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19 hours ago  The Redmond tech giant is continuing to heavily push Microsoft Teams with new Teams-certified ancillary devices designed for hybrid work. Microsoft has been really pushing Teams, its flagship unified communications and collaboration platform, ever since the world shifted to remote work. Microsoft Teams was introduced in 2017 as a unified communication and collaboration platform, helping businesses and organizations get things done. Microsoft leveraged the company’s existing Office.

Microsoft have been adding lots of new features and applications to Office 365, such as Planner,Shifts and Microsoft Teams.

Taking on the likes of Slack, Microsoft describe Teams as a ‘chat-based workspace in Office 365’ allowing teams (internal only at this stage) to work together within one window to enhance teamwork. It's important to note that Microsoft Teams will be replacing Skype for Business (which will be retired 31st July 2021).

If you need any support adopting Microsoft Teams, please see our Microsoft Teams Services. You can also download this Quick Start PDF guide to give end users all the basics.

Need Teams governance guidance? Watch our on-demand recording of 'Managing Microsoft Teams' to see how to administer and govern Microsoft Teams.

What does Teams do?

Within one window, users can call upon a variety of key Office 365 apps and tools to help them work more effectively, such as:

• Calendars and meetings (Outlook)
• Create, share, edit and find content (SharePoint, OneDrive and OneNote)
• Call and meet team members (Skype)
• Chat and instant messaging (Skype)

Key benefits of Teams

• One centralised hub
• Office 365 integration
• Customise Teams through APIs and bot frameworks
• Enterprise security & compliance
• Azure Active Directory integration
• No extra cost to Office 365 users

Using Teams

Before getting started it’s important to understand how Teams fits into the larger Office 365 picture, as creating Teams has some wider implications. Every Team created will automatically create a matching Plan (find out more on this in our Guide to Planner here), SharePoint Team Site, Office 365 Group and shared OneNote. While this brings a number of great benefits, such as shared documents and centralised team information, it can cause some governance and admin headaches. Luckily, the admin side of Teams allows this to be managed as we'll cover below.

Overview

Once your organisation has access to Teams, you can: download the desktop application, access Teams through your browser or download the mobile app.

Teams and Channels

To start your teamwork collaboration, you need a team. Setting up Teams is easy and done in a few clicks, requiring a Team name and a description; this then allows team members to be added. As mentioned above, a new Team will create a matching Office 365 Group, OneNote, SharePoint site and Plan—so this does need to be done with some caution.

Each Team has subsections, which are called Channels, and a General Channel will automatically be created. You can have multiple Channels within a Team; for example, you could have a 'Marketing' Team and then Channels such as 'Social Media', 'Product Launch', 'Blogs' etc. Or a Company could be a Team and Channels can relate to departments - you can choose whatever suits your organisation's way of working. Whenever there is a new notification or activity, the Channel will become bold.

Channel Tabs

Each Channel all have their own tabs along the top. Conversation (group chat), Files (shared documents) and Notes (shared OneNote) are automatically created and you can then add your own tabs.

Conversation

Conversations are one of the key features of Teams, allowing each Team to have a centralised discussion that is saved and easily searchable. Conversations are the central component where all teamwork is recorded—from file sharing to video calls.

The use of @mentions allows you to tag participants or even whole teams to notify others. Users that look at Conversations will easily see where they have been mentioned through the red @ symbol to highlight areas of importance to them. On top of this, your desktop app will notify you through an alert. As well as tagging, users can 'like' content and share emoticons or GIFs.

Files

In your Teams window, you can perform a variety of tasks directly within that window or browser, so that you avoid flicking between different applications. These tasks include the ability to delete, download, move files, open, copy, edit or get a link to share with others – giving you all the key features you would get in the native apps.

You can also start a Group chat alongside the file, to allow team discussions while all working on the files - and this conversation will appear in your Conversation thread.

View team files, edit, upload and create

Notes

Notes takes you to the Team shared OneNote. Within Teams you can view and edit your OneNotes (directly within the Teams window) or you can click to edit in the OneNote app.

Edit within Teams

Edit in OneNote

Adding Tabs

As mentioned, as well as these three automatic tabs you can also add your own, which currently include Planner, Excel spreadsheets, Word documents, Power BI dashboards and more.

Microsoft products can easily be added now, but there are also many future integrations coming to Teams, such as Asana integration. With integration between systems being so vital to teamwork, we can expect to see many more partnerships and out-of-the-box integrations!

Asana Integration

Menu

Along the left-hand side you can navigate to different areas within Teams, such as Chats, Meetings, Files and Activity. Most of these are fairly self-explanatory:

Activities: Shows you the last activities of the Teams that you are part of.

Chat: This holds your Skype for Business conversations, providing a complete chat history. However, for a chat within a Team you should use the Teams menu and hold the group chat in 'Conversation'.

Teams: An overview of all your Teams that you are part of and allows you to drill-down into each Channel within the Teams. This is also where you can create Teams.

