Microsoft Teams is the future of individuals working together.
From the notebook and easel in boardrooms to the digital space in the cloud: fast-paced collaboration has always been sought in business to enable ease of organization and increase productivity. Microsoft Teams was developed to encompass every collaboration need your team will have.
Great digital tools are already in use, Microsoft applications like Outlook, Excel, or more recently, Skype, and OneDrive. Currently, each application requires their own individual window or browser tab and they require the user to jump a hoop or two to import information from one application to another.
Enter Microsoft Teams, the platform that weaves all your applications together into one global window. It seeks to simplify navigating all other applications. The Microsoft Teams interface bears the familiar look of most Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications nowadays – menu on the left, content on the right – for an effective and efficient experience.
Teams
In essence, Microsoft Teams allows to create groups for each an ongoing projects or initiative. Every team allows up to 2500 members with permissions customizable for each individual.
Channels
Within each team’s window, various chats can be assigned to different purposes – these are called channels. Thus, the Design channel is separate from the Budget channel and from Documentation etc. Team members can pop in to a channel to find out information about that specific topic. No more general confusion caused by a reply to an old email – replies are tiered; answers appear directly under their question. And, as bonus, text is customizable as it would be in Word or Outlook.
Meetings
Hosting audio-visual meetings with up to 250 participants is also made easy. Skype for Business is integrated with Microsoft Teams, allowing meetings to happen in any channel. Participants can be outside the organization – whether on Skype, a landline or a cellphone, everyone can be brought into a meeting. Like permissions in a channel, participants can be ushered by the organizer, who can mute one or all participants to keep these conversations under control. Teams records and transcribes these meetings, and transcriptions can be edited at a later time.
Applications
As mentioned, Microsoft Teams integrates third party applications; anything can be installed – from Adobe Sign, Weather, Kayak for travel, on top of the classic and indispensable Office Suite apps – Word, Powerpoint, Excel.
New apps are being integrated regularly and Microsoft is adding new features quite often – meeting transcription being the most recent; and with it being included with your Office 365 Subscription, it’s worth test driving to see how it fits your business.
More information on Microsoft Teams can be found on Microsoft’s website.
