Getting Started With Microsoft Teams
Businesses worldwide are continually looking for ways to become more efficient. This involves investing in tools to enable their remote employees to communicate and collaborate effectively. With so many tools available in the market, finding the right fit for your business can be challenging. For this reason, companies that are familiar with the Microsoft family of applications naturally turn to Microsoft Teams.
Check out our latest video to learn more about Microsoft Teams:
What Is Microsoft Teams?
Microsoft Teams is a collaboration and communication tool that is part of Office 365. It can be accessed through a desktop application (Windows and Mac) or a mobile phone application (Android and Apple). MS Teams enables dispersed and remote teams to collaborate and work together through a shared workspace. Microsoft Teams integrates a collection of Microsoft Office 365 applications, such as Skype, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, Word, and SharePoint. MS Teams also incorporates collaborative features that allow members of an organization to hold virtual meetings, chat, share files, and have phone conversations.
What Main Features Does Microsoft Teams Offer? The following features make up Microsoft Teams:
- Teams: You will need a team to start collaborating on projects. A team is a collection of people, content, and applications based on a particular organization. Setting up a team is easy and done with a few clicks, requiring only a team name, description, and members. You can set your team to be private or public.
- Channels: Each team has subsections known as channels. This is where more defined conversations based on tasks, departments, or projects occur. By default, Microsoft Teams creates a general channel for all team members. You can add multiple channels within a Team and set them as either “standard” or “private.” Private channels are more suited to confidential and sensitive conversations, while standard channels are accessible to anyone on the team.
- Chat: Chats allow you to send direct messages to other team members privately away from the team chat. You can make calls and share screens from the chat window, and add additional team members to the conversation. The chat window has a simple message box that allows you to edit text, attach files, and add GIFs, emojis, and stickers. Chats are saved, searchable, and can be pinned.
- Calendar: From the calendar, you can view your schedule and upcoming meetings. Teams allows you to sync your Outlook group calendar with your Microsoft Teams calendar. By default, the MS calendar is accessible to everyone in your team, but you can edit the calendar permissions and limit access to particular team members.
- Audio and Video Conferencing: Microsoft Teams allows you to make group or one-on-one calls to people in your team directly from your chat list. This can be done by clicking the video or audio call buttons from the chat section. The calls you make are private and don’t appear in any team conversation. You can also make calls and capture voicemails from the Calls tab. If you have connected Teams to a phone system, you can also make calls to people outside your organization.
- Files: When you create a team, you automatically create a SharePoint Online site behind it. All media shared across the chat window and conversations are automatically saved to the SharePoint library folder.
Remote and dispersed work teams need tools that enable them to communicate and collaborate effectively with each other. Microsoft Teams can support the level of collaboration you need. If your business is looking to run its operations uninterrupted outside the office space, harnessing Microsoft Teams’ full potential should be of interest to you.
Are You Looking to Leverage the Services of a Reliable Microsoft Solutions Provider?
At V&C Solutions, we offer experience and expertise in providing IT solutions to businesses throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.
Consult with us today, and let us help you customize Microsoft Teams to fit your business’s communication and collaboration needs.
