Have you recently implemented Microsoft Teams at your company? Are you hoping to get guidance on how to improve your use of Microsoft Team? Microsoft Teams has completely changed the way in which teams communicate, share information, and complete projects.
To be fair, though, MS Teams can be a formidable obstacle as well. Indeed, it is a really powerful instrument. It’s easy to become overwhelmed by Microsoft Teams’ abundance of features and settings and fail to make the most of the platform.
Therefore, this blog post will teach you all you need to know to become a Microsoft Teams pro. On top of that, we will let you in on a few insights that we have learned from our experience. And we believe that it will make every employee of your team more productive when using Microsoft Team Services. But before we get there, one question needs to be answered: Is it even necessary for you to use Microsoft Teams?
Is Microsoft Team Worth It?
Microsoft Teams is a top-tier business communication solution for organizations of any size. Again, this is demonstrated by the available statistics. Microsoft Team is used regularly by more than 145 million individuals.
Rates Of Uptake for Microsoft’s Team Collaboration Platform
Reasons why;
- Its value extends well beyond the simple conversation. Microsoft Team’s file-sharing capabilities are among its most useful features. You may easily communicate with co-workers via voice or video conference, screen sharing, integrate with other Office 365 apps, run real-time events, and much more. Microsoft Teams can even be used for answering support tickets.
- The AppSource platform seamlessly incorporates additional productivity-boosting apps like Trello, Zoom, ClickUp, Asana, Adobe Creative Cloud, etc., into Microsoft Team workspaces.
- Microsoft is always improving and expanding the capabilities of Teams
- Users may enjoy a consistent real-time experience across all devices with the MS Teams desktop app, web app, iOS app, and Android app.
- If a company currently subscribes to Office 365 through Microsoft, they don’t need to subscribe to MS Teams separately.
In a nutshell, it’s a given that Microsoft Teams is the best solution available for driving and powering your business ahead.
Mastering Microsoft Team Services for Optimal Productivity
Below you’ll find 10 tips and tactics to help you become the MS Teams power user you’ve always wanted can help you become the MS Teams, power user.
- Don’t Give Your Squad Two Similar or Duplicate Names
Making a new team is one of the first things you’ll do after installing Microsoft Teams (or joining an existing one). Supposing you’ve decided to join a group. However, if two teams share the same name, it’ll be difficult to tell which one is yours whenever you launch Teams. If you’re the one putting together the team, remember that!
It’s evident that having two different teams with the same name is confusing. The use of duplicate names in Microsoft Teams is sadly permitted, thus it is your responsibility to verify that no such names exist on your account.
Let me give you an example of the consequences of using the same name for two different teams. A good example would be if your iOS team was making an iOS app and your Android team was making an Android app. The XYZ application team is the one responsible for communicating with both groups’ project managers. Therefore, both can start an ‘XYZ App Conversation’ on MS Teams, which often leads to misunderstandings. You want to prevent precisely such a scenario.
The quickest and easiest approach to ensure consistency is to have team leaders/managers review proposed group names. To check if the name already exists, users need only type it into the MS Teams search field.
- Implement Naming Standards
Having strong naming conventions is another technique to prevent name duplication and improve the usability of teams and channels.
When things get down to brass tacks, people usually find themselves on multiple squads at once. These people can move about more quickly if you utilize a consistent name scheme.
To reiterate, let me to use a basic example to demonstrate. Let’s say for the sake of argument that you do manage a digital agency and that one of your workers handles the social media for your clients. There are now numerous options for establishing a personal team or channel. For instance, you can either build a single, overarching “social media” team channel where all social media-related topics are discussed, or you can create separate teams for each client, each of which would have its own dedicated “social media” channel.
One way to improve productivity in Microsoft Teams is to adopt a consistent naming scheme, such as ‘Project Name – Country – Project,’ ‘Project Name – Department – Project,’ ‘City – Country – Store,’ ‘Department Name – Country – Department’ etc.
use chats for private conversations and public forums for group work.
