Microsoft 365 Roadmap Weekly: Outlook web dictation support, Teams branded meetings and more

It was a busy week for all sorts of Microsoft news and updates, including the reveal that the new Outlook for Windows email app is now generally available for individual consumer users. However, there were plenty of other upcoming features to Outlook and apps that were revealed in this week's update of the Microsoft 365 Roadmap website.

Outlook - Dictation support for the web app and more

The new Outlook for Windows app may have hit the GA stage for individual users, but Microsoft still has plans to add new features in the coming weeks. One listed on the Microsoft 365 Roadmap shows that users will be able to dictate emails in the web version soon:

Dictation lets you use speech-to-text to author messages in Outlook with a microphone and reliable internet connection. It's a quick and easy way to draft emails, send replies, and capture the tone you're going for.

The web version of Outlook will also get a new feedback experience:

The feedback entry point for Outlook for Web will be moving from the bottom of the Help pane to the Help tab of the ribbon, for ease of discovery. A streamlined experience, diagnostics log collection and the ability to add screenshots and video make it easier and quicker for users to describe their feedback and helps Microsoft act on it. Also, users can search for information related to their feedback, including updates on features under development, workarounds for problems and how-to from Help. This change obeys the general Feedback policy.

Also, the iOS version of Outlook will soon be able to expand or collapse its nested mail folders and the Android version will soon add a notification if your get an "@mention" in an email, document or loop. All of these features will begin to roll out in October.

Teams - Branded launcher screen support for Premium users and more

If your company has a Microsoft Teams Premium subscription, they will be able to launch their own Teams launcher screen on the Desktop and Mac starting in November.

The Teams Join Launcher web page will now support the brand logo and brand image uploaded for branded meetings. This is a Teams Premium feature.

Premium users on the desktop and Mac will also get some new meeting controls in October:

We are launching an out-of-the-box template that can be useful when meeting with external participants. The controlled-content meeting template has preset defaults for meeting options to provide tight controls over lobby bypass, who can present, allowing chat in lobby/in-meeting, and who can record.

The new Teams 2.0 version will add a new error message in November:

Microsoft Teams Meeting users will be notified directly through the error message for why they cannot access meeting chats when their chat access is limited by policy or due to system limitations and unexpected errors.

Sharepoint List templates

The Sharepoint app will get a new feature in October:

We are bringing the goodness of List templates to SharePoint document libraries. Creating document libraries will now be a breeze with our ready-made templates with scenario relevant content, structure, metadata, and content types - all to save you time and maintain broader consistency across your content management organization.

Stay tuned as we will post major Microsoft 365 Roadmap updates every Sunday.