A new Microsoft Teams change is going to make it easier to avoid embarrassing mistakes on conference calls…hopefully

Sitting on your own on an international company call may soon be an embarassing memory thanks to a new update coming to Microsoft Teams.

The video conferencing platform has announced it is working on a new tool that should help users pick the right time for everyone, even if your team is spread across different time zones around the globe.

When scheduling a meeting with people in different time zones, the update will look to suggest start times that sync with every participants’ location, hopefully meaning an end to early morning starts or late evening finishes.

Microsoft Teams time zones

In its entry on the Microsoft 365 roadmap, the update, simply entitled “meeting participants time-zone” explains how it can benefit those scheduling calls for users across multiple locations.

Along with prompting suggested start times, Microsoft Teams will also now provide “additional insights that correspond to the participants respective time-zone,” which probably means information concerning local holidays or individual travel times.

Whatever the case, Microsoft says the tool will help “ensur(e) a more suitable time for all meeting participants.”

The update is currently listed as being “in development”, but has a scheduled rollout start date of February 2024, meaning users shouldn’t have too long to wait. Upon release, it will be available for Windows users across web and desktop, and will even be made available for government and high-end security users.

The platform had already introduced the ability to highlight other users’ current time-zones, which, along with the company’s live translated captions, should make international calls and networking easier than ever before.

Microsoft Teams also recently announced an update that will allow users to manage calendar notifications directly within their Microsoft Teams Activity Feed, meaning there should no longer be a bit of a scramble between apps and services to hush an annoying pop-up or alert.