The “digital translation of an open office space.” as described by a company spokesperson, Microsoft teams is a collaboration platform for Microsoft Office 365 users, designed specifically to help simplify an organisation’s workflow.

As well as making use of several chat-based communication channels (from voice and video chat through to text based comms), Microsoft Teams’ integrates with other Microsoft services available as part of the Office365 suite, allowing calendars to be shared and files to be integrated with group editing. All coming together to form one big collaborative environment.

Multiple ‘channels’ (think organisation MSN Chatrooms) can be created within each Team, each of which contains threaded conversations, notifying members of updates. If users need face-to-face conversation, they can jump straight into Skype voice or video chats with other channel participants with a single click.

 

 

Although it may seem simple in it’s make-up, Teams is designed to be used for more than just a communications tool such as Slack. With Microsoft’s software portfolio forming it’s foundation it also works to combine strong content collaboration features – one example is documents from Microsoft’s Sharepoint platform being easily accessed and edited without leaving the app.

 

HOW CAN TEAMS WORK FOR MY BUSINESS?

In our experience, Teams is best used for project work and communication within departments. With it’s threaded conversation layout it’s easy to keep track of where everyone is up to, and being used in this fashion means that mailboxes aren’t cluttered up with long email strings which take a while to search through to find the info you’re looking for.

Ultimately, how you use applications such as Microsoft Teams or Yammer depends majorly on your business requirements.

HOW DO I GET TEAMS?

Teams is available to Office 365 users on these license plans: Business Essentials, Business Premium, Enterprise E1, E3 or E5.

Want more information on what Microsoft Teams powered by Office365 can help communication in your business? See Microsoft’s full breakdown HERE or speak to us today.