Just a little over a year ago, Microsoft Teams was (in the eyes of most users) the new application that suddenly popped up on your desktop every time you started a Windows computer.
Fast forward to the present and the application is proving to be one of the world’s most powerful tools for navigating work from home arrangements suddenly arising from the global COVID crisis.
What is Microsoft Teams?
Microsoft Teams is a central hub that facilitates ongoing collaboration and communication for any team, project, organization or connected group of people. Teams integrates seamlessly with your company’s Office 365 subscription to provide a single point of access to conversations, files, notes and tasks.
This Tech Tip highlights 5 key features of Microsoft Teams that are enabling remote work forces across the globe.
1. Meetings
You can schedule meetings from within Teams just as you would in Microsoft Outlook. Meetings can include audio, video and screen sharing. You can also share content like Powerpoint presentations, Whiteboards (where attendees can sketch together)
Meetings can also include guest users from outside of the organization using their direct email (eg. vendors, suppliers and other third parties). This unique feature enables teams within your organization to securely collaborate with clients, contractors and stakeholders by giving them access to specific channels.
2. Collaboration
Real time collaboration is a major feature of Teams, allowing users to chat together, work on files simultaneously (forget about multiple version issues) and get work done efficiently.
Teams can be customized to be either private or publicly available, thus extending collaboration features beyond the scope of your organization.
3. Conversations and Chats
Teams provides strong instant messaging capability across all devices, allowing you to communicate with colleagues in group chat or one-to-one conversations.
4. Channels
Teams facilitates conversation and collaboration on specific subjects through the use of Channels. You can create channels dedicated to a specific department, topic or project and have all communication and collaboration happen within these workspaces.
Channels make it far easier for members to communicate and collaborate on a specific topic and help resolve issues faster without distraction.
5. Office 365 Integration
If you’re already using Office 365 in your company, all of the applications that you use every day in the workplace integrate seamlessly with Teams eg. Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, Sharepoint and OneNote
There is also integration with Windows Explorer for users who prefer the standard approach of browsing OneDrive and Sharepoint folders directly from Office Suite applications or File Explorer.5
Learn More
If you’re just getting started using Teams, here’s a Quick Start Guide to help you learn the basics.
For a more in-depth overview, check out this Get Started with Microsoft Teams video on Youtube.
Are you interested in quickly implementing Office 365 within your organization to leverage the power of Microsoft Teams and other Office applications for your digital workforce?
Contact us today to find out more.