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Microsoft Teams Tips and Tricks

Jun 28, 2017

Microsoft Teams is a chat-based work hub destined to change how you communicate with team members. Follow these tips and tricks to make the most of your Office 365 experience.

Microsoft Teams

The goal of Office 365 developers is to make better productivity applications and to allow for a more collaborative experience among users. To achieve this goal, they have developed a new application for their suite of products called Microsoft Teams. The driving force behind Teams is to get everyone working together in the most efficient way possible.

Microsoft Teams Overview

With Microsoft Teams, users have a digital hub for all their most important workplace applications. The service comes with Office 365, and the new chat element allows easy collaboration for team projects. Teams was created as a competitor to the top-rated service Slack. With Teams, real-time messaging with application integration makes the service a must-have on any compatible device. Unlike Slack, Teams uses threaded conversations to avoid the confusion of searching through too many messages on your screen. As long as you’re an enterprise-level Office 365 subscriber, the application is completely free. It’s very important to have a business-level Office 365 subscription. Otherwise, Teams is unavailable on single subscriptions.

Tips and Tricks of Microsoft Teams

Toggle between private chat and team chat. You are in control of who sees your messages. Write to the entire team or send an individual message from the application. You can schedule and create as many group chat sessions as you like. All chat history is saved to help you go back and review previous messages. This is helpful if you need to locate a shared URL, image, or attachment. With messaging in the cloud, you never have to worry about any information exchanged within the program being lost.

Give access to all of the tools your team needs to succeed. Microsoft Teams is more than just a chat room. Microsoft has enabled all of their most popular applications to be shared within Teams. Your team can exchange information via OneNote, SharePoint, and Skype for Business.

Using Microsoft Teams can be overwhelming at first. The interface is fairly simple, but Microsoft offers plenty of tools to help navigate the interface. Within Teams is a new assistive feature referred to as “bots.” These bots are ready to answer any questions you pose to them. For instance, a “Whobot” will help you find team members based on their skill set or previous work assignments. Bots from top companies such as Trello and SAP are expected to pop up. These bots will help you better organize your current and future projects.

Calendar integration is another feature you should be using within Teams. All team members can schedule meetings within the application, including adding recurring events. There is also a free and busy calendar option to let others know your current and future availability.

Although chat is a quick and easy form of communicating among teams, you may also choose to go live in real time. With Skype for Business, you can begin a live video chat session in high-definition with premium sound.

Bring Microsoft Teams with you wherever you go. The application works on all computers running Windows 10, but also can run on iOS devices. Android and Windows phones and tablets can also run Microsoft Teams. Accessibility is essential to Microsoft developers, and this is why options include keyboard-only navigation, higher contrast resolution, and support for screen readers.

The most important feature is the high level of security offered by the Microsoft Teams framework. Teams abide by all global security practices and standards to keep your data confidential within the cloud.

Don’t miss out on this exciting new rollout from Microsoft 365.