New content sharing experience is now in Public Preview

Microsoft Teams Public Preview is bringing in new features in a nice speed. Every organization should have at least few people using the Public Preview version so they can get some experience what is coming up to Teams and how they should inform and train their employees. The latest one is the new sharing experience for Microsoft Teams Meetings.

Traditionally, when you hit share in Teams meeting, you got the sharing dialogue on bottom. No the sharing functionality will be on top-right part of Teams. Right close to the button you clicked to open sharing.

Now, it is instantly different from the old way. Sharing is arranged differently.

This is where you control if you have computer sound included right away or not.
When sharing a screen you will use this dialogue. It shows your first two screens there (most people have only 1-2 screens) but if you have more screens you need click on More to open them all to a view.
If you have an application running (well, in that picture I have 17!) you will be able to choose the app to share to the meeting. These can be web pages or PowerPoints, for example.
Microsoft Whiteboard is shared to the meeting via this option. Freehand by InVision doesn’t seem to be prompted here on default. Which is good if it has not been used or even installed!
PowerPoint Live means opening and presenting a PowerPoint directly to Teams meeting. This is the familiar sharing the presentation menu. PowerPoints here are ones you have opened or edited in Microsoft Teams or in OneDrive recently.

When you click More > in Screen you get a view like this one where you can choose the monitor which contents you want to share to others.

When you are sharing the screen you can now turn computer audio on and off while presenting!

The new sharing experience may take some time to get used to. I definitely like it is close to the sharing button but the long habit of sharing content was making the transition a bit difficult. Many are confused when this appears – usually it is there when they need to start sharing to a customer or in a webinar.. – so it is a good idea to train your users about this change. And especially those who have more than two screens.

Camera Preview

You may have noticed that there is also now a camera preview in Teams. If your camera is turned off you can move your mouse cursor on top of camera icon to activate preview to you. This won’t be visible to others unless you are sharing your screen, where Teams is, in a meeting. In that case other attendees will be seeing your Teams contents as well.

When you see the Private preview of your camera feed you can change the camera really easily (dropdown) and also apply background effects.

I haven’t had too much use of this one yet (check my settings when joining the meeting) but I am sure there are people who will benefit from this one.