Meetings: The Meetings tab pulls your meetings in from Outlook and also allows you schedule meetings within the Meetings tab that are sent to a Team. If you want to schedule other meetings with external users or individuals, you will still need to use Outlook, as the Teams Meeting tab is only to schedule a meeting with a Team. (Remember the aim is team collaboration, not calendar management).

Files: Within Files you can quickly find and view files across OneNote, OneDrive and within Teams (stored in their own SharePoint sites). There’s also a very helpful ‘Recent’ tab so you can quickly access the latest documents you were working on, as well as a shortcut to your Downloads.

Admin

Microsoft Teams is a great product already as it allows great flexibility and gives you many possibilities. However, as mentioned earlier, getting started with Teams can also bring some knock-on effects, which can cause admin headaches. Luckily, within the Office 365 Admin, you can control Teams settings within the Groups control panel. Within Admin settings, you can control who can create teams, what features are or are not allowed, such as video meetings, screen sharing or animated images or if extensions can be used. This gives the control required to allow governance in line with your organisation's policy and ensures you can keep control over the app. Find out more here.

End User Adoption Guides

To find out how you can use Microsoft Teams Live Events to easily stream live events such as webinars, product demos or corporate presentations to external and internal audiences, read our 'How to use Microsoft Teams Live Events' guide.

For organisations with employees working on shift patterns, Shifts in Microsoft Teams provides shift scheduling and management capabilities. Find out more with our 'How to use Shifts in Microsoft Teams' guide.

There are also some great end-user adoption guides available online from Microsoft.

To learn how to use the meetings and calls functionality of Teams, you can take a look at these Meeting and Calling How-Tos.

A Microsoft Teams End User Quick Start Guide is also available to download and share with users.

FAQs

Is Teams available now? Yes - Teams is generally available.

Which Office 365 Plans include Teams? Teams is available to Business Essentials, Business Premium, F1, E1, E3, E4 (retired) and E5 customers. It's also available for Education and Non-profit plans but not yet Government.

What is on the Teams roadmap? You can view the full Teams roadmap here.

What about Skype for Business? Teams will be replacing Skype for Business! Find out more here.

Does Teams work with those outside your organisation? Yes - this feature was added and can be turned on or off. Guest access is included with all Office 365 Business Premium, Office 365 Enterprise, and Office 365 Education subscriptions. No additional Office 365 license is necessary. Guest access is a tenant-level setting in Microsoft Teams and is turned off by default. Find out more here.

Conclusion

Microsoft Teams is already a robust offering and is benefiting from lots of new features and integrations. Even better, since Microsoft’s new direction under Satya Nadella, feedback and reviews on products have been well received with Microsoft actively acting upon public feedback. Microsoft Teams has a simple feedback program and you can go and view most popular suggestions, as well as see which ones are planned based on the number of up-votes. These requests and other features can then be seen on the public Office 365 Roadmap. This really shows a commitment to making a product aimed at user needs, so we have a great feeling about Microsoft Teams. What's more, seeing as Teams will be replacing Skype for Business we are sure that it will become well used!

Media coverage and reception has also been very positive with many Slack comparisons. Within these comparisons, Microsoft Teams is often faring very well in terms of features, usability and offering—but what makes it even more appealing is the fact that is it included with Office 365. For Office 365 users, this means that those who are already using other paid teamwork software can remove the licence expense, and those that aren't can gain access to a useful new application that competitors might be using - at no extra cost.

Next steps

If you are using Office 365, then we recommend trying Teams and providing your feedback to help shape the product. You can download a Quick Start PDF guide to get users started here.

If you are not using Office 365, then you can sign up for an Office 365 E3 trial (which includes Teams).

You can also find out how we can help with our Microsoft Teams Services or Contact Us and we can give an Office 365 demo or answer any questions.

The global workforce underwent a shocking and rapid switch to remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic. But that shift was never going to be completely temporary. The pandemic only accelerated a trend towards flex working that was well underway in 2019.

More and more businesses will reopen as the pandemic winds down, but the way they work will be completely different. A survey from PricewaterhouseCoopers shows many organizations want to keep a portion of their workforce remote. Others will shift workers to hybrid schedules, where workers change between on-premise and remote work.

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This expected change poses a question: How will workers collaborate when they’re dispersed and constantly moving? What about connecting multiple, new low-density offices or working with sales and service staff in the field?

An assortment of video, voice and workspace apps have all tried to fill this void until now. But as the post-pandemic normal mode of working takes hold, many businesses will need to find a new solution, yet again, that suits all of their employees’ diverse needs. The best answer for many companies will be a unified collaboration platform, the most effective of which is arguably Microsoft Teams.

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What is Microsoft Teams?

Microsoft Teams launched in November 2016 as part of the Office 365 productivity suite. Teams is a collaboration platform that unifies chat, voice, video and file sharing. It’s designed to be used by local, remote and distributed work groups—anyone in any company, really!

Microsoft has steadily updated Teams since its initial launch. A host of new features have been added throughout 2020 and into 2021 as demand for comprehensive collaboration tools has exploded. Its key features include:

Chat

Teams offers both one-on-one and group chats. Both types are persistent, so users don’t need to search conversation histories as they did in Skype for Business.

