Teams Premium Email Verification for External Users

A new Teams Premium feature called Email Verification for External Participants is scheduled to be released in early CY25. Organizations often need to allow external participants into meetings, but these participants may not have a Microsoft work, school, or personal account for sign-in. Requiring external users to sign in before attending an organization’s Teams meeting can provide additional assurance. However, not all external participants have accounts for sign-in.

This new feature will enable meetings to require "Anonymous users can join Teams meetings after verifying by email code". A one-time password will be sent to the attendee’s email, which they can use to join the meeting. Once the external user has joined the meeting, an "Email verified" label will appear next to their name, confirming to internal users that the external user has been verified.

This feature enhances Teams Premium's security capabilities and complements existing features such as watermarks, sensitivity labels, and end-to-end encryption.

References

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/microsoftteamsblog/enhance-meeting-security-with-teams-premium%E2%80%99s-email-verification-for-external-me/4292196

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/roadmap?msockid=1e6bf65e64c46bbd2af2e58965c36a50&filters=&searchterms=418125

Microsoft Teams Queues is now GA

Microsoft Teams Queues is now Generally Available (GA).  This is an existing, new experience delivered within Teams that enables organizations to that need to engage with customers but are not part of a traditional call center environment.  You can quickly create Queues that can support internal or external projects and initiatives.

There is a plethora of capabilities that allows you to create queues and then assign team members to work with those queues.  Calls can be prioritized, transferred between team members, history of past calls, opt in/out of queues, and switch between queues based on analytics (average wait time, number of abandoned calls, etc.).

Microsoft Copilot can be leveraged with Queues as well.  Notes can be automatically captured, along with highlights, the next steps, and outstanding issues enabling staff to be more accurate in their follow up with customers.

Queues are very simple to set up.  There are tons of administrative capabilities that allow you to easily add and remove support staff.  There is a capability called whisper controls that gives the ability for supervisors to step-in and assist in a conversation.  There are analytics that allow you to monitor performance, track call volumes and identify areas of improvement.  Auto attendants can be configured and numerous other configurations that control the customer experience like welcome greetings, music on hold, queue hours, call routing rules, agent monitoring, etc.

Microsoft Team Queues requires Teams Premium Licensing.

References:

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-teams-blog/queues-app-for-microsoft-teams-now-generally-available/ba-p/4276837 

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/use-the-queues-app-for-microsoft-teams-370ad83e-c2c1-4a9f-8a59-16c98be102e9 

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/MicrosoftTeams/manage-queues-app