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This will make it easier to connect with non-Teams users outside of your organisation
Published: December 9, 2024
James Stephen
Technology Journalist
The much-anticipated native SMS messaging has now arrived on Microsoft Teams.
According to the Microsoft 365 roadmap, simplifying communications with people outside of your organisation that use alternative UCaaS platforms.
From February 2025, the feature will be available on desktop and mobile for Microsoft Teams Calling Plan users in the United States and Canada.
A LinkedIn post by Tom Arbuthnot, Cofounder at Empowering.Cloud, sharing the news prompted a number of industry veterans to offer their insights.
Shaw Harry, Microsoft 365 Enterprise Solution Architect, and many others expressed their relief that the new capability had finally arrived:
“Been waiting for this for years! Hopefully it comes to other markets too like Europe.”
Robbie Ronnie, Global Telephony & Meeting Space Management Lead, wondered whether operator connect and direct routing providers would gain access to the native messaging feature.
The question was ultimately answered by Igor Boshoer, Co-Founder at Clerk Chat, a conversational messaging service used by Slack, Canva, and others: “We enable native SMS, WhatsApp, and RCS for Microsoft Teams.
“We already are working with hundreds of direct routing providers and OC carriers. Glad to see Microsoft finally offering SMS for calling plan.
“Curious to see how Microsoft will handle complexities of SMS compliance.”
That’s not all. Microsoft has also announced that Teams Premium license holders will have access to advanced scheduling features in Microsoft Bookings.
The tech giant believes that the new capabilities will ease scheduling, enhance client communication, help manage workflows and improve efficiency.
Purva Ekatpure, Product Manager 2 at Microsoft, introduced the feature in a Microsoft Teams blog post: “In today’s fast-paced world, efficient scheduling is key to keeping businesses running smoothly.”
“Whether you’re a consultant, healthcare provider, or small business owner, the challenge of coordinating appointments can feel overwhelming.”
This is where Microsoft Bookings steps in—a powerful tool designed to simplify and streamline the process of scheduling and managing appointments.”
Microsoft Bookings is an online scheduling tool that businesses can use to manage their appointments. Bookings lets you create customisable booking pages through which everyone, from customers to co-workers, can schedule time with you without requiring time-consuming back-and-forth communications to organise a time.
With the latest update, booking users can send SMS notifications for appointments. These automated notifications include confirmations, service details, updates, and reminders, which help to reduce the number of missed appointments.
The functionality will be generally available in the US, Canada, and the UK.
A queue feature is also being added to Booking, enabling real-time visibility and control over incoming appointments.
Schedulers and admins will be able to see a consolidated view of all the appointments within the booking page they manage. If necessary, they can reassign appointments to different staff members, and the staff can assign appointments to themselves.
This will be made available in Bookings for Teams Premium users in early 2025.
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