Some Microsoft Teams users will soon be able to join calls without other attendees knowing as part of a system-wide security update.
The video conferencing platform is set to receive a new feature that allows select Teams users to access meetings in higher-level cloud tiers, such as those used by government agencies, without needing to go through repeated checks.
An entry on the official Microsoft 365 roadmap, entitled "anonymous meeting join across clouds", notes how commercial Teams users will be able to smoothly enter meetings in a number of different workspaces and groups, all the way up to Department of Defense (DOD) level in the US.
Anonymous Microsoft Teams
Currently, anyone without a Microsoft Teams account is able to click on a Teams invite link to dial into a call and be shown as an anonymous participant, but this upgrade will now mean more high-level users will also now be able to utilize the function too.
The roadmap entry goes on to describe how the feature will allow users to, "join meetings in other clouds anonymously from your Teams desktop app", mentioning not just DOD meetings, but also Government Community Cloud (GCC) calls.
The change will allow Commercial Microsoft Teams users to join GCC and DoD meetings with just a normal meeting link, with the same being true the other way around. Following the update, meeting hosts will be able to control who can enter the actual meeting.
Microsoft says the feature is rolling out now, and it will be enabling the feature in three phases, with Commercial and GCC customers the first to be able to join meetings in "GCC-High" and DOD clouds.
Next, GCC-High customers will be able to join Commercial, GCC and DOD meetings - and finally, DOD customers will be able to join Commercial, GCC, and GCC-High meetings.
The news comes as Microsoft continue to improve and refine Teams as more and more workers return to the office or embrace hybrid working.
Recently, Microsoft revealed that users will soon be able to add apps built for Microsoft Teams across Office.com and the Office app for Windows, meaning there's now no need to switch between platforms in order to use specific apps.
The company is also working on a new feature that will let users run apps built for Microsoft Teams within its Outlook email service.
Microsoft Teams continues to go from strength to strength, with the latest figures from the company showing that the service now boasts over 270 million monthly active users.
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