Microsoft Launches Public Teams Preview Program

If there is one thing that Microsoft loves, it’s preview programs. Nearly every single application from the company has some sort of ‘early access’ program where you can try out upcoming, but possibly broken, features before they are released to the general population.

While Microsoft does have various ways you can get early access to features that are rolling out for Teams, this involves being invited to the TAP (Technology Adoption Program) or Rapid Deployment Program (RDP). Thankfully, for those of us not cool enough to be invited to those programs, the company is providing everyone a much easier way to get access to new features.

Called the “Microsoft Teams Public Preview”, this update policy allows you to “explore and test upcoming features”. Enrolling in the public preview can be accomplished by going to the Teams admin center – > update policies -> add -> Show preview features.

To enable the public preview on a desktop or web client, you need to do the following tasks:

• Select your profile to display the Teams menu.
• Select About → Developer preview.
• Select Switch to Developer preview.

Keep in mind that the public preview is based on per-user enablement, so you do not need to worry about turning on features for your entire org.

Microsoft has been announcing updates to Teams at a feverish rate and keeping track of when updates will land for your tenant is a chore. But, at least with this announcement, there is now a slightly easier path to accessing some of the updates coming in the near future but keep in mind that any feature in the preview could be dropped, changed, or not work as expected.