Microsoft Teams™ is a real-time, cloud-based platform that provides users with workplace chat, video and audio meetings, file collaboration capabilities, file storage, and so much more.
In this newsletter, you will gain valuable insights into how you can use Microsoft Teams wide array of features to your advantage. Here are just some of the highlights:
- Collaborate with people outside your organization using the Guest Feature.
- Easily join the same meeting using multiple devices so you can share content from both.
- Add, find and share content from your social media accounts into your teams and channels.
- Utilize an arrangement of Apps, Bots, and Connectors to automate your in daily tasks.
Enhanced Chat
- Easily chat within a private or public group, team, or channel.
- Persistent chat messaging lets you create topic-based discussion rooms allowing you to work with people who share a common interest.
- Ensure your urgent chat messages get noticed by a specific person or group by automatically repeating them every two minutes for up to twenty minutes.
- Highlight important news in a channel to make important news stand. You can also add subheadings to your news, change the background color, and add pictures to it.
- Chat messages are, by default, private messages between users that cannot be accessed by anyone other than those involved in the conversation.
- Use emojis, emoticons, pictures, stickers, reactions, and giphys to add fun to your private, public, team, and channel conversations.
Exceptional Collaboration
- Work on online documents by yourself or together with others in real-time.
- Add quotes, tables, pictures, attachments, change fonts, colors, and styles to better illustrate your data.
- Easily share files with your teammates to make collaboration easy.
Robust Video & Audio Meetings
- Stay connected by scheduling team meetings, starting instant meetings, or joining ongoing meetings using a smart phone, smart device, computer, or room system.
- You can also join meetings using two devices at the same time. Share your screen, an app, calendar, or files from one device to another.
- Stream live events to a large audience; including those not using Microsoft Teams.
- Use live captions during meetings to ensure everyone can join in.
- Customize your meetings by personalizing your meeting invitations, backgrounds, features available during your meeting, and screen, file, whiteboard, and app sharing.
Guest Access
- Allow people with Microsoft Teams accounts to be a guest in your team, even if they are part of another organization. You can control what they can and cannot see and do; including if they can participate in chats, meetings, or access files.
Improved File Storage
- Files that are uploaded to a channel are stored in the Microsoft SharePoint folder for your team and are available at the top of each channel.
- Files that are upload to a group or individual conversation are stored in your Microsoft OneDrive for Business folder and are only shared with the people in your conversation. These files are available in your Files tab at the top of your conversations.
Privacy
- Modify your privacy settings to keep your account, conversations, teams, channels, meetings, and data secure.
- Remove unwanted participants from your meetings to ensure only invited attendees join in.
Channel Moderation
- Use the Channel Moderation feature to control who can post, who can reply to posts, whether bots and connectors can submit messages to a channel, and more.
Apps, Bots, and Connectors
- Enhance your teams and channels by installing apps, bots, and connectors right inside Microsoft Teams.
- Install apps to find and share content from your favorite services in your teams and channels.
- Add bots to your public and private chats and channels to respond to queries, provide updates and notifications, or allow users to interact with cloud services.
- Keep your teams and channels current by delivering content and updates from the most popular services using connectors.
Search
- Use the Search feature to find what you need quickly – search for people, chat messages, teams, channels, files, and more.
Cortana Voice Assistance
- Work on communication, collaboration, and meeting related tasks hands-free and while on the go using Cortana voice assistance with Microsoft Teams. This feature is only available for Microsoft 365 Enterprise Users.
Record Data
- Record your meetings or calls to capture audio, video, and screen sharing activity for future reference or historical purposes.
Archive, Delete, and Restore Data
- Archive, delete, and restore teams, team content, tabs, public and private channels, and associated site collections.
Notifications
- Activity, newsfeed, email, desktop, and other notifications will make sure you never miss a thing in Microsoft Teams, even when you are away.
Mentions
- Use the @mention feature to get the attention of a specific person or a group of people in a public or private conversation, team, or channel.
Availability Status
- Keep your availability status current to let others know when you are available.
Time Clock
- Track the time spent on different projects using the Time Clock feature. You can also track physical locations along with time if location access has been enabled.
Integration
- Microsoft Teams is seamlessly integrated with Microsoft Office 365, including Skype for Business, increasing your workflow and productivity.
Dark Mode
- Make reading easier and reduce eye strain by enabling the Dark Mode feature.
