As more and more offices have made a shift online, the need to efficiently communicate with team members has increased. This was especially evident after the COVID-19 pandemic, which led a lot of workplaces to introduce remote working facilities for their employees. Yet, even working from the same office premises requires an effective online communication channel. This is why offices require s strong internet connection, such as Charter Spectrum, and a good digital communication tool. After all, you can’t exactly be shouting across hallways or sending long emails for every little message.
This is where Microsoft Teams comes to save the day. As its name suggests, it is an ideal tool for doing teamwork.
What Is Microsoft Teams?
Microsoft Teams is a chat-based platform by Microsoft for professional communication at workplaces. To use Microsoft Teams, you need to have licenses with some Office 365 corporation subscriptions. These include E1, E3, E5, Business Premium, and Business Essentials.
However, Microsoft Teams is not just for businesses and offices. In fact, educational institutions can also make use of Microsoft Teams by subscribing to certain plans. These include A1, A1 Plus, A3, and A5 subscriptions.
Users can access Microsoft Teams through a number of methods. These are the web browser, the desktop app, and the mobile app. This platform will be replacing Microsoft’s Skype for Business, which is to expire soon.
Functions of Microsoft Teams
These are some of the major functions of Microsoft Teams.
- It allows users to schedule meetings through Microsoft Calendar and Outlook.
- It lets users create, share, and edit files through OneDrive, OneNote, and SharePoint.
- It lets users conduct voice calls and meetings.
- It allows users to chat through private and group messages.
Benefits of Microsoft Teams
These are some of the prominent benefits that Microsoft Teams offers.
- It acts as one centralized hub for multiple Office 365 facilities.
- It can integrate with all Office 365 services.
- It meets high-security standards for enterprises.
- It can integrate with Azure Active Directory.
- It can be customized through bot frameworks and APIs.
- It is available for no extra cost for Office 365 users.
Features of Microsoft Teams
Menu
Upon opening Microsoft Teams, users can view a menu on the left side of the screen. This menu includes the Activities, Chat, Teams, Meeting, and Files tabs.
Teams and Channels
On Microsoft Teams, users can be part of multiple teams and channels. Using this, various departments within an office can have their own team or channel for communication.
Team is a larger group that an organization can create. And within a Team, there are multiple sub-sections called Channels. These work in a manner similar to the channels of apps like Slack and Discord. Within each channel, users can discuss certain topics or plan out work tasks.
Each channel also includes multiple tabs, such as Conversation, Files, and Notes.
Conversation
A Conversation is the central place of discussion within a channel. All members of a Channel can communicate with each other in the Conversation tab like in a forum. Here, all exchanges between team members are recorded, be they group calls, chats, or exchange of files. To directly address a single team member within a Conversation, users can tag them. If someone tags you in a Conversation, the Microsoft Teams apps will notify you.
Notes
The Notes tab is a useful feature for doing collaborative work. Through this, all members of a Team or Channel can access a shares OneNote. This way, multiple users can read and edit the contents of any OneNote. Therefore, the Notes tab makes group work easy.
Files
Whenever users create a Team or Channel, they get access to a Files tab. This tab maintains a record of all the files shared within the Team. Moreover, the Files tab creates categories of various files, with separate folders for different Channels. This way, it is easy for users to keep track of all work done or shared using Microsoft Teams. Users can also access the files that appear in the Files tab through a SharePoint document library.
