversations, and Find in chat/channel
  • Improved people search and more options to navigate to the organisation chart from a person’s profile photo

This upgrade will be applied for the University during the inter-semester break (w/c 29 January).

What you need to do to prepare

The Save a post or message feature will not be available in new Teams, so you'll need to download any previously saved messages if you wish to retain them. To do this, Find your Saved messages within classic Teams and follow Microsoft’s instructions in the top banner.

Once the upgrade has been applied, you may be prompted to restart your device or follow the online guidance.

Changes you’ll notice

Visit Microsoft’s page to view a list of the features that are changing in the new Microsoft Teams.

Once you have been upgraded to new Teams, you may need to re-add any additional apps you had previously added to your left navigation bar. You’ll also be able to add the new Meet app, which allows you to discover, prepare, and recap your meetings in one place.

For a few months, you'll have the option to switch between the classic and new versions by:

Microsoft's What's new in the new Microsoft Teams gives updates about features and developments, but please be aware that some features may not be available at the University, or will follow a later release date.

Teams Live Events

If you use Teams Live Events, please be aware that:

  • Scheduling a Teams Live Event will currently redirect to the classic Teams web experience. Microsoft anticipate it will redirect to the new Teams web experience by late March 2024.
  • Producing a Teams Live Event will be available in the new Teams Desktop client in March 2024. Until then, you will need to switch back to classic Teams to produce a Teams Live Event.

In the longer term, there will be a switch from Microsoft Teams Live Events to Town Halls as Teams Live Events will be retired for commercial customers in September 2024. You may therefore wish to start familiarising yourself with Microsoft Town Halls.

Find out more about Managing Teams Live Events during the transition to new Teams and what you need to do if you have any Teams Live Events scheduled in the coming weeks.

Further help and support

You can continue to access Microsoft Help directly from within Teams. In new Teams, the Help entrypoint, including Help links and Give Feedback, will be located under the More options menu (...) in the title bar.

Online guidance and resources about Teams and other Microsoft 365 tools can also be found within the University's Learning Pathways site.