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Microsoft teams, During the COVID-19 pandemic, the worldwide workforce saw a dramatic and quick shift to remote employment. But that transition never was going to be entirely transient. The epidemic simply intensified a trend toward flex employment that had already begun in 2019.
As the virus ends, more businesses will reopen, but their operations will be drastically altered. According to a survey, many businesses prefer to keep a percentage of their employees remote. Others will transfer staff to hybrid schedules, in which they alternate between on-site and remote work.
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This anticipated development begs the question, “How will workers interact when they are separated and continuously moving?” What about linking numerous new low-density offices or collaborating with sales and service personnel in the field?
Until now, a variety of video, voice, and workplace apps have all attempted to fill this need. However, once the post-pandemic normal way of operation takes hold, many firms will need to find a new solution that meets the various demands of all of their employees. A unified collaboration platform, possibly the most effective of which is Microsoft Teams, will be the ideal solution for many businesses.
What exactly are Microsoft Teams?
Microsoft Teams was launched as part of Microsoft Office 365 back in 2016. Teams are designed to help connect workgroups within an organization, regardless of where team members are located, to ensure they can collaborate anytime, anywhere. It lets these distinct groups communicate easily through chat and messaging tools, share files, set up meetings, and more. With this range of easy-to-use features, Microsoft hopes its product will attract people who may be interested in other competing collaboration platforms like Slack. The features are
- Chat: Microsoft Teams doesn’t just integrate with Skype and Outlook to keep users connected and productive. It also taps into Office 365 Groups which makes it easier for users to work together on projects by giving them a single place to chat, post files, communicate across other services such as Planner and share calendars.
- Channels: The true power of teams lies in its users’ ability to collaborate through multiple different channels. A channel is either “standard” or “private.” A standard channel can be joined publicly by anyone on Twitter while a private channel is more exclusive and only open to invited members. If you own a private communications channel, it is your responsibility to approve new requests for membership before they join, flagging the most important messages with high priority so that conversations stay up-to-date. Teams are also packed with features like emoji, formatting options for text messages, file transfers and much more!
- Meetings: Teams offers the ability to host web meetings for teams of up to 250 participants. One can use the team calendar to set these meetings up, or one can simply create them on the fly. Teams video chat is fully compatible with Microsoft’s Stream service and one can generate broadcast links for up to 10,000 simultaneous viewers that go directly into Stream. Participants in a chat session may also share files and pictures with one another using this feature.
- Calling: Teams offers modern communication features that include both inbound and outbound calling. The feature is beneficial to workers who are either connected remotely to the office network, or take advantage of mobile capabilities such as working from home or on the road. You can integrate Microsoft Stream directly with Teams, which allows you to share content with your team without opening two different applications.
7 Microsoft Teams Facts You Should Be Aware Of
We believe these are the seven most critical things you should know about Microsoft Teams, whether you’re a corporation exploring how to manage your new, hybrid workforce or a seasoned managed service provider brushing up on the latest services for your customers.
- Teams allows for safe collaboration both inside and internationally.
Teams protect your data with all the security benefits of the broader Microsoft 365 suite and more! You’ll get two-factor authentication, cloud, and data security in compliance with many strict industry data security standards such as HIPAA patient data restrictions in healthcare.
Teams work like clockwork, but you can always invite additional people to your projects. Your administrator can generate guest accounts for Teams via the Microsoft 365 Admin Center, which is an excellent way to collaborate on calls with any collaborators involved with your projects (ex: contractors, business partners, etc).
- Better data visibility and governance.
Teams provide business leaders with unparalleled visibility and insight into the work being done within their organization. Because all interactions within Teams are persistent, they become important information assets accessible to Microsoft 365’s governance and management capabilities.
Files and discussions in Teams channels, for example, are all preserved in the Microsoft 365 cloud, where they are accessible to Microsoft Graph—Microsoft 365’s digital analytics console. You can observe which channels users are working in, how they are speaking when work speeds up or slows down, and much more.
Teams provide useful data governance tools as well. The majority of data and metadata in Teams channels is journaled and accessible to Microsoft 365 eDiscovery tools. It is simple to comply with any legal or regulatory requests when you utilize Teams to manage all of your business discussions.
- Microsoft Office integration options abound in Teams.
Teams come with the rest of the Microsoft 365 suite. Users can create and manage Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote documents within their channels plus also work together on other content in their team’s SharePoint site. Calendaring (or scheduling) is built right into Outlook.
Teams also have a tightly integrated integration with Microsoft Apps. With apps, any user can create a low-code app and share it with their team. For example, they can script entire workflows to launch when a salesperson has just told their ops channel in Teams that they’re onboarding a new customer.
- Third-party integrations are extensive.
Microsoft opened up Teams to third-party connectors last year. Many vendors came in fast, including ZenDesk, Asana, Polly, and CalendarHero. These apps are available to Teams members in their channels, calendars, and, most crucially, throughout the live meetings.
- Strong audio and video calling capabilities.
Teams is a powerful video conferencing tool, but it also has to call features. Teams is a wonderful approach to provide continuous communication and collaboration choices to hybrid users who travel from the office to home, to on the road, and back again on an unpredictable schedule because it permits outbound calling from PCs and mobile devices. It can even work with your existing PBX system.
- Education, healthcare, and emergency services are all supported.
Teams now offer 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. One of our most recent updates was the introduction of the Education App. This application has just been released within the past few weeks with incredible features that will put it at your fingertips for all sorts of personal needs – not just classroom communications.
There are also new virtual breakaway rooms for Teams. These are excellent apps for teachers that require their pupils to collaborate on group projects.
- Bots and other tools for a variety of purposes.
Different teams have different ways of keeping track of what is going on. Statsbot can automate gathering reports from sources such as Salesforce or Google Analytics and dropping the information right in your Teams channels. Polly Bot hosts group polls, so teams can get more streamlined feedback. T-Bot answers many common questions about Teams, which takes the burden off of support providers.
The entire team has arrived.
Microsoft Teams has emerged as the premier choice for enterprises searching for a cloud-based collaborative workspace for their remote users. Its robust set of communication, collaboration, and automation capabilities can bring working groups together in even the most difficult of conditions.