Microsoft Teams: Maximizing Office 365 for Business
by Adam Arnold
I am sure by now you have heard about Microsoft Office 365, and you may even be using some of the services. Chances are you are using just a small percentage of what Office 365 has to offer your business. You may use Exchange Online, Skype for Business, OneDrive, Sharepoint, etc. and each of those applications is excellent. Imagine inventing an app that takes the best of each of those applications and fusing it together into one collaboration platform to rule them all. No need to imagine- it’s called Microsoft Teams, and it exists already.
Microsoft Teams
Teams is designed to be your collaboration platform in Office 365. It makes working in a group and collaborating with remote members as simple as a keystroke. This simple collaboration is accomplished by its seamless integration with all of the Microsoft Office 365 suites. Allowing access to office documents, notes, SharePoint files, etc. all within a simple collaboration platform. Below some of the integrations are highlighted:
Skype for Business
Say goodbye to the Skype for Business chatting. Microsoft Teams is already taking hold to replace Skype for Business. Teams group chat function, video chat meeting and now PSTN(voice capabilities) offerings make Skype for Business plus so much more. There are some limitations if you want physical handsets for PSTN calling. Teams doesn’t support it yet, but it is on the roadmap so get ready.
Sharepoint Online
If you like Sharepoint Online, Teams is your new friend. Teams runs atop of Sharepoint, think of it as a more user-friendly overlay to access all of the Sharepoint pieces. Each unit is built on top of a SharePoint site. The documents are stored in document libraries in Sharepoint. This is nicely packaged and organized for your business to make managing, accessing and securing these documents easy. Security can be managed via team membership or inside of Sharepoint.
OneDrive for Business
You can connect specific OneDrive shares into Microsoft Teams for a particular project. Use the Sync technology behind Microsoft OneDrive to has a local folder to access cloud-based files.
OneNote
The smooth integration of OneNote makes attaching meeting notes easy. Think, Sales Guy goes to meeting with a client, opens OneNote connected to Teams, makes notes from the meeting. The team can instantly see the notes and begin the necessary work- making collaboration a breeze.
What makes Teams so great is the way you can build sites for specific projects or even for particular departments with channels for each project on which that department may be working. You can keep track of the communications inside the chat history and then attach files to the project. Sync those files to the desktop for access from your devices and then have multiple users access the files at the same time, collaborate, chat and work all at the same time. Microsoft Teams is a fantastic application for collaboration and paired with the right implementation consultant, can help move your business forward into the cloud with ease.