Things You Should Know About Microsoft Teams

The recent pandemic of Covid -19 had forced the businesses to adapt to remote working but now as the pandemic winds down, the way of work has been changed. A survey suggests that most of the businesses are considering continuing the remote working whereas others are planning for hybrid schedules, where workers can shift between on-premise and remote work at their will. But if the workers are dispersed and constantly moving, how will they collaborate? Many video, voice, and workspace applications tried to provide a solution to this but none of them has been able to satisfy the diverse business and employee’s needs. Although there is one app that has been proved effective so far. 

What is Microsoft Teams?

Launched in 2016, Teams is an integrated part of the Microsoft Office 365 productivity suite. This platform consists of features including file sharing, voice calls, video calls, chats, and more. It is not limited to any specific workgroup; it was designed to be used by local, remote, and distributed workers from any company. Microsoft is also continually updating the app since its launch to meet the users’ requirements. And as the pandemic arrived, a host of new features were added as the demand for this comprehensive collaboration tool exploded in the year 2020-21.

Important things you should know about Microsoft Teams

1. Teams offers secure internal and external collaboration

The security features of the Microsoft 365 suite are included in Teams. It is also armed with two-factor authentication, encryption in transit, and rest in the cloud. Data in Teams comply with ISO 2700, SOC 1, and SOC 2 regulations. It is also provisioned to meet other strict data security standards of various industries including HIPAA patient data restrictions in healthcare.

Although Teams is considered a locked-down app, it is secure enough as it doesn’t prevent you from working with internal and external collaborators. In a Microsoft 365 Admin center, your administrator can create guest accounts that can be used to collaborate with the business partners, external stakeholders, contractors, and clients on different channels.

2. Greater data visibility and better governance

Microsoft Teams enables business leaders to have excellent visibility and insight into the work carried out by the workers within their organization. Because in Microsoft 365’s governance and management tools, conversations are available as valuable assets. Hence, in the Teams, all the conversations are persistent. For example, Microsoft 365 cloud acts as a storage for all types of conversations and other files in the channel of Teams.

This data is also available in Microsoft 365’s data intelligence console named Microsoft Graph. Which users are working on which channels, how they are communicating, whether the work speed is average, fast, or slow, and many more things are analyzed through this console.

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Teams have their data and metadata in their channels which are journaled into the eDiscovery tools of the Microsoft 365 suite. It also consists of valuable data governance tools. You can easily comply with any legal and regulatory requests when you are using Teams to manage all your work conversations.

3. Teams has powerful Microsoft Office integration options

Highly integrated with Microsoft 365, Teams allows users to create and manage files in the channels for other MS tools including OneNote, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and more. You can also work with the content on the SharePoint sites of your team. Outlook provides you with calendaring. Additionally, Teams is also integrated with Microsoft Power Apps which allow you to develop low-code apps which you can later share with other members of your team. For example, when a salesperson informs the ops channel in Microsoft Teams that they have gained new customers, you can launch your scripted workflows.

4. Comprehensive third-party integrations

Microsoft has now given access to Teams for third-party integrations and many providers like Asana, CalendarHero, Polly, and Zendesk have grabbed this opportunity quickly.

Now, these apps are available in the channels, calendars, and live meetings features of Microsoft Teams for their users.

5. Audio and video calling tools for all kinds of devices

Although Teams is a video conferencing tool, it isn't limited to outbound calling for PCs and mobile devices. It offers consistent collaboration and communication options to hybrid users who shift from office to home and vice versa with an unpredictable schedule. It would also easily integrate with an on-premise PBX system.

6. Supportive to services like education and healthcare

Microsoft Teams offer powerful features specific to industries like healthcare and education. It allows the teachers and administrators to provide new channel classrooms which are perfectly secure for students as well as educators. Teachers can also share class notebooks through Teams and can send an automated alert to the students present in the class. Microsoft Teams also provide virtual breakout rooms and some great tools are offered for teachers to ask students to work on group assignments.

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For healthcare, Teams is equipped with a device called an EHR connector which enables the healthcare provider to conduct a completely secure video call right within the electronic health record system with patients or colleagues. In the EHR portal, they can use the Teams calendar to schedule the visits.

7. Bots and other tools for many needs

Microsoft has instilled various bots in Teams to automate some mundane and time-consuming tasks. Statsbot is used to gather reports from different sources like Salesforce or Google Analytics and send them to the right channels. Polly Bot is used to conduct polls for coworkers to streamline the recorded feedback and automate the new ones. T-bot can provide answers to the common FAQs about Teams which lower the burden from the support service providers.

Conclusion

Microsoft Teams offers tons of benefits for the business and is a unified collaboration platform. Microsoft Teams is the best solution for the companies that are looking for a cloud-based collaborative workspace for their remote or distributed users. It combines communication with automation tools to bring together the workgroups amidst difficulties and uncertainties.

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