Microsoft Teams gets Walkie Talkie, virtual appointment manager, other features to aid frontline workers

Microsoft Teams: Tech giant Microsoft has added five new features to its video conferencing solution Teams to aid Frontline Workers, the company has announced. The development was shared by the company in a blog post, in which it stated that five features, viz Walkie Talkie app, Microsoft Viva, managing virtual appointments, audio notification for misplaced devices and Reflexis Shifts Connector.

Microsoft also announced that it had partnered with Zebra mobile devices for the Walkie Talkie app in the platform, but this service would work for other smartphones as well. Meanwhile, the learning app of Microsoft Viva is claimed to be included to make it simpler for the entire workforce of a particular organisation to remain up to date with the recommended and required training.

The new features have been added in order to reduce the stress that frontline workers have been dealing with. According to the recent Work Trend Index released by Microsoft recently, 88% of the frontline workers have been found to be excited about the job opportunities created by technology.

Microsoft elaborated that the Walkie Talkie app, in several Zebra mobile devices, would let frontline workers connect and communicate instantly and securely with each other with the push-to-talk buttons or PTT buttons on these devices. However, non-Zebra devices would also be able to use the Walkie Talkie app on their Android or iOS devices.

The next feature pertains to management of virtual appointments. In its blog, the company said, “To enable workers to stay in the flow of work and reduce stress around approval updates, we are integrating the Approvals app directly into the industry processes that frontline workers rely on. Now workers can manage and request approvals in their line of business with Power Apps component framework (PCF) controls, as well as require details like mandatory comments or group approvals to make sure approvals, and the processes that depend on them, run smoothly.” With this, frontline workers would get a comprehensive view of virtual appointments, accompanied with updates around queuing, wait times, staffing delays and missed appointments in real time.

Employees would be able to access, share, discover as well as track leaning content with the help of the update to Microsoft Viva app, which has also announced collaboration with OpenSesame and EdCast for extensive upskilling and training content.

The next feature is “Reflexis Shifts connector for Teams which integrates with the Reflexis Workforce Scheduler (RWS) to create a seamless, real-time sync for viewing, assigning, and managing shift requests”, the company said.

Apart from these, the last update that is being incorporated for frontline workers by Microsoft is a notification for locating misplaced devices, in which the IT department would be able to trigger an audio notification to help employees find the device that they have misplaced. Not only that but a single tap on Android devices would now also be made available to make it easy for frontline workers to sign out of all of the compatible apps so that the devices can be prepared for the next worker.