Microsoft Teams Solutions

How Microsoft Teams works

Teams makes it easy to create dedicated spaces for project teams, business units, staff cohorts and other groups to communicate and collaborate. By creating a ‘team’ and assigning users, organisations can establish private group chat rooms (called ‘channels’) to plan, manage and deliver work.

Each team can set up multiple channels to keep discussion topics focused and organised. For example, you might create a team for corporate services staff and use three separate channels to discuss social events, staff training and process improvement.

Channels are easy to use, offering a familiar experience to other popular messaging apps. Conversations are grouped in a thread so you can access all group chat messages in a single place. Users receive notifications when there’s a new message available. Group calls and video chats can also be started with one click from within each channel.

Microsoft Teams and Office 365: a winning combination

The benefits of channels aren’t confined to team-based chat. Microsoft Teams integrates a range of Office 365 capabilities including:

• SharePoint
• Word
• Excel
• PowerPoint
• Planner
• Power BI

Team members can use channels to create, edit and collaborate on documents and tasks, with each user’s changes visible in real-time. Changes can also be automatically synced to OneDrive or SharePoint to ensure that the latest version is always available and accessible.

Microsoft has big plans to continue improving Teams over time, with almost 200 updates currently in development on the product roadmap.

This includes the release of new functionality (like the new schedule management feature) and services tailored to the needs of specific industries (such as a coordination service for patient care in the healthcare industry).

Key features include:

Instant messaging

• Connect instantly with team members across locations and devices
• Private one-on-one chat-based messaging
• Group chat-based messaging with access controls
• Minimise email volumes between team members
• Enable team members to work more flexibly
• Easy-to-read conversation windows with a complete chat history visible
• Seamless toggling between chat, voice calls, video calls and screen sharing
• Receive and customise alerts for chat-based messages
• Access GIFs, stickers and emojis to support team culture and communication

Voice and video calls

• Make high-quality voice calls and video calls to individuals or groups
• Call people anywhere in the world and from any device
• Start voice or video calls with a single click
• Use screen-sharing to collaborate in real-time from any location

Meetings

• Host meetings, presentations and events for users anywhere in the world
• Provide a high-quality interactive video experience for up to 10,000 participants\
• Easy access to documents and data stored within Office 365
• Record meetings and calls so no-one misses out

Accessibility

• Work flexibly by accessing Teams on the device that suits – phone, tablet or laptop
• Enjoy a seamless user experience, with Teams versions optimised for different devices
• Switch between devices without hassles or delays
• Experience high-quality video and audio from any device
• View, edit and collaborate on documents in real-time from any device

Apps and integrations

• Integration of Office 365 capabilities in a single workspace including chat, voice and video calls, file sharing, collaboration and planning
• Access to add-ons such as Twitter, Trello, Google Analytics and more so teams can access tools they need outside of Office 365 in one place
• Build your own custom application, like QBot, for your team or organisation

Security and compliance

• Built-in security, compliance and management tools to streamline IT security
• Advanced data protection capabilities
• Granular access and security controls

1. Seamless integration with the rest of Office 365

One of the advantages of Teams over other collaboration software is that it seamlessly integrates with Office 365 and third-party applications. Users don’t need to switch apps to schedule a meeting, edit a Word document or ask a colleague a question.

What’s more, Teams puts all Office 365 communication and collaboration tools in one place, encouraging user adoption and ensuring maximum returns on your Office 365 investment.

2. A single platform for collaboration and teamwork

Keeping track of conversations and files is challenging when collaborating through email. With a Microsoft Teams solution, all documents and conversations are in a single, easy-to-access location. And because Teams is a cloud-based app, team members can edit documents together in real-time.

3. On-the-go communication

If you’ve ever rushed back to the office to join a conference call at your desktop computer, you’ll know that not all communication platforms are mobile-friendly. With the Microsoft Teams online app, you can schedule and join meetings, access files and chat with colleagues on mobile too.

4. Customisable to suit your business needs

Need a document signing workflow or a bot to handle employee queries? Microsoft Teams has a suite of apps and bots that you can bolt on to enhance functionality.

5. Scheduling and hosting meetings is easy

Microsoft Teams meetings are simple to schedule, sync with Outlook and have in-built audio, video and screen sharing abilities. For group meetings, you don’t need a dial-in number or pin – everyone who is part of the team can just join in.

How does Teams compare to other products in the market?

Microsoft Teams is a world-leading unified communications platform, with a fast-growing user base. But what is it that sets Teams apart from products like email, Skype for Business and Slack?

Teams vs email

There is no denying that tracking conversions, files and document versions is challenging in email. Messages are sorted chronologically instead of by topic, which leads to frequent and inefficient context switching. Attachments get lost. Important emails are overlooked.

Teams, on the other hand, is designed to be intuitive and simple. Messages – along with related files and content – are grouped by topic in channels for maximum convenience.

Teams makes it easier to keep track of documents and documents, while short instant messages replace emails. And of course, Teams also includes functionality like video meetings that aren’t directly available in most email clients.

Teams vs Skype for Business

Teams and Skype for Business have some feature overlaps, such as direct messaging, team chats and voice calling.

That being said, Teams will eventually replace Skype for Business and take on all of its relevant functions – as well as continuing to provide expanded collaboration tools and capabilities.

If you’re currently using Skype for Business, you could be missing out on the richer set of experiences offered in Teams. Compared to Skype for Business, Teams offers faster meeting join times and a better browser experience.

Built on more modern infrastructure, Teams also gives your organisation the freedom to leverage Microsoft Cognitive Services to add new capabilities like transcription, translation, speech recognition and machine learning.

Teams vs Slack

Teams and Slack strive to accomplish the same goal: fostering collaboration and engagement in the modern workplace. Both platforms have similar feature sets, are easy to use and provide high quality mobile experiences.

Microsoft Teams has a larger user base (13 million daily users compared to Slack’s 10 million). Teams also offers tighter security, seamless integration with Office 365, and more attractive licencing options. Existing Office 365 users can access Microsoft Teams at no extra cost, provided they have an Office 365 Business or Enterprise level subscription.

We’ve written a full blog on the differences between Teams and Slack where you can learn a lot more including security features and pricing differences.