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Meeting room guidance for Teams

This article is intended to guide users on how to optimize meeting spaces with Microsoft Teams Rooms solutions and devices. It includes information on Teams Rooms device and solution uses, layouts, and specifications.

Signature Teams Room

Rendering of an Signature Teams Room.

This section explores how Microsoft is transforming standard conference rooms into Signature Microsoft Teams Rooms that bring the best of the new Teams front row experience. Use this article for room design and technology guidance, recommended products, and Microsoft Corporate Facilities reference specifications.

Microsoft's vision for the future of meeting rooms

The future of work will be fluid, dynamic, and powered by the cloud. Microsoft enables meeting experiences that allow people to be there, from anywhere, at any time. These meetings are hybrid, which means you can join them seamlessly. Meetings that use devices that are optimized for Signature Teams Rooms are inclusive; every voice is heard, and everyone is clearly represented.

Microsoft sees a future where meetings are immersive and spaces are designed around people. Our dynamic meeting views keep everyone connected to the content and each other: Formal presentations are paired with collaborative chats. Digital canvases unleash group creativity. Everyone can connect face to face wherever they are.

The vision for the future of meetings is grounded in a simple belief: meetings should offer so much more than just a one-time transaction. Meetings are designed for everyone, whether they're in the room or across the world.

What is a Signature Teams Room?

In Microsoft's hybrid workplace, the next generation of room standards are informed by the needs of both remote and in-room participants. A Signature Teams Rooms is designed to deliver an elevated hybrid meeting experience, fostering more natural and immersive connections while enabling everyone in the meeting to feel included, represented, and productive. The room follows a set of principles made real through a combination of Teams Rooms software and hardware capabilities and room configuration guidance.

The concept for the Signature Teams Rooms is designed around two key goals that are supported by a set of experience principles.

Goal 1: Everyone in the meeting feels included, represented, and productive.

Design principles:

  • Remote participants can establish a genuine presence in the room

  • In-room participants can retain their individual identity in the meeting

  • All meeting participants can engage in boundaryless collaboration.

Goal 2: Connections feel natural and immersive.

Design principles:

  • Experiences are scaled for human connection, enabling interactions that feel like everyone is in the same room.

A Signature Teams Rooms experience is all those components and ideas put together with no single feature defining the experience. The individual features and concepts found in our Signature Teams Rooms may also be deployed on their own.

Examples of specific feature deployment:

  • Take advantage of our new front row front-of-room display experience in all types of meeting spaces where there's a Microsoft Teams Rooms solution that supports it.

  • Implement curved tables and front-facing layouts with traditional Microsoft Teams Rooms experiences to promote better human connection in the room while maintaining continuity of experience across all meeting spaces.

When should you deploy this room type?

Signature Teams Rooms aren't meant to be a replacement for all other meeting spaces inside your organization, but rather to act as a supplement to existing meeting spaces that utilize Microsoft Teams. They should be deployed strategically within your organization to the spaces and locations where face-to-face interactions with remote meeting participants will be most valued.

Microsoft Teams Rooms will continue to deliver people-centric hybrid meeting experiences made available through software updates. However, there are hardware technologies and room configuration guidance that play a key role in optimizing some of the Signature Teams Rooms experiences. It's the combination of these components that comprise a Signature Teams Room. When evaluating how many Microsoft Teams Rooms you want to evolve to a Signature Teams Room, consider the following:

  • What hardware upgrades and/or investments would need to be made.

  • Most conference rooms are designed to maximize valuable square footage with a close relationship between room dimension and room capacity. A Signature Teams Rooms prioritizes the meeting experience above maximizing square footage. Not every organization can prioritize this way for every meeting space, as it could reduce the number of meeting rooms they can have.

Understanding this space

Balancing hybrid flexibility with inclusion:

At Microsoft, our flexible work guidelines prioritize giving employees choice and flexibility about where to work and when. This fundamental shift in policy has made us rethink the evolution of our meeting spaces and technology.

Our research has shown that remote meetings during the pandemic have had many benefits—particularly around increased feelings of equity and inclusion. As we think about returning in a hybrid setting, with remote and in-person collaboration happening simultaneously, we sought to create meeting spaces that better support our flexible work policies while maintaining a level playing field for all participants through room design and technology.

What is this space used for?

This space is dedicated to the most immersive Teams meeting experience for a small group of people in the physical room.

Just like a typical Microsoft Teams Room, meeting participants are able to meet remotely and locally to work together seamlessly while both presenting and co-creating content.

How is this space laid out?

The room layout is designed for maximum visibility and engagement with remote participants and content.

