Getting Started With Microsoft Teams
Microsoft describes Teams as “the hub for team collaboration in Office 365 that integrates the people, content, and tools your team needs to be more engaged and effective.” But, just how instrumental is it to your Kingston business?
Every organization today needs a reliable and efficient communication and notes-sharing platform. To enhance productivity, all departments must be in sync and work towards a common goal. However, with a modern workforce that is continually on the go, achieving collaboration has become a daunting task for most organizations. This might be true for all organizations that are yet to discover Microsoft Teams — a group chat solution that is hosted in the cloud.
What Is Microsoft Teams?
It’s a one-stop platform that enables users to create, edit, share, and store files online. You can also form collaborative ‘teams’ and get instant notifications. Teams is more of an advanced version of Microsoft’s Skype for Business. It is ideal for voice and video calls and conferences, real-time messaging, and instant file sharing. It allows your users to switch from messaging to video conferencing almost unobtrusively. What’s more, Teams is fully compatible with other native Microsoft 365 platforms.
How Does Microsoft Teams Work? It integrates secure video meetings, workplace chats, powerful Office 365 apps, and file storage functionalities into one business-centric collaboration platform.
Teams is essentially a collaboration space for colleagues that also allows you to work on individual projects privately.
Here’s How Teams Will Improve Collaboration for Your Kingston Business:
- Your staff can collectively create, edit, store, and securely share documents in real-time via the internet.
- They can have video conferences with both in-house and external users.
- They can also chat with or call other staff members, either individually or as a group.
Getting Started with Microsoft Teams: When you enter Teams’ interface, you will first notice four icons:
- Teams: These are workgroups sorted by initiatives, programs, departments, or projects. Your users can also be members of various Teams due to their roles or responsibilities within the organization.
- Channels: They are smaller groups within Teams where most of the online interactions will be initiated.
- Calendar: Enables you to see all your scheduled activities. It is in sync with your Outlook Calendar, making it a useful tool when organizing meetings.
- Activity: This is the notification bar for all your new messages, tags, mentions, replies, etc. It also has a command box for browsing particular items or users — enabling you to take quick actions and visit specific applications.
As pointed out earlier, most activities — meetings, conversations, and co-authoring of files — will be initiated from the Channels:
- Meet Now: This icon at the bottom of the home-page allows you to schedule or hold an on-the-spot meeting with other users on your Channel or Team. You can record whole or portions of the meeting for future reference. You can share and co-edit content on your PC/phone with other attendees in a virtual forum.
- New Chat: Enables you to initiate private chats with an individual or a few selected people. You can also use this article to switch between chats and audio or video calls.
What are the Benefits of Using Microsoft Teams?
- It Improves the Meeting Experience: Your users can now move from chats to video conferences to calls with ease. Before the meeting begins, users can review previous conversations. During the meeting, they can share and edit files in real-time.
- It Integrates with All Office 365 Apps: Teams works with all the powerful Office platforms, allowing employees to access and use all the tools and files they need for meetings at a go.
- It Enables Mobility of Services: Teams is hosted in the Cloud. Hence, your users can access it from anywhere, anytime.
Every IT investment needs an able crew to support it, and Microsoft Teams is not an exception. Leverage OnServe’s subject matter expertise and years of experience to get the most of Teams for your business.
