If your business is using the Microsoft 365 suite, you’ll be familiar with the revolutionary communication powers Microsoft Teams offers. This teamwork hub is an absolute game changer for collaboration in the workplace, bringing a host of features that add a massive productivity boost to your working day.
Never before has it been easier to remotely collaborate with a team member on a project. Not until now has videoconferencing, group and one-on-one messaging and file sharing been so seamless. Your apps, data and assets are all accessed from the one platform, as it offers full integration with Microsoft 365. This is the future of workplace collaboration!
Our managed IT service clients using Teams have given clearly positive reviews, and here in the Smile IT office it’s become an integral part of our workflow. But what are the features that make it such an important office companion? Today we’re going to take a look at some of the Microsoft Teams features we love, and we know you’ll love too!
Effective and Enriched Videoconferencing
The meeting and videoconferencing features of Teams are one of the reasons it has ballooned in popularity since it was launched in 2017. With 320 million users around the globe, it’s fast become the go-to videoconferencing choice for offices, government departments and educational institutions. Some of the features that make Teams videoconferencing stand out for us include:
- Enjoy one-on-one video communications or speak to an online event of up to 10,000 people.
- Record meetings for future reference.
- Use the instant messaging function to chat with attendees while the video is running.
- Customise your video background to remove distractions.
- Live captions and subtitles make meetings inclusive for hard-of-hearing participants.
- Together Mode uses AI technology to drop people’s head and shoulders and place everybody in a virtual shared environment, like a coffee shop.
Real Time Collaboration
Allied to the video chat abilities are the progressive collaboration opportunities offered by Microsoft Teams. Collaboration is when two or more people work together on a shared project or goal. It’s greatly facilitated by Teams features, which makes communications via video, audio or instant messaging easy.
Users can share files and work on them in real-time together. Imagine your colleague from another city branch and you have to build a PowerPoint presentation introducing a new product line. You can work on the file together, while talking on video chat and even making use of a virtual whiteboard to communicate ideas. Automated sync and version history tracking creates a track record you can refer back to as the project progresses.
A company can create different channels within Teams that can be used for communication and collaboration. For example, each department could have their own dedicated channel, or channels can be created for individual projects with all project contributors as members. Conversations and content relating to the project can then be easily accessed by team members.
Easy Access to Microsoft 365 (and Other) Apps
Microsoft 365 is the cloud-powered productivity platform that is ubiquitous in the business world. It includes familiar and loved apps like Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and SharePoint. It also includes Teams, and for many organisations this is the glue that binds the entire suite together.
All your Microsoft 365 apps can be accessed from Teams. Files and documents in OneDrive or SharePoint can be shared and worked on together and your calendar is also readily available.
Additionally, as well as the Microsoft apps there’s an entire range of third-party apps that can be added to Teams. The extensive catalogue provides you with access to tools and services your business can use every day to enhance workflows and improve functionality. They’re available for a wide range of industries, from agriculture to education.
Reduced Reliance on Email
We’re all about streamlining at Smile IT, and we love how Teams streamlines our communications by reducing internal reliance on email. Team members communicate quickly within the chat function, negating the need to send emails and clutter inboxes. Conversations all stay in one place, and there is no more searching through convoluted email threads for important information.
You can also forward an email thread directly to a team channel, and the contents of the email will be made visible to all channel members.
External Communications with Vendors or Clients
Teams isn’t focused solely on internal collaboration, you can communicate externally with clients, vendors, or other third parties. You simply send an invite to an existing team chat or channel to their direct email address. Admin can control which features they can access, so your business information will always be safe.
Mobile App
Teams can be used on different types of endpoints, including a mobile phone. This enhances remote work capabilities, allowing staff to communicate on the go and never miss a conference call!
Some features we love with the mobile app include:
- You can set quiet days or hours, allowing you to stipulate work hours within the app. This is useful for businesses that span time zones.
- Share your location with other office members.
- Customise the appearance by rearranging the bottom bar.
- Share content from your phone when in a videoconference.
- Transfer calls from your laptop to your mobile phone and back again, without losing signal.
Baked in Security and Compliance
As you’d expect from Microsoft, you can rest assured the security and compliance of the Teams app is exceptional. Microsoft states “Teams also enforces team-wide and organization-wide two-factor authentication, single sign-on through Active Directory, and encryption of data in transit and at rest. Files are stored in SharePoint and are backed by SharePoint encryption. Notes are stored in OneNote and are backed by OneNote encryption.”
Microsoft Copilot and Teams
Microsoft Copilot is a productivity tool that uses AI to help you work smarter and faster. It integrates into all the Microsoft 365 apps, presenting as a conversational bot you can collaborate with to improve your workflow. Available to holders of the Microsoft 365 Copilot license, it also integrates with Teams to help improve your collaboration and communication.
It can be used in video meetings to process a transcript and ask pertinent questions about the meeting such as ‘Are any questions left unresolved after this meeting?’ or ‘What different opinions did team members have?’.
It can also be used to empower chat conversations, helping to summarise long conversations, review main points, action items and make decisions.
Time to Implement Teams? Contact Smile IT
If you want to enjoy Teams to its full capacity, using it as a teamwork hub that gives easy access to the familiar Microsoft apps is the way to do it. Smile IT has helped hundreds of businesses across Australia migrate to the Microsoft 365 suite, and we’re here to do the same for you.
Chat with one of our team about enhancing your internal and external communications while improving productivity organization-wide, right now. Click here to get the ball rolling!
When he’s not writing tech articles or turning IT startups into established and consistent managed service providers, Peter Drummond can be found kitesurfing on the Gold Coast or hanging out with his family!