The layout features a curved table for in-person eye contact and orientation to remote participants with all chairs facing the display so participants are able to follow along.

How does the audio work?

Using audio solutions certified for Microsoft Teams Rooms, people are able to hear and be heard clearly.

Teams Rooms support audio systems that utilize a concept called spatial audio. With spatial audio, sound emanates from the direction of the person speaking. For example, if a person located on the right side of the meeting gallery speaks, the audio comes from the speaker located closest to that location. This kind of immersive audio experience helps meetings more closely resemble an in-person conversation.

How does the camera work?

An ultrawide-angle camera is positioned at the front of the room below the displays to capture everyone in the space.

The ultrawide-angle camera features intelligent tracking of meeting participants so they can be represented individually in a large view instead of as faces within a large image of the entire room.

Rendering of a Signature Teams Rooms from an overhead view.

How do the front-of-room displays work?

This room is optimized for the Microsoft Teams Rooms layout called front row and is displayed through a specialized short-throw high-resolution projector, creating an immersive front-of-room experience designed specifically for Teams meetings.

What is front row?

To give people in the room a greater sense of connection to remote participants and support collaboration before, during, and after meetings, Microsoft introduced a new content layout for Microsoft Teams Rooms called front row. Visually, this new layout moves the video gallery to the bottom of the screen and is fixed at a specific ratio to keep faces lifelike in size. With this layout, in-room participants can see remote colleagues face to face across a horizontal plane—similar to if they were in the same room.

Meeting content is surrounded by contextual fluid components like the agenda, tasks, and notes, which can be updated in real time, helping participants stay engaged and productive. Additionally, the meeting chat is brought clearly into view so that when joining a Teams meeting from a Teams Room, you can easily see and engage in the conversation in real time. In a Signature Teams Room, this content is displayed on a wide-aspect-ratio screen to maximize the size of meeting content and the number of participants that can be viewed simultaneously.

This layout is supported across both single- and dual-display configurations. While the front row layout is especially impactful in a Signature Teams Room, front row can be used in any Teams Rooms running on Windows, regardless of the furniture and hardware configuration.

How do you co-create content?

In Microsoft Teams Rooms, users can take advantage of traditional, analog whiteboarding by using the intelligent capture feature. For a modernized experience where all participants can draw and ink together, Microsoft Whiteboard can be accessed using a touchscreen front-of-room display, companion devices like a PC, phone, or tablet, and through Microsoft Surface Hub.

Signature Teams Rooms design guidance

This section is intended to cover building a room from scratch.

Room layout

Room size

Blueprint of a Signature Teams Rooms design.

25 ft x 14 ft

Room capacity

This Signature Teams Rooms is optimized for between 6 - 8 people.

Room furniture

This room features a curved table with participants seated on one side, allowing in-room participants to retain visibility of each other and be positioned face to face with remote participants.

This room features a standard meeting room table with a height of 30 in or 76 cm.

Equipment mounting

Selecting a location for hardware is typically driven by the selection of Teams Room-certified hardware used within a given meeting space.

For the initial deployments of Signature Teams Rooms within our Microsoft facilities, we have chosen to mount the Microsoft Teams Rooms compute and touch console at the table, with an integrated camera and soundbar device (with discrete left- and right-channel audio for spatial audio) mounted on specialized furniture, located below the displayed image as well as between the front-of-room projection and the table. It's important to keep the console within reach of participants without impeding their use of the table for personal devices and/or documents. For the display, a short-throw high-resolution projector is used.

Most participants choose to share content within this type of meeting room by joining the Teams meeting via a personal device. However, in-room local video presentation should also be made available at the table in an easily accessible manner for those who are unable to join the meeting call.

Touch console placement

The Microsoft Teams Rooms touch console should be mounted in the center of the table within easy reach of meeting participants without blocking usage of the table for personal devices or documents.

Local video presentation

Though many participants may choose to share content within this type of meeting room by joining the Teams meeting via a personal device to the Teams call, in-room local video presentation should also be made available at the table in an easily accessible manner.

Infrastructure

Infrastructure power

At a minimum, electrical power connections should be provided at both the table (for end users) and at the equipment mounting location. If co-create devices are used in the space, electrical power connections may also be required at their location(s).

Infrastructure data

Networking connections should be provided at both the table (for end users) and at the equipment mounting location (for the main network for the Teams Rooms solution). If co-create devices are used in the space, network connections will also be required that connect to the main network for the Teams Rooms solution.

Acoustic wall treatments

At least two walls in a room of this type should be acoustically treated to prevent echo and ambient noise issues during meetings.

