Why should you use Microsoft Teams?

MicrosoftTeams is currently the most popular member of the Office 365 family. If you don’t find the service in your app launcher, you can access Microsoft Teams via https://teams.microsoft.com. Microsoft Teams is based on the concept of the Office Groups with a common inbox supplemented by a chat board and options like video conferencing.

Central entry point for teamwork

You get a personalized overview of all your teams. If you are using the desktop application or the mobile app, Microsoft Teams can become the first application you will open every morning to inform you about your projects and the work to be done. You can stay in touch with your teams and engage in different conversations or attend scheduled or ad-hoc video conferences. This options support even distributed teams at multiple locations. For example my team members live at different locations or like to work at home and some of us are often travelling to visit our customers. We love Microsoft Teams because it supports us to exchange information in a transparent way.

Modern chat options

If it has to go quick, you can enter only a short message in the conversation section of a team workspace. But you can do so much more. You can mark a message as important, mention team members or the whole team and you even can make announcements and decide who can answer on this message. Beside standard formatting functionalities you can also add emojis and memes. My team loves this kind of messages; a picture is worth a thousand words.

Managing and structuring your teams

Each team has different needs to be supported in their daily work. Some teams want to work with external users like suppliers, partners or customers. After a configuration in the admin center you can add these persons with their email address. They will be marked as a guest in your team but will have similar permissions as an internal team member.

Moreover, when you start working with your team you will have a common channel “General” with the possibility to chat, work on files and document information in a wiki. This can be enough for a small team. When your team grows or the project or topic you are working on is complex, you will need a further structuring level. That’s the dedication of channels. You may use them for subprojects, for different topics or (like my team) for a separation of organizational stuff, trainings and several smaller projects.

Customizable for individual needs

Each team in Microsoft Teams is an Office Group. This means that you can add additional services like Planner, Stream or custom flows. You can add these services via a tab in your team. So you don’t need to switch between different applications or browsers. You can do your whole teamwork within Microsoft Teams.

Furthermore, you can use Bots to search for information or trigger processes without leaving your usual workspace. Microsoft Teams is also the upcoming application platform in the Microsoft world and can be extended via SPFx. Updates coming soon…