As we ring within the begin of 2024, we’re gearing as much as showcase a number of recent improvements throughout Microsoft Teams on the annual National Retail Federation (NRF) convention, going down January 14th – January sixteenth in New York City.
We’re asserting new options designed to allow retailer groups to effectively meet clients’ expectations and enhance the retail expertise on this new period of AI.
Keep studying beneath for the most recent product and have capabilities coming to Teams to assist simplify operations and allow first-class retail experiences for all retail employees – together with the frontline.
Enhanced Store Team Communication and Collaboration
Route bulletins to frontline groups by location, division, and position
Target vital bulletins to the best frontline staff primarily based on location, division, and job position info. Targeted bulletins will floor on the Teams house expertise so your frontline staff won’t ever miss an vital communication. This function can be usually accessible in March 2024. Learn extra.
Boost frontline teamwork with auto-generated position and division tagging
Reach the best individual on the proper time with computerized tags in your frontline groups. Tags for division and job roles might be configured and created routinely in your frontline employees within the Teams Admin Center. Frontline staff can leverage these computerized tags of their frontline groups to attach with the best individual each time. This function can be in public preview in February 2024. Learn extra.
Bring solutions to communities for simpler info sharing
In Viva Engage in Teams, solutions from Q&A conversations will now be accessible in communities, higher enabling frontline employees to simply supply wanted info. This function can be usually accessible January 2024.
Monitor how worker engagement drives enterprise efficiency
Also coming to Viva Engage in Teams, community analytics will convey AI-powered theme extraction and worker retention metrics to customers to assist improve insights into workforce dynamics and assist drive knowledgeable resolution making. This function can be usually accessible in February 2024. Learn extra.
Automatically hear push-to-talk transmissions from a number of channels
Frontline employees utilizing Walkie Talkie in Teams now have the choice to routinely hear incoming transmissions from any of their pinned favourite Teams channels. With this new function, customers can keep higher linked to a number of channels while not having to modify channels manually. This function can be usually accessible by finish of month. Learn extra on the way to get began.
Use any generic wired (USB-C and three.5mm) headset for fast staff communication on Android
Frontline employees usually must immediately talk with one another even when their telephones are locked. We built-in Walkie Talkie in Teams with audio equipment companions to make this expertise doable with the devoted push-to-talk (PTT) button on headsets, which immediately brings up walkie talkie for clear and safe voice communication. In addition to pick out specialised headsets, we’re excited to announce that Walkie Talkie in Teams will now work with any generic wired (USB-C and three.5mm) headsets on Android. As lengthy because the generic headsets have a management button to play/pause or to simply accept/decline calls, frontline employees can faucet the button to start out and cease transmissions on walkie talkie. Frontline organizations will be capable to simply begin utilizing walkie talkie with lower-cost generic headsets. This function can be usually accessible beginning February 2024. Learn extra.
Streamline Retail Store Operations
Allow frontline groups to set their shift availability for particular dates
Frontline employees will now have the flexibleness to set their availability preferences on particular dates, enhancing their potential to handle distinctive scheduling wants. This added function enhances present choices for recurring weekly availability. This function is out there in January 2024. To be taught extra about current enhancements to Shifts in Teams, learn the most recent weblog – Discover the most recent enhancements in Microsoft Shifts.
Easily deploy shifts at scale in your frontline
Teams admins can now standardize Shifts settings throughout all frontline groups and handle them centrally by deploying Shifts to frontline groups at scale within the Teams admin heart. You can choose which capabilities to activate or off like (displaying open shifts, swap shift requests, provide shift requests, day off requests, and time clock.)
Admins also can establish schedule homeowners and create scheduling teams uniformly for all frontline groups on the tenant stage and create schedule teams and time-off causes that can be set uniformly throughout all frontline groups. Your frontline managers are in a position to begin utilizing Shifts straight out-of-the-box with minimal setup required. This function is at the moment in public preview and can be usually accessible in March 2024. Learn extra.
