The Modern Workplace: Microsoft Teams

In today’s world, emerging technology is one of the building blocks for work environments. Companies and their employees must keep up with this technology to develop effective communication in the global market. Organizations should have the power to move their business forward by communicating from various locations, time zones, and languages.

Microsoft Teams can do just that. It puts businesses’ needs first by creating simpler workflows, re-centering attention and constructing a smarter way to work more efficiently. The power of Teams has combined what organizations need into a single, intelligent hub. Chats, meetings, calls and Office 365 apps are just in reach.

Teams is a messaging tool that allows users to communicate together whether they are in the same office or working remotely. It has group chat rooms as well as private messages between individuals, and video calling is just at a push of a button.

To simply state that Teams is a communication application is just scraping the top layer of this immense tool. We will discuss how Teams is more than a communication application, but also a necessary part in collaboration and productivity.

Growing Factors

A problem that organizations face is the constant evolution of the workplace, and the tools that these companies need must be able to change with them.

Here are several factors that should be taken into consideration:

Teams’ Architecture

Microsoft Teams has many applications all within one place. It is the fastest-growing app from Microsoft, and with all their functions plus many more, it conveniently allows companies to operate smarter while accomplishing tasks faster.

Collaboration, communication, and innovation are important elements that empower companies and their employees in the digital age of the workplace. Microsoft describes Teams as a ‘chat-based workspace in Office 365, and by implementing Teams, it allows collaborators to work together from one window to strengthen teamwork.

The Teams section is ideally the place where collaboration begins. This is where team members can send files and messages. Within Teams, there are subsections called Channels. There can be multiple Channels within the Teams that can be used for different departments or specific sections within the company. The tabs functions are various files in which information can be stored and shared within the users.

A Deeper Look into Microsoft Teams

All inside one window, users have a variety of Office 365 apps to work more effectively. It brings several benefits such as shared documents, centralized team information, multiple channels for different projects and departments, and communication with team members and outside associates.

Things You Should Know About Microsoft Teams

1. Improved Meeting Experiences
   • Meeting virtually is an important ability that is cost-effective and an emerging function for businesses today. Teams can schedule meetings, the times, the topic, and a list of people who will be attending.
2. Bots
   • The Bots on Teams are there to increase productivity. There are about 24 bots with an assortment of purposes; one bot is the T-Bot which answers basic and frequently asked questions about Teams. The Polly Bot is for polling co-workers, Statsbot for carrying out scheduled reports, like Salesforce and Google Analytics, and Growbot allows the interchange of kudos with other co-workers.
3. Customizable
   • The power to customize your workspace is an important characteristic of today’s era. Teams allow tools to be tailored to meet business’ unique and cultural needs. Teams provide updates and notifications from third-party services such as GitHub and Twitter. Not only that but with the added support of Microsoft’s Bot Framework, the organization can create and customize the applications to integrate into Microsoft Teams.

Here are a few other functions that make Microsoft Teams a necessary part of productivity and technology integration:

Microsoft Teams VS. Slack

Many different applications are similar to Teams. A few to name is Slack, Workplace by Facebook, and Google Hangouts. All these applications in on way or another geared towards collaboration within the organization.

The main competitor with Teams is Slack. A survey conducted by Mio, an Austin, Texas-based startup that sells software for companies to communicate between various messaging tools, found that 91% of industries use at least two messaging apps. Teams and Slack exist in 66% of the organizations surveyed.

With that being said let’s delve into the abilities of both apps.

Messaging Capabilities

Both applications have similar conversation threads for messaging; both support text, tagging abilities, stickers, and GIFS.
Teams, however, has a more array of sticker stores to look over, with automatic integration with GIPHY, as well as its meme generator.

Web Conferencing

In Slack’s free plan, it offers unlimited 1-to-1
video or voice calls, but if the user wants to add more people to the call, they must obtain the paid version, which allows up to 15 people.

Teams in this regard are far superior in their web conferencing abilities. On the paid version and even the free version, users can have up to 250 people in its voice or video conferences. Unlike Slack, Teams also offers the power to record meetings. Both do provide screen sharing, but only in the higher tiers with Slack.

Storage Limits

The free version of Slack comes with 5GB of storage of file storage for a team, while the paid plan increases to 10GB per user and 20 GB for the highest-paid version. For messages, the free version reaches up to 10,000 messages, but there is no limit disappears for the paid edition.

Teams offer 2GB of storage per user and 10GB for the total share of storage for a team in the free version. When switching to Office 365, it increases to 11TB of online storage for the entire business. There is also no message history limit in Teams

Which to choose?

Both applications are great chat applications for companies and organizations. The ultimate choice is what the company is looking for in a chat and collaboration app.

Slack is favorable for smaller, independent users and it might be more sought out if the group is looking for a more independent, platform-based application.

Teams, on the other hand, has its place in the market. It is more adequate for larger, complex companies, and if the company is already an Office 365 subscriber, integrating with Teams is a considerable decision with the features and pricing.

The Modern Workplace

Microsoft Teams is continually growing, with more than 13 million people using it daily and 19 million weekly active users. Microsoft has been gradually modifying it over the past two years, and it continues to be updated regularly.

Many groups have been adopting this application and there are clear reasons why. It is highly customizable, supports a wide range of apps, focuses on communication and collaboration, and it hits all the key factors that businesses expect.

More Related Topics on Teams

Here at eBiz Solutions, integrating Teams has helped us with collaboration and communication with not only our clients but with our global team. We can message, and video or voice call them at any time, anywhere. Here are more reasons why Microsoft Teams is an option to consider.
It is clear to state Microsoft Teams is an overall necessary hub for collaboration and communication. To find out more about other Microsoft products, click here.