Getting Started with Microsoft Teams
Businesses are using Microsoft Teams now more than ever before. The company reports that it now has 75 million daily active users. That’s an increase of 62 million since July 2019. Microsoft Teams is a unique portal available for businesses to use for collaboration, small projects, connections and workgroups. Microsoft Teams provides excellent functionality, offering a single location for many activities. Teams utilizes features like those found on popular social networking platforms, rivaling Zoom with its functionality. Microsoft Teams can also be seamlessly integrated with Microsoft Office and Microsoft Groups.
Step One: Make Your Teams
One of the first tasks to undertake in MS Teams is to understand the difference between teams and channels. A team is a collection of people and is most often project-based or department-based. A channel is where the action happens. It is helpful to think of the team as the house and the channels as the rooms within that house.
To create a team, select members from your organization to be a part of the team by adding them to the team. Teams can be public, private or contain every member of an organization. Each team should contain more than one employee in the role of the owner so that the team can be managed by more than one person in the event of time off from work or responsibility changes within the organization.
Step Two: Create Channels Inside Teams
Work gets completed inside channels. Channels are active places that are helpful to separate out different tasks, topics, projects, or make announcements within a team. Channels are public or private. Meetings take place within a channel.
Within each channel, there are tabs for posts, files, and other items. The chat function is used for personal or private conversations. Additionally, messages can be sent with @mentions, emojis and reactions like popular media platforms and can be formatted to appear more like an email. The calendar function allows the owner to set meetings or meet now for urgent meetings.
Step Three: Find Anything in MS Teams
At the top of the Teams screen, find the command box. This allows the user to search for people, conversations, channels or teams. Microsoft just announced “a ton of new capabilities to help people stay connected, collaborate, and build solutions in Teams” including Together Mode allowing the user to set the scene for their virtual meetings, and the Breakout room, allowing larger groups to split out into smaller groups for portions of a meeting.
Let 4BIS.COM Help You Launch Microsoft Teams
If you are ready to implement Microsoft Teams to increase productivity and collaboration across all facets of your company, contact the team at 4BIS.COM. Let us integrate Microsoft Teams with your existing programs and stay apprised of the most recent developments, allowing you to maximize your IT budget. Contact our team at 513-469-7887 or reach us online to schedule a free consultation or learn more about Microsoft Teams.
