New Microsoft Teams integration makes for even more elaborate video conferencing

Microsoft is making video conferencing even better for businesses using Microsoft Teams with a new feature called Coordinated Meetings.

To take advantage of this feature, organizations will need to have one or more Microsoft Teams Rooms devices as well as a Surface Hub in their meeting room. If these conditions are met, Coordinated Meetings will allow users to sync all of these devices together so that when they join a meeting on one device, the other devices in the room also join the same meeting.

While Microsoft’s Surface Hub 2S is capable of joining Teams meetings by itself, the device wasn’t designed with video conferencing in mind. The Surface Hub also runs its own operating system which means the Microsoft Teams Rooms app can’t be set up on the device, plus certified audio and video devices can’t be plugged into it. So a large organization may already have a Surface Hub in its meeting room in addition to one or more Microsoft Teams Rooms devices.

Coordinated Meetings

How an organization configures their Coordinated Meeting setup is up to them but Microsoft recommends that Teams Rooms devices are used for the microphone and camera while the Surface Hub can act as a white board or an additional display during the meeting.

In a support document, Microsoft explains why organizations may want to set up a Coordinated Meeting as opposed to allowing participants to use their own devices, saying:

“You can configure your cameras, speakers, and microphones so that the ones that give participants the best experience are enabled while others are disabled. This avoids the dreaded echo and feedback noise participants can experience when adding multiple devices to a meeting.”

While this new feature is certainly not for everyone, it’s nice to see Microsoft provide organisations with a new way to use the devices they already have to enhance their meetings.