A new issue arose, at the beginning of the adoption of remote work as the new normal: Getting the work done today or adding another meeting to your calendar? We all have different ways of getting our job done, some only need to hear instructions once, while others might need constant communication and supervision. To address this issue, Microsoft announced PowerPoint Live in 2021, to make it more immersive and productive for everyone involved in a Teams meeting. This year, Microsoft introduced Live Share, to create third-party apps beyond passive screen sharing and enables participants to co-watch, co-edit, and co-create in Teams. Now, in July 2022 they announced Excel Live.
Excel Live in Microsoft Teams
Up until now, sharing spreadsheets within a Teams meeting has limited to sharing a file and everyone else watches while the one who’s sharing makes the updates. As we mentioned earlier, often we must choose between adding another meeting to our calendar or making time to get work done, however, what if we could use that meeting to get work done together? This is where Excel Live comes to the picture, an enhanced collaboration solution for working on Microsoft Excel, in real time within your Microsoft Teams meetings.
How does it work?
Click the Share tray in Teams > Scroll down to Excel Live > Select the workbook you want to share > Share access to the file with meeting participants > Click Share
After sharing access, the meeting window becomes a canvas for all participants to work together, without ever leaving the meeting screen. Participants don’t even need to have Excel running on their device and can also access the Excel Live experience from within Excel for the web.
I.e., if you have a workbook open that you want to share in a Teams meeting, just click Share, then Work together in Teams.
Excel Live will be available in Public Preview at the end of August 2022.
How to enable your Teams client for the Public preview?
- IT admins need to set an update policy that turns on Show preview features.
- Users then can choose to join the Public Preview individually.
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