Microsoft Teams Panels

Microsoft is releasing a new series of touchscreen Microsoft Teams panels to provide a space and time management solution on a compact digital display.

The company announced the general availability of the meeting room scheduling and management panels Friday, but the panels were originally announced in October 2020 during the company’s annual Ignite conference.

The Microsoft Teams Panels are powered by a native Teams experience and can be mounted to essentially any surface.

According to Microsoft, the panels enable employees to book an available room on the spot, or book it for future use right from the panel. The panels include color-coded LED indicators and an easy-to-read user interface that presents space and meeting information.

The panels use the Exchange calendar for booking to give users insight in the meeting space status. They also feature the ability to quickly schedule ad hoc meetings by simply taping on the preferred time slot to instantly book the meeting room.

The panels work with a range of devices, including Microsoft Teams Rooms and Surface Hub devices. This gives users the ability to book ad-hoc meetings on the panel and joining the same meeting on a Teams Rooms or Surface Hub device.

Panels can be used outside any meeting space, and users can schedule any room through Outlook or right from the panel.

All panels can be centrally provisioned, updated and monitored through the Microsoft Teams Admin Center, according to Microsoft.

The company is also working on rolling out new features, including room capacity warning, the ability to view the building floor plan to find other available rooms, room check-in notification and a function to allow for the removal of unused meeting space time slots.

Device manufacturer Crestron is the first Microsoft partner to offer Teams Panels. Yealink will release their sin April, and additional partners will be announced later in 2021.