Teams: the collaboration tool of choice

Microsoft 365 Teams is more than just a messaging tool for businesses: it’s a workspace for real-time collaboration and communication, meetings, file sharing, etc. Many features are grouped in one place, open and accessible to all. In a way, it’s the nerve centre of all Microsoft applications.

Since being launched, Teams has been the fastest growing application in Microsoft’s history. It has more than 115 million¹ daily active users around the world.

If you work with Teams, you’re probably discovering new ways to use it on a daily basis. And if you’re not using it yet, here are 6 reasons to consider switching to Teams now.

1.  More than just a chat feature

You can use the messaging window in Teams to conduct quick conversations with your co-workers, of course. But the benefits don’t stop there.

Need to share a file? Send it as an attachment through the chat feature, then simply make a voice call or use video conferencing with your co-worker to discuss the file in the same window. You can also schedule a meeting without leaving the chat room. By integrating the chat feature with other Microsoft products such as OneNote and Office, you no longer need to juggle applications during your conversation. It’s all built in.

2.  Before, during and after in Meetings

Do you sometimes find it difficult to get everything ready for a meeting? The agenda is in an email, the approved actions in an Excel file? And where is that note you had to review before the call?

Meetings in Teams simplifies virtual meetings. As soon as the meeting is created, you can chat with team members about the agenda and share the files you need to give them, while keeping an eye on notes and to-dos. You can even view the list of invited participants – internal and external – to see who will be attending the meeting.

A recording of the meeting is available in the same tab immediately after the meeting. This way, if you were absent, you can still listen to the recording and view notes and approved actions later on.

3.  Fewer emails, more targeted conversations

No more endless threads with messages that are often sent as “reply-all.” Does someone need to share a file with you or ask you a quick question? That’s what messaging is for!

Getting lost in your emails is a thing of the past, since Teams now accommodates your conversations in a structured way.

It’s easy to create channels that are accessible to everyone so that co-workers know where to collaborate. By adopting clear channel names, everyone will know the content of the conversations in one or the other and will know which one to use.

And if a team member needs to notify a co-worker during a discussion, they can do so by typing @co-workername. The co-worker will know that their attention is required because a red dot will appear on the icon in the taskbar.

4.  Improved collaboration and communication

Thanks to the tight integration of Teams in Office 365, you don’t need to switch applications when you have to work together on a document. You can create a Word, Excel or PowerPoint document in Teams, share it with your co-workers, and then co-author it, easily and efficiently.

No more sending versions by email and the confusion that comes with it. You can add comments and to-dos, and discuss the document with your co-workers from the same interface.

5.  Teams telephony

Teams offers the possibility of making and receiving calls. No more need for the traditional desk phone! IP telephony is fully integrated. Here are some of the possibilities:

• Hold conference calls
  It allows group discussions with team members as well as people from outside the organization. For example, if three co-workers are talking to each other about a supplier’s offer and need clarification, they can include the supplier’s representative in their group discussion, whether he or she uses a cell phone or landline.
• Redirect calls
  With Teams, it is possible to set up automated messages that the caller can activate by voice or using a telephone keypad (IVR: interactive voice response) to be directed to a specific member of the organization or team (sales, service, support or other).
• Receive your voice messages by email
  Using voice recognition, messages left in voicemail are automatically converted to text and sent by email. Efficient… and fun! Although the feature is in early stages in French, it is still possible to get the gist of the message without listening to it.
• Telework
  Unifying traditional communications with Teams brings total mobility that fits perfectly in a hybrid or full-time teleworking context.

6.  Stay connected everywhere, all the time

On the road, you may want to be reachable at all times and have access to your applications and documents. With the Teams mobile application, everything is at your fingertips. You can easily use chat to reply to your messages or join conversations, or you can join meetings with a single click and continue your collaborations. So even when you’re out of the office, you stay fully connected.

Endless possibilities

Did you know that you can integrate applications with Teams to optimize your operations? In a future issue, we’ll explore the universe of applications available in Windows Store that can be integrated with Teams, as well as the vast range of customized solutions that can be incorporated. We’ll share with you the results of completed projects.

You want to use technology to support your business strategies?

Contact our experts, they’ll be happy to discuss it with you!

Source:

(1) Stats, October 2020 data