Beyond sharing your screen: Interactive collaboration with apps in Microsoft Teams meetings

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Summary:

Our journey towards hybrid work is underway and it’s exciting to see how new tools and technologies are supporting this new model of working. With many of us planning to balance a mix of working from the office and/or remotely throughout the week, flexibility and inclusivity will be the name of the game – giving everyone a chance to participate and collaborate. Hybrid meetings in Microsoft Teams will play a big role in creating this space for collaboration, and apps will light up the experiences that build team connections and productivity.

Earlier this year at Build, we unveiled the preview of share-to-stage, which not only allows you to share a Teams meeting app’s content onto the meeting stage for everyone to see – but also lets them interact with the content in real-time. Imagine all the scenarios this opens that you couldn’t properly do before virtually – like whiteboarding and brainstorming together or running a scrum without having one person share their entire screen while others just observe. We’re excited to announce that, coming soon, you’ll be able to enjoy this new experience starting with the MURAL, Miro, Lucidspark and Freehand apps, who share our vision of bring to life engaging and inclusive collaboration experience – with many more coming in the future.

Make your Teams meetings more collaborative & interactive with apps

Apps in meetings offer a more effective way to facilitate collaboration, enhance team productivity, and drive results during the flow of a Teams meeting. We can use them while we talk with one another, to help us stay on track with an agenda, to log action items in our plans, and so much more. But until now, we could only interact with an app through the side-panel or through in-meeting notifications. That’s why were excited about share-to-stage and the range of scenarios that can now be possible – even with hybrid work. With this new capability, you’ll be able to add an app to a meeting and then share it onto the meeting stage where everyone can then see and interact with the app content – allowing for real-time collaboration.

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An app utilizing share-to-stage in a Microsoft Teams meeting.

Reimagine brainstorming and visual collaboration with these apps

One of the experiences that many workers have expressed missing is the time spent when you could get folks into a room and use a whiteboard to organize, brainstorm, and build upon each other’s ideas in that moment. But doing that virtually can be challenging. That’s where solutions like MURAL, Miro, LucidSpark and Freehand come in – by providing a visual collaboration canvas so that everyone can interact together on the same board within a Teams channel. And coming very soon, these apps will expand their impact by being the first to utilize share-to-stage – bringing their rich capabilities into Teams meetings!

Experience the magic of supercharged teamwork with MURAL

More than an online whiteboard, MURAL transforms teamwork by making meetings and workshops interactive experiences designed for problem solving, play, and imagination. With the upcoming MURAL experience in Teams meetings, you can do a quick brainstorm, affinity map, diagram, or retrospective session by integrating a visual thinking canvas into all your existing workflows. Collaborate in a mural in real time during a live video meeting using the ‘share’ icon to share-to-stage. Try the MURAL app for Teams today, powered by Microsoft Azure, to foster inclusive, imaginative teamwork and turn shared ideas into a shared reality—at any time and from anywhere.

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A mural displayed on the meeting stage within a Microsoft Teams meeting.

Bring meetings to life with Miro
Miro is the online whiteboard platform that delivers a space for all the unstructured thinking, co-creation, and visual collaboration that is needed to help innovative ideas come to life. Bring the power of Miro’s infinite whiteboard canvas into any Microsoft Teams meeting to take ideation and planning to the next level. With the upcoming Miro experience in Teams meetings, you can share-to-stage your Miro board and collaborate live with your teammates using facilitation tools like sticky notes, arrows, voting, timers and more to co-create with ease in real-time, without having to context switch. Attach Miro boards and share with participants even before the meeting begins, with the Miro for Teams calendar integration. Try the Miro app for Teams today and discover how you can boost collaboration in hybrid work.
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A Miro board displayed on the meeting stage within a Microsoft Teams meeting.

Brainstorm, collaborate, and align on new ideas with Lucidspark
Brainstorm and collaborate in real time with the upcoming Lucidspark experience for Teams meetings. Share a Lucidspark board in a meeting and have your team jump into it together. Everyone can contribute their ideas onto an infinite canvas using sticky notes and freehand drawing. You can even split into smaller groups for more focused brainstorming with Breakout Boards. Beyond the initial brainstorm, Lucidspark helps teams align around the strongest ideas and start taking action—all within Teams. Use Gather and Sort to organize your notes by certain criteria and start a voting session to select the best way forward. All you need to do is select a new or existing Lucidspark board, click the “Share” icon within Teams to share-to-stage, and start collaborating Try the Lucidspark app for Teams today.

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A Lucidspark board displayed on the meeting stage within a Microsoft Teams meeting.

Inspire collaboration from your whole team with Freehand
Freehand makes it easy for everyone to have a voice on its approachable but powerful online whiteboard. Bring to life team collaboration experiences, whether in-office or remote, such as planning, brainstorming, mind mapping, and more with drawings, text, timer, and sticky notes. You can pin the Freehand app to your Teams channel or in a meeting via the share tray. Coming soon, you’ll be able to use Freehand directly in your Teams meeting using share-to-stage. Try the Freehand app for Teams today where everyone can have their voice heard.

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A Freehand board displayed on the meeting stage within a Microsoft Teams meeting.

All these great apps have existing experiences for Teams channels today and will soon bring that experience into the meeting stage. They can be discovered and installed from the links above in Microsoft AppSource or within the Teams desktop and web client by navigating through the Teams store. We’re excited to see how you can make your hybrid meetings more collaborative!

*As with all third-party apps, you may need to sign-up for an account or subscription to use these in Teams, which may require admin approval.

More information

Date: 2021-09-09 15:00:00Z
Link: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-teams-blog/beyond-sharing-your-screen-interactive-collaboration-with-apps/ba-p/2709595