- One-to-One & Groups Conversations
There are two modes of communication available in MS Teams: Chat and Teams. To put it succinctly, use chats for one-on-one communications and channels for group work.
In this article, Code Creators Inc. does a great job of describing the scenarios in which each can be useful. I’ll try to give you a quick rundown of the key points:
- Chat is useful when you need to alert the other person and carry on the chat while you’re busy doing something else. Almost all of it takes place off the record in an informal setting. Teams is the best app for teamwork and brainstorming sessions. You can give a new team member read-only access to the channel’s associated SharePoint team site, or you can give them full read/write access.
- Turn private any high-priority groups so that everyone can get down to business. Having a large number of people in a channel isn’t always necessary while having a conversation. Keeping the conversation going on the same channel can be distracting and cause them to lose focus on their duties.
- Establish Project-Specific Teams
Sometimes there are some people who are a part of multiple projects at the same time. Therefore, it’s vital to build up teams for every project, wherein the talks & files remain unique to the project team. This makes navigating and searching a lot easier for the team members.
As an example, the social media scheduler is not an essential party to include in conversations about content creation. To that end, it makes perfect sense to establish a closed group in which only those directly involved can participate in discussions and see posted content.
- Form Project Teams
‘Naming Standards’ covered this. Sometimes, the same people work on different projects. Thus, each project needs a team with private talks and files. This simplifies team searching and navigation.
- Educate Your Staff on The Fundamentals of Using Folders And Files
File sharing is made easy with MS Teams. The catch is that the system relies on SharePoint to keep all of the files and folders. All files and folders that have been discussed or contributed using the ‘Files’ tab at the top of each channel are included.
You should get everyone on your team familiar with this function. Users can then upload, browse, download, and re-share the same files and folders to and from SharePoint development using MS Teams.
- Activate Alerts & Notifications
It’s not necessary to respond to every alert. You probably don’t need to listen in on the lunchtime conversations going on in the group chat, and you probably don’t want to be bombarded with alerts from 150 people’s teams and private channels every second.
One of the most helpful tricks for getting the most out of Microsoft Teams is to configure your notifications properly. The steps are as follows:
- To access your profile in Teams, select your image from the menu at the top right.
- Select Notifications from the Settings menu.
- There, you can set preferences for what alerts you receive. If you’re worried about missing a communication, you have the option of receiving an email reminder every 10 minutes, hour, or day.
- Don’t Make The Library’s Files Publicly Accessible
If you are the owner of a team or channel, you have complete control over its associated files and folders. Never hide files from your team by making the library private.
There is a default setting where only owners and members can make changes to files and folders, while viewers can only watch them.
- Join Groups & Live Chart For Real-Time Discussions
Did you know that Microsoft Teams may be used for external communication as well as internal teamwork? One feature is real-time communication via MS Teams. In this manner, you can keep a single piece of software open all day long and talk with customers, both existing and potential, to provide them with instantaneous adjustments and support.
That is to say, you get to create a fantastic customer experience rather than having customers send emails or submit support tickets and face disappointment by the lack of timely responses. And in case you didn’t know, research shows that 86% of consumers are willing to shell out extra cash for an improved service encounter.
Additionally, a perplexed customer is far more likely to question via live chat as opposed to taking the time to locate your email and express queries. Thus, integrating MS Teams with Live Chat enables you to lure prospective buyers into the next stage of the sales process.
- Schedule All Appointments Through Teams Instead Of Your Regular Outlook
Project success relies heavily on regularly scheduled team meetings. Outlook and Skype for Business from Microsoft are an excellent combination for organizing and holding productive team meetings. Yet Microsoft’s Teams streamlines the process by including a built-in Meetings feature.
Teams has a built-in meeting scheduling and invitation system. Better yet, if you find yourself needing to have a phone conversation while chatting with the teams, all you have to do is click “Meet Now” to immediately convene a meeting.
Conclusion
Microsoft Teams is a cutting-edge business collaboration tool. Still, I’ll freely confess that it takes some time to learn the platform to its optimal use. With the advice I’ve given you, you should be able to make the most of it.