Microsoft Teams – Why your business should make Teams its primary communication platform

Microsoft launched 365, the all-in-one workplace solution just over a year ago. A year on and it is more powerful and more accessible for users than ever before. Microsoft Teams, offering unlimited online meetings has been one of the biggest hits of 365 so far, with over 200,000 businesses across 181 markets in 40 languages utilising the service. In fact, it has now surpassed Skype for Business and MS is urging all users of the legacy tool to upgrade as soon as possible.

The basic idea of Microsoft Teams is simple, do all your collaboration and work in a persistent chat mode — so you can work on documents (Word), presentations (PowerPoint), spreadsheets (Excel), and video (Skype) in real-time, whilst you are chatting back and forth with teammates. Teams allows users to share files, create meetings, and more, all in one chat console. One really good new feature is cloud recording, which will enable one-click meeting records, with automatic transcription and time coding. This will allow team members to search within the transcript, and playback any portion or all of the meeting.

Microsoft is also introducing in-line message translation to streamline communication between people who speak different languages, Cortana voice interaction (so users can make calls, join meetings, etc. within Teams using their spoken language), background blur for video calls, proximity detection for adding nearby Skype Room Systems to meetings, and the ability to share content in meetings via mobile devices. The addition of these useful features will only make Teams even more user-friendly and convenient.

In summary, Microsoft Teams includes features such as unlimited chat and search, built-in audio and video calls (individual and group), 10 gigabytes of team storage (and an additional 2 gigabytes of personal storage, per person), access to Office Online apps, unlimited business app integration, and more. It also includes Exchange email hosting, scheduled meetings, meeting recording, stepped-up storage, better enterprise security like MFA and SSO, and improved auditing and reporting, without any organisation size restrictions. 

To find out more about how CT can help you utilise Microsoft Teams within your business, get in touch today with your account manager, or call 01246 266 130

 29 August, 2018