What’s in Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams is a brilliant new paradigm for workgroups to stay connected and productive: the “collaboration hub”, a one-stop-shop for documents, meetings, chat and more. The average worker has twice as many projects as they did just five years ago, and they spend 80% of their time collaborating with co-workers on these projects. On average they have four separate devices, and they expect to be able to work from home or on the go with any of them. Email and phone calls don’t cut it anymore. Top talent will flow to the companies with the best tools. With help and guidance from us, that will be your company. Check out what Microsoft Teams and Office 365 can do:
Teams and Groups
Microsoft Teams puts project work in context. Documents, chats, virtual meetings, project plans, web pages and apps are kept together with one source of authority, not spread across file shares, cloud accounts, email and separate systems. Access is controlled by a security group made up of internal and outside members. Best practice is to have one Team per project you are a part of.
Channels
Content for a Team is organized in Channels, or tabs. There are Channels for private and team chats, lists of documents, shared calendars, bookmarked web pages, project plans, and any one of hundreds of Microsoft and 3rd-party apps that contribute to the success of your project. No more digging around to find project documents or trying to figure out who has the latest version.
Chat and Messaging
Not all project collaboration is formal. A quick exchange of ideas when you are thinking is a huge benefit. Teams runs on your computer, tablet, and mobile phone. Inspiration is always convenient! When you are done, the chat log is kept as part of you project records, always available to refer to.
Calling
Teams has a built-in voice calling feature so you can jump on a call, or schedule a virtual meeting, right from inside Teams. With the optional Business Voice package, Teams becomes a complete business phone system, replacing that expensive on-site or cloud-based PBX. When someone calls your Teams phone number, all your devices ring so you never have to miss an important call.
Virtual Meetings
Schedule a virtual meeting with the project team right from inside Teams, complete with video, screen share, white board, and document editing. Everything you need to host productive meetings is right in one place along with all your other project assets. Remote participants no longer have to just listen in. With Teams on their mobile device they are first class participants.
Live Events
Teams lets you schedule, then present, a live on-line event with participants both inside and outside your organization. Broadcasting is handled by your Microsoft Streams instance in Office 365. Share live video feeds, conduct presentations, and have a Q&A session with anyone in the world.
Project Management
Each Team is automatically assigned an on-line project management tool called Planner. Build your project plan and track progress toward your goals. The project plan is available from a Channel tab right in your team along with all your other project documentation and collaboration.
Co-authoring
Documents kept with your Team are a versioned single source of authority. Gone are the days of attachments cluttering up inboxes and losing track of who has what version. Better yet, more than one person can edit the same file at once, allowing for real time content creation from any device and location.
Business Voice
Microsoft provides world class telecom capability integrated right into Teams. Each user gets a phone number and a variety of traditional phone capabilities like voice mail, call parking, call transfer, and routing. Handsets are available, or use a headset or your devices built-in microphone and speaker. Best of all, it works in Teams from any device.
Conference Room Solutions
Teams is also available as a conference room solution. Connect audio and video equipment for a complete teleconferencing experience tightly integrated with all the scheduling and collaboration capabilities of Microsoft Teams. Most equipment you already have will work with Teams.
Security
As part of the Microsoft 365 technology stack. Teams is integrated with Microsoft’s world class cybersecurity features that protect you from malicious files and various other threats. Access control is managed and audited through the same console as the rest of M365, unlike other collaboration tools that require their own security.
Compliance and Protection
Microsoft’s EMS Suite can make sure your project content stays private. Intentional or accidental exfiltration can be thwarted by preventing downloads, sharing, or email files tagged as protected or that contain content and terms identified in an Information Protection policy. Full file auditing is available to see who is interacting with your files so compliance issues can be identified and remediated.