Teams chat includes a host of modern messaging features, including text formatting, emoji and priority flagging. Users can also share files directly through chat sessions.

Channels

The true power of Teams lies in users’ ability to collaborate through multiple different channels. Channels can be either Standard—public and open to everyone who wants to join—or private and focused on specific topics or activities. Channel owners must authorize new users to join their channel.

Meetings

Microsoft Teams To Do List

Teams offers videoconferencing for up to 250 users per session. Due to popular request, Microsoft is actively working on increasing that limit.

Video meetings can be scheduled on a channel’s calendar, or users can create them on the fly. Teams offers meeting broadcasts for up to 10,000 simultaneous viewers using the Microsoft Stream integration.

Calling

One of the most overlooked features in Teams is its ability to offer outbound calling right from the client. It is an excellent way for remote or mobile users to stay connected through one single, reliable connection.

7 things you should know about Microsoft Teams

No matter whether you’re at a business researching how to manage your new, hybrid workforce, or you’re at a seasoned managed service provider brushing up on the latest offerings for your customers, we think these are the eight most important things you should know about Microsoft Teams.

1. Teams offers secure collaboration, both internally and externally

Teams provides all of the security features of the broader Microsoft 365 suite. That includes two-factor authentication as well as encryption in transit and at rest in the cloud. Data in Teams meets ISO 27001 as well as SOC 1 and SOC 2 compliance. It can be provisioned to meet many strict industry data security standards, such as HIPAA patient data restrictions in healthcare, for example.

Teams may be locked down and secure, but it doesn’t prevent you from easily working with internal and external collaborators. Your administrator can generate guest accounts for Teams within the Microsoft 365 Admin Center, which is an excellent way to collaborate on calls on channels with clients, business partners, contractors, or any other external stakeholders you want to involve.

2. Greater data visibility and better governance

Teams offers business leaders excellent visibility and insight into work carried out within their organization. Because all conversations within Teams are persistent, conversations become valuable information assets available to Microsoft 365’s governance and management tools.

For example, files and conversations in Teams channels are all saved in the Microsoft 365 cloud, making that data available to Microsoft Graph—Microsoft 365’s data intelligence console. You can see which channels users are working in, how they’re conversing, see when work speeds up or slows down, among many, many other things.

Teams also has valuable data governance tools. Most data and metadata in Teams channels is journaled and available to Microsoft 365 eDiscovery tools. When you use Teams to manage all of your work conversations, it’s easy to comply with any legal or regulatory requests.

3. Teams has powerful Microsoft Office integration options

Teams is, of course, tightly integrated with the rest of Microsoft 365. Users can create and manage Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote files within their channels and work with other content in their team’s SharePoint sites. Calendaring connects right into Outlook.

Teams is also tightly integrated with Microsoft Power Apps. Microsoft Power Apps allows any user to create a low-code app and share it with their team. For example, they can script entire workflows to launch when a salesperson tells their ops channel in Teams that they’re onboarding a new customer.

4. Comprehensive third-party integrations

Last year Microsoft opened up Teams to third-party integrations. Many providers quickly jumped in, including ZenDesk, Asana, Polly and CalendarHero. Teams users can use these apps right in their channels, calendars and most importantly, during live meetings.

5. Powerful audio and video calling options

Teams is a robust video conferencing tool, but its calling capabilities don’t end there. Because it allows outbound calling from PCs and mobile devices, Teams is a great way to offer consistent communication and collaboration options to hybrid users who shift from the office, to home, to on the road, and back again on an unpredictable schedule. It can even integrate with your on-premise PBX system.

6. Support for education, healthcare and emergency services

Teams now offers some powerful industry-specific features for healthcare, emergency services and education. An education Group Policy wizard allows teachers and administrators to quickly provision new channel “classrooms” which are appropriately secured for students and educators. Teachers can distribute class Notebooks via Teams and send an automated alert to every student in the class.

Teams now also supports virtual breakout rooms. These are great tools for teachers asking students to work on group assignments.

For healthcare, Teams now has an EHR connector, which allows healthcare providers to launch a secure video call with a patient or colleague right inside a supported electronic health record system. They can also schedule visits on a Teams calendar right in their EHR portal.

7. Bots and other tools for many needs

Teams boasts a variety of different bots to automate time-consuming tasks. Statsbot pulls together reports from sources such as Salesforce or Google Analytics and drops them right in channels. Polly Bot can poll coworkers for more streamlined and automated feedback. T-Bot answers many common questions about Teams, which lowers the support burden for service providers.

Microsoft Teams Planner

Teams has fully arrived

Microsoft Teams To Do Integration

For organizations looking for a cloud-based collaborative workspace for their distributed users, Microsoft Teams has arrived as the leading solution. Its rich mix of communication, collaboration and automation tools can bring together working groups in even the most challenging circumstances.

Microsoft Teams To Do App

Think Teams might be the right solution for your business or your customers’ needs? Contact us or join our partner program to get started.