A few weeks ago the government recommended we all work from home again if we possibly can. Therefore, for the foreseeable future it appears we will be running businesses and keeping in contact with colleagues and customers virtually again.
Teams is available with your Microsoft 365 licence and is the tool that we recommend to our clients.
Communicating virtually needs to be easy and accessible, especially if it’s going to be long-term. Teams provides you with:
- instant messaging
- voice and video calling
- screen sharing
- file sharing
- emojis
- channels
- @ mentions
- message threads
- message edits/deletes
Teams even throws in some gif integration – there’s nothing wrong with spicing up a conversation with a funny gif or two!
Favourite features you may not know about
Although you’ve now had months to explore tools like Teams, you may not yet have found all the extraordinary features and functions of Teams.
Here are a few that we like:
1. Record meetings
Record and store your meetings with cloud recording and automatic transcription. You’ll be able to listen to and watch the conversations you had with your team, as well as read through the automated transcriptions. No more typing up meeting minutes. Remember to consider company policy and GDPR legislation before recording your meetings.
2. Inline message translation
If you work with international colleagues, you can now converse in your own languages without the translation barrier. Inline message translation means your colleagues can chat in their native tongue and all messages can be translated into English for you or other users.
3. ‘@ Mentions’ to filter activity
If your Teams channel is overflowing with chats from team members, @Mention allows you to filter relevant conversations and information you don’t want to miss.
4. Slash command your way through work
Speed up your work by using slash ‘/’ shortcuts. Most common slash commands on Teams are:
• /Files – Show recent files shared with you
• /GoTo – Jump straight to a channel
• /Call – Initiate a call with someone on Teams
• /Help – Artificial intelligent assistance (T-Bots)
• /Saved – Go to any messages you’ve saved
There are more, have a look …type / into Teams to see other commands you can use.
5. Bookmark important content
You can save and bookmark messages for later by clicking the three dots next to any message within a Teams channel and selecting ‘save this message’. You can go back to the message by clicking your profile icon and selecting ‘saved’.
6. Polls for gathering opinions
Create a poll for anything in a Teams channel by simply clicking the three dots near where you start new conversations, click the “Polly” app, create a poll and send.
7. Set up meetings with people outside the workspace
Host external meetings on Teams by setting up an Outlook appointment, share the meeting via email with your participants, and they can ‘Join on web’ to connect into the meeting.
Still using Skype for Business? Making the switch is easy…
Skype for Business is being wound down, soon to be retired, so now’s the best time to switch over to Teams. When you’re ready to make the change, we can modify your software, so all communication is forced through Teams. This will help the adoption of Teams and stop different departments or groups of users from using Skype for Business.
Help is on hand…
What do you like (or not like!) about Teams? Are you going to miss Skype for Business?
Give us a call and we can help you get the most out of Teams.
You can request a call back with one of our team using our online enquiry form or simply call the office number – 01403 292930.
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More next time. Meanwhile, if you need any help – with anything IT or security-related – just get in touch.
Best wishes,