Window treatments

Light from windows in a room of this type may negatively affect the lighting and introduce glare and shadows to both the camera image and the front-of-room display. Any space featuring windows should also feature window treatments that allow for external light to be blocked during meetings.

Floor treatments

The floor in a room of this type should be carpeted or otherwise acoustically treated to prevent echo and ambient noise issues during meetings.

Lighting

Overhead lights should be provided to illuminate the space evenly, with meeting room participants not appearing to be washed out or sitting in a dark space. Efforts to minimize direct lighting on front-of-room displays, co-create devices, or other reflective surfaces within the space should be taken to avoid introducing glare.

Technology guidance

Microsoft Teams Rooms solution

Signature Teams Rooms require the use of features that may only be available on certain platforms, consult the feature comparison document to ensure your desired functionality is available: Teams Rooms Feature Comparison.

Cameras

Camera options

A room of this type requires the use of an intelligent, ultrawide-angle front-of-room camera that is appropriately rated for the width and depth of space.

Camera placement

The camera should be placed at the front of the room below the front-of-room projection but above the top of the table to capture all the meeting room participants at as close to eye level as possible.

Microphones

Microphone options

Front-of-room microphone arrays and tabletop and overhead microphones work for this type of space.

Microphone placement

Microphone arrays need to be positioned to provide coverage for all meeting room participants within the certified range of the device.

Speakers

Speaker options

Front-of-room speaker arrays and overhead speakers work for this type of space. To achieve the best spatial audio experience, use a device from the Teams-certified stereo speakers list and make sure that the left and right speaker setup is correct. Spatial audio can be enabled using the following XML: <IsSpatialAudioEnabled>true</IsSpatialAudioEnabled>. Learn more at Manage a Microsoft Teams Rooms console settings remotely with an XML configuration file.

Speaker placement

Speakers need to be positioned to provide coverage for all meeting room participants within the certified range of the device or devices used.

Front-of-room display

Display type

A room of this type requires the use of an ultrawide aspect ratio, high-resolution front-of-room display that is appropriately sized for the width and depth of space to ensure maximum visibility and clarity.

Example display types include:

  • Laser projectors

  • LED video walls

  • Specialty LCD or OLED flat panel displays

Display functions

Signature Teams Rooms, as with all other Microsoft Teams Rooms solutions, require the use of displays that can accommodate the following features for proper operation:

  • Sleep and Quick Wake Up from sleep based on HDMI sync.

    • For projectors, automatic warm-up and cooldown periods must be supported without required user intervention.
  • Displays must support the appropriate EDID and resolutions required by the Microsoft Teams Rooms design.

Display placement

A Signature Teams Rooms requires that the display is placed in front of all the in-room meeting participants, directly opposite the table.

The horizontal center line of the display must be centered on the same center line as the table.

The vertical center line of the display must be no more than +/- 15 degrees offset from the eye line of a typical in-room meeting participant seated at the table.

Display count

A Signature Teams Rooms requires that the display is either a single wide-aspect ratio display or a blended combination of displays that can achieve the effect of being a single display when seen by in-room meeting participants.

Co-create options

Microsoft Whiteboard

All Teams Rooms are able take advantage of Microsoft Whiteboard through an interactive collaboration device such as a Microsoft Surface Hub, a touchscreen front-of-room display, and through companion devices like a PC, phone, or tablet.

Traditional whiteboard

All Teams Rooms on Windows can use traditional whiteboards in a Teams meeting by using the intelligent capture feature and a secondary content camera.

Microsoft Teams Rooms console and compute

  • A Windows-based Microsoft Teams Rooms solution.

As shown:

Logitech TAP for the touch console paired with a Lenovo Compute device.

Other options:

Camera

  • An ultrawide camera with intelligent framing.

As shown:

Jabra Panacast 50

Other options:

Microphone

  • A certified microphone solution that will clearly capture all the in-room meeting participants.

As shown:

Jabra Panacast 50

Other options:

Speakers

  • A certified speaker solution that provides clear and intelligible audio to all the in-room meeting participants.

As shown:

Jabra Panacast 50

Other options:

Displays

  • A short-throw or ultra-short throw, high resolution and high brightness laser projector with automatic wake on sync and cooldown during sleep function. A low-gain projector screen with ambient-light-rejecting properties provides the best picture quality in bright rooms.

As shown:

Other options:

For the ideal scenario other display options (alternate projectors, LED walls, and flat panel displays) should be able to create a table spanning image, support a 4k image, and a 21:9 aspect ratio.

Co-create options

  • An analog whiteboard with a content camera OR

  • A compatible interactive touch display.

As shown:

Logitech Scribe

Other options:

Content cameras:

Interactive touch devices:

Microsoft Surface Hub 2S