SKILLS & TRICKS
Its been one year since Microsoft Teams was launched and it has been a tremendous success for Microsoft as SLACK is loosing its grip in the market. With O365 and other third party integrations within Teams, its much easier to have a shared chat based workplace without the need to use different systems. I have previously written about How to Get Started, Concept and Usage Scenario and Microsoft Teams Implementation Checklist. Its time to revisit Microsoft Teams and go through some of the fundamental features and capabilities it offers. I am going to highlight each and everyone of those in as much detail as possible so that when you start using Microsoft Teams - you already know your way to get around. We will be going through the following:
Clear out the Confusion - When to Use WhatMicrosoft Teams is the chat-based workspace in Office 365 and hub for teamwork which can be customized to fit your team’s needs. It is flexible for chats, calls, meetings, sharing files etc but with Skype for Business, Yammer and Teams all part of Microsoft 365, you might be asking yourself, "Surely this is collaboration overkill?" Its necessary and very essential that we understand about each one of these products and define a clear path about when to use what within the organization. I agree that a lot of features overlap each other and can be confusing for the end user. Best is to segment your users and then see how things go from here - what i mean is that some people like social media based collaboration and Yammer might be a good fit and some prefer chat since they have been on Slack before so find it easier and prefer plenty of emoticons. Each workload in Office 365 has the scenario where it is most powerful, and users have a choice of where and how they work. Teams: Core messaging – chat based workspace, flexible, extensible, connecting the Office 365 workloads, support for INTERNAL meetings/video chats for up to 60 people. Yammer: Enterprise social for service support, communities of practice, executive engagement. Outlook: Core email and calendar. Formal and low-frequency communication. Steering committee example. SharePoint: Curated content – organizational portals. Business process automation with PowerApps & flow. Powers file storage capabilities behind Microsoft Teams. Introduction to Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams delivers on four core promises to create a digital workspace for high-performing teams.
Think about the roles you and others play in your group, and the productivity experiences you already have in Office 365. This is your opportunity to knit them together in a frictionless collaboration experience. You are enhancing rather than replacing what you already have. Microsoft Teams is particularly well suited for teams where team members are highly engaged, iterating on shared deliverables. There are such scenarios across sales, marketing, project management, engineering, and customer service. Some examples:
SuccessFactors will help employees and managers track goals and performance as part of the way they work in Microsoft Teams every day. Trello will empower groups to easily get projects done with boards, lists, and cards right within Teams. These partnerships give users shared perspective on all their work, without having to switch tools. Microsoft Teams Fundamentals
Walk through UI, including left rail (Activity, Chat, Teams, Meetings, and Files)
Key Aspects and Highlights
Find the right "tribes" in your org, and make sure the team is at the level at which people are all working toward a common goal and are tightly collaborative. Teams is much better when users have only 6 to 7 teams max that they have to check on. Avoid trading inbox overload for team and channel overload. Organizing at higher levels in larger teams prevents this. Consider making general interest teams public so that anyone at Microsoft can join. Key Aspects and Highlights
Create a new Team
Discover Public Teams Integrate Teams with Office 365 Groups
Key Aspects and Highlights
Key Aspects and Highlights Create only a few initial channels and encourage team members to create channels as needed based on topics, v-teams, initiatives, etc. For an engineering team you could have channels on performance, build, live site, UX coherence. For a sales team, you could have channels for industries, best practices for driving E5 and Azure, etc. You can find detailed guidance for Sales, Marketing, Engineering, Finance and general project planning on Infopedia. Pick cross-cutting themes that lead to active discussions from a diverse set of people. Upload all files in Teams and in context to the correct channels. If you have an existing SharePoint site, OneNote notebook, or Power BI dashboard you want to leverage, pin it to a channel. In larger teams, make an “Announcements” channel to congratulate teams and team members’ on achievements, inform the team about new hires, etc. People can like and acknowledge messages without leading to without email “spam.” Using Channels
Email a Channel Key Aspects and Highlights
Conversation Tab
Key Aspects and Highlights When a team is created, a SharePoint document library is automatically created for your team (unless you add Teams to an established O365 group, in which case the existing SharePoint will be integrated with Teams). Each team channel has its own folder within the SharePoint document library that is visible in the channel’s Files tab. Files shared in a team conversation can be found in the Files tab.
Key Aspects and Highlights
Copy an existing OneNote notebook into Teams If you have relevant content in another OneNote notebook section, you can move it to the OneNote notebook associated with your team.
Key Aspects and Highlights
BOTS Bots in Microsoft Teams are able to chat one-on-one with members, providing answers and information about things your team is interested in. To add a bot: Select the ellipsis (…) next to the team > View Team > select the Bots tab > Discover tools. From a conversation, @mention the bot and ask a question. Key Aspects and Highlights Example bots:
Create your own bots:
Microsoft Teams AdoptionStart with End Users As the adoption of this unified collaboration workspace grows and we move away from traditional email inboxes, I’m excited to see how divisions, departments and teams with members from all generations utilize it, and whether it fulfills the Millennial appetite for instant information. Up till now I haven't seen any clear approach when it comes to adopting Microsoft Teams or any other UC workspace product as they are all in the hands of end users. Some customers preferred a top-down approach, while others found success with a bottom-up strategy. But the best approach may be somewhere in the middle, with feedback from end users and controls established by IT departments. More and more, companies are deploying team collaboration apps on an enterprise-wide basis, and most companies are deploying team collaboration platforms enterprise-wide. I think one of the crucial elements to pleasing the new generation with workplace tools lies in the aesthetics and functionality. To me, Microsoft Teams looks and feels like a sophisticated social media platform and that’s great; you have the Yammer like timeline for your team conversations, the LinkedIn/Twitter-esque sidebar for jumping to different places, Bots that work on my behalf and an instant messaging capability all in one place – as a Millennial in the workplace, you can’t wish for much more than that! Key Aspects and Highlights
New and Upcoming Features in Microsoft TeamsIn the last 2 months a lot of new features and functionality has been introduced to Microsoft Teams. I have broken them down to segments or features for us to easily understand and utilize them. We will first look at some of the upcoming new features which are planned to be released by Q2 of this year according to my information. Please note that i have not been able to play with all the newly released features since some of them are only available to First release tenants and it takes a bit of time for the roll out - so hold on.
Channel, Chat and Sharing
Create a Team from your Phone - The screenshot below tells the whole story and how simple it is. Audio and Video We are targeting the end of Q2-2018 for general availability of this capability. To access the Direct Routing capability, customers will need to have Microsoft Teams and Phone System as part of Office 365. Direct Routing is a capability of Phone System in Office 365 to help customers connect their SIP trunks to Microsoft Teams. In the simplest deployment model, customers start with SIP trunks from their telecommunications provider. Next, customers will use and configure a supported Session Border Controller (SBC) from one of our certified partners. Finally, they will connect their SBC to Microsoft Teams and Phone System. Apps and Integrations
The new app features make Microsoft Teams an even more powerful hub for teamwork and this ecosystem is continuously growing of Microsoft every week so i would recommend you to visit the following link for an up to date info about available apps. Microsoft Teams Apps Microsoft Teams Roadmap
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