Microsoft Teams is a push toward a more modern workforce to keep you connected whether you are in the office on your laptop or on the go on your phone. As much of the world has suddenly changed and now working remotely, Microsoft Teams is an application that has proved extremely useful to attend online meetings, share files, and stay connected with your colleagues and clients. Here are a few tips so that you can get the most out this tool so you can work effectively.
- Create Teams and separate channels across your organization to stay organized. Microsoft allows you to have an organization wide team, but it is also recommended to create custom Teams and channels so that discussion and files that are geared only toward certain individuals can be done without involving the entire company. Do not just use the default “General” channel, create a new one for each subject. This rule works the other way – do not create too many channels, it may make something harder to find.
- Add frequently used or common applications to Teams such as Power BI, Power Apps, Dynamics 365, GitHub, Stack Overflow, Adobe Creative Cloud, and many more.
- Using @mentions and tags are a great way to get someone’s attention or to quickly send to a targeted group of users
- Follow or muting channels is a useful way of turning down the noise and clutter and seeing only what is important to you.
- Title your conversations to give them additional organization as well as a good way to search down the road. For example, create a virtual water cooler conversation. Its very easy to feel isolated during the “stay at home” order. The virtual water cooler creates a bit or normalcy during this time.
- SharePoint is integrated into Microsoft Teams. Use it to store and share files with your team.
- There is also a strong integration with Microsoft Outlook. Teams have an email address so that you can email directly out of Outlook into your Team conversation. The opposite holds true as well, you can take a Teams message and copy it to a new email.
- Use the mobile app for on the go phone calls and video conferences. The app is available for Apple iPhone/iPad, Google Android, and Windows Mobile
- Microsoft Teams has guest access in which you can invite users outside your organization to your team. Guest can access channels, chats, and documents.
- Backgrounds – you can blur your background or even use images hand selected by Microsoft. According to Microsoft, choosing custom images is a feature request coming in May.
- Bookmark important content to save it for later reference
- Custom integrations can be created with Microsoft Teams and ERP software such as NetSuite and Acumatica, utilizing Microsoft Flow and the Teams API