Streamline Teams deployment in your frontline and handle at scale
Whether as a result of seasonality or the pure turnover seen on the frontline in retail, simplifying consumer membership is vital to easing administration wants. Now usually accessible, Microsoft has added new capabilities within the Teams Admin Center to deploy frontline dynamic groups at scale in your total frontline workforce. Through the facility of dynamic groups, staff membership is routinely managed and at all times updated with the best customers as individuals enter, transfer inside, or go away the group utilizing dynamic teams from Entra ID.
This deployment instrument streamlines the admin expertise to create a Teams construction that maps the frontline workforces’ real-world into digital world and makes it simple to arrange a constant channel construction to optimize for sturdy frontline collaboration on day one. Available in February, clients can use customized consumer attributes in Entra ID to outline frontline and placement attributes, with extra enhancements that make it simpler to assign staff homeowners by including a individuals picker to the setup wizard.
Map your operational hierarchy to frontline groups
Admins will be capable to arrange their frontline operational hierarchy to map their group’s construction of frontline areas and groups to a hierarchy within the Teams Admin Center. Admins also can outline attributes for his or her groups that vary from division info to model info. The operational hierarchy coupled with this added metadata will allow frontline apps and experiences sooner or later like job publishing. This function can be in public preview in January 2024. Learn extra.
Leverage generative AI to streamline in-store shift administration
Store managers also can establish gadgets comparable to open shifts, day off, and present shifts with a brand new Shifts plug-in for Microsoft 365 Copilot. Microsoft 365 Copilot can now floor prompts and retrieve insights for frontline managers leveraging information from the Shifts app along with consumer and firm information it has entry to comparable to Teams chat historical past, SharePoint, emails, and extra. This function can be usually accessible February 2024.
Automate and simplify company to retailer job publishing
With job publishing, now you can create an inventory of duties and schedule them to be routinely revealed to your frontline groups on an everyday cadence, comparable to each month on the fifteenth. Once you publish an inventory, the duty publishing function will deal with the scheduling and make sure that the listing is revealed on the desired cadence. This function is helpful for duties that must be completed frequently, comparable to retailer opening and shutting processes or conducting periodic inspections and compliance checks. This function can be usually accessible in March 2024.
Publish a job that everybody within the staff should full
This new functionality supplies the choice to create a job that each member of the recipient staff should full. Organizations can assign duties like full coaching or assessment a brand new coverage to all or a particular set of frontline employees. The job can be created for every employee on the designated location. This function will turn out to be usually accessible in March 2024.
Require extra completion necessities for submitting duties
When you create a job inside the job publishing function, you might have the choice to request a type and/or photograph completion. When you publish that job, every recipient staff can be unable to mark the duty full till the shape is submitted by a member of the staff. This ensures that the duty is accomplished correctly by every staff member.
Additionally, with approval completion necessities, organizations can maintain frontline managers and their groups accountable for verifying the work was completed to plain earlier than reflecting that work as accomplished. This permits a company to extend consideration to element and accountability for vital duties. These options will turn out to be usually accessible in March 2024.|
Secure and Manage your Business
Simplify authentication with domain-less sign-in
Since a single machine is usually shared amongst a number of frontline employees, they should sign-in and out a number of occasions a day all through a shift or throughout shifts. Typing out lengthy consumer names with a site is susceptible to errors and might be time consuming. With domain-less sign-in, frontline employees can now sign-in to Teams faster utilizing solely the primary a part of their username (i.e., with out the area), then enter the password to entry Teams on shared and corporate-managed gadgets. For instance, if the username is 123456@microsoft.com or alland@microsoft.com, customers can now sign up with solely “123456” or “alland”, respectively. Thiis function can be in public preview in January 2024.
We’re excited to share extra updates and new options all through the calendar 12 months. To be taught extra about how Microsoft Teams empowers frontline employees, please go to our webpage to learn the way.