Pro Tips To Help You Get Started With Microsoft Teams
Microsoft launched Teams back in2017 as a sustainable alternative to Slack. Since then, this all-in-one collaborative and communication platform has come a long way in replacing Skype for business. And, after three years of continuous testing and development, Teams is now a virtual platform you can use to unify and ease communication in your company.
But, what makes Teams so vital to your operations? Microsoft has packed loads of great features that add a lot of convenience to companies that already use Microsoft 365 in their business processes.
Best of all, getting started with Microsoft Teams is not as hard as you may think. So, let’s take you through a few steps that will help you take advantage of Microsoft Team’s advanced features.
What Do You Need to Get Started With Microsoft Teams?
Teams is now one of the services you get under Microsoft’s new 365-subscription model. You can also opt for the free version, although it comes with limited functionalities. And, you can access teams through Microsoft 365 E1 trial version that has a six-month free trial.
For the sake of convenience, let’s talk about augmenting Teams’ powerful features into your current Microsoft 365 setup. The same principles will apply to whatever approach your organization utilizes when getting started.
How Do You Access Microsoft Teams If You are Already Using Microsoft Office 365?
Teams comes pre-enabled under the latest Microsoft 365 subscription unless your company turned it off previously. You’ll need to generate a new Microsoft team license. Then you can test out the features by adding all the staff members you’d like to collaborate and communicate with through the platform. All this can be done using Microsoft Azure’s intuitive console.
After generating such a license, you can download the application’s desktop client app and install it on your operating system. This takes a short time. Once all that is done, sign in to Teams using your office 365 credentials.
How Can You Set up Microsoft Teams for Effective Collaboration?
Envision a world where your employees can effectively communicate as they work on delivering services from diverse locations. Now, imagine they can also hold meetings, share files, and even engage in some chitchat just as they would in an office.
Well, you don’t have to imagine this anymore. Microsoft Teams allows you to create virtual teams that mirror your company’s departmental structures.
Organizing Teams into Channels
You can create further subgroups within your teams called channels. This can also make it easier for your company to supervise projects without the need for complex CRM applications. For instance, you can create a procurement team then create several channels for various processes.
This can include an out-going orders channel for employees that processes such orders and another one for incoming orders.
Using Teams and Channels to Unify Various Departments
That’s not all, Microsoft teams can also help your organization streamline communication and collaboration between various departments.
Let’s assume that you are preparing to roll out new services. You can create a team for all the employees involved in the project then divided them into departmental channels. Such a measure makes it easier to set goals, deadlines, and to chart your organization’s progress. Your workers will also have a more flexible file sharing, communication, and collaborative experience.
Delegating Duties and Tasks Through Microsoft Teams
The ability to delegate duties to the right person is the mark of an effective business executive. Microsoft Teams can help you avoid micromanaging projects by assigning “Team owner” rights to capable workers within your company.
They can use such a privilege to add or remove members to their teams, assign members to channels, and even to decide which apps to use. This gives your teams more flexibility and autonomy in determining how they will use the platform.
Public or Private Teams?
You can adjust the visibility of Microsoft Teams members to suit your privacy preference. Public teams are visible to every member of your organization, and they are free to join. However, if you desire a bit more secrecy to an ongoing project, you can set your teams to private. In this sense, only invited users can join.
How Do You Form Your First Team?
The most effective way to adopt teams into your workflow is by starting small. Then once you early adopters are comfortable with the platform, you can scale it up to all the departmental levels of your organization. Here’s how to go about this:
- Log in as an administrator
- Access the Teams tab at the bottom of the drop-down list
- Click on create/join Team to form a new team
- Enter your desired name then invite new members
- Go to More options and find the “manage” Team tab to assign Team Owner
From there, you can add more channels. Once you’re done with these steps, you can use the controls to assign more roles, set the visibility of teams and channels, or make as many customizations as your need.
In Summation
Microsoft Teams can help even the most compact businesses operate with the same flexibility as large enterprises. And as you can see, it’s not that hard to set up, although a little help from your preferred MSP can smooth things over more rapidly.
The best thing with such a platform is that it combines all your favorite Microsoft productivity apps with practical text and audio-visual communication tools. It doesn’t stop there. You can add more features and functionalities to enhance collaborative efforts in your organization, even for remote work environments.
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LAN Infotech is a Microsoft Cloud Services Provider, IT Managed Support company and a leader in helping law firms, nonprofits and medical organizations deploy cloud solutions, manage computer networks, keep data protected and top technology management company. Businesses like yours need technology support to run highly-effective organizations.
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