Introducing Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams has 200 million monthly users and has left its nearest competitor trailing in its wake, but the collaborative working tool Microsoft Teams is still an unknown quantity for many companies – while many of its own customers have yet to discover its full potential.
Supplied as part of the Office 365 suite of apps, Microsoft Teams is described as an online shared workspace where members of departments or special project teams can share information through a single portal offering a full range of chat capabilities, file sharing and video conferencing.
What is Microsoft Teams?
It is, in short, a one-stop communications shop – or, to use a cruder analogy, like a WhatsApp group with added functionality – where the various Office 365 communication tools and associated products such as Skype are accessible from one centralised hub.
This hub is at the heart of all of the Team’s activities and it has a series of features enabling streamlined communication and shared information, including:
- The automatic creation of corresponding Plan, Group, SharePoint Team Sites and shared One Note within Office 365, all of which feed into the central hub;
- Access to the hub for all Team members (signified by an @mention) once they have downloaded the Teams app on their PC or mobile;
- A central conversation group chat function accessible to all and integrated tabs leading to the associated Office 365 apps, allowing members to jointly review, amend or edit files, or schedule meetings in Outlook.
- Easy access to Skype, allowing Team members to chat or video call without having to access the app individually.
- Automatic recording of all Team activity, including Skype chats, so that any Team member can review the group’s activity if they need extra information or get up to speed.
Tailored team areas
To prevent confusion, different channels can be set up within the Team portal so that members can discuss specific subjects or projects – such as marketing or finance or new products – while it also includes publicly available APIs and bot frameworks for further extensibility.
Managing the Team app
Additionally, for added peace of mind, the Admin settings allow companies to control who can create and control teams and can also limit which features are accessible to each team in order to ensure compliance with their organisation’s values and policies.
And the best news? Microsoft Teams is free for Office 365 users, although there are different packages offering extra functionality such as audio conferencing and extra storage for files.
To get the best out of Office 365, or to learn more about subscribing to Office 365, get in touch.
