With 80% of staff wanting to stay working remotely, it’s important to use adaptive technology to connect and collaborate at the company and team levels.
Microsoft Teams is a great way to keep your employees organized and on task. This feature-heavy platform allows for an intuitive workflow when paired with other products in Office 365. You can add Sharepoint, Word, OneNote, and other Microsoft products to your Teams environment to make teamwork and organization easy.
Here are five existing and up-and-coming Microsoft Teams features every business should utilize:
1. Microsoft Teams Connect
This feature will be available later this year and is sure to be a huge benefit to businesses. It will eliminate the need to use any other messaging service with your Office 365 account. You can use Connect to create private or shared channels with coworkers or collaborators from outside of your organization.
According to Microsoft, the shared channel will appear within an individual’s primary Teams tenant alongside other teams and channels. Employees can access the shared channel from their current view, making collaboration with partners and clients a breeze.
2. Microsoft Immersive Reader
This oft-overlooked feature can be a great solution for employees with a high-volume workload. The Immersive Reader will read channels and messages aloud.
You can work on a project while catching up on messages and company announcements. Choose a male or female voice and the speed at which the text is read back to you. You can also choose to break words into syllables, use a picture dictionary, or focus on a singular line of text.
3. Slash Commands
Agile slash commands (messages that trigger automated responses) allow you to work faster and more productively.
Slash commands can be found by typing “/” into the text bar of any Teams chat or channel. From there, you’ll see a list of commands to choose from. Slash commands can be used in public channels, private channels, and direct messages.
The Microsoft Teams environment has a sizable slash command library, as well as a sign-up to learn when new commands are made available.
4. Meeting Whiteboard
One of the hardest parts of collaborating since the pandemic is simply charting and organizing projects as a team. Microsoft’s Whiteboard feature solves this challenge by allowing you to turn meeting notes into digital, sharable content.
Within a meeting, you can pull up a simple whiteboard. You can draw, sketch, and write on your whiteboard while in the meeting. Microsoft labels the feature as a "digital canvas where people, content, and ideas come together."
5. Channel Apps
From Asana and Trello to your Zoom and work calendar, Microsoft Teams integrates with a host of software your team uses daily.
Channel Apps allow you to consolidate everything you need in one centralized location, meaning you can work more efficiently. This can also greatly enhance user experience for your employees, making training and process updates simpler.
The Bottom Line
There are many useful features to discover in Microsoft Teams. Whether you’re looking to improve collaboration or automate day-to-day tasks, Teams can streamline your processes in a way that works for your organization.
Overall, Microsoft Teams is a feature-heavy adaptable piece of the Office Suite that your IT professionals can enhance by adjusting it to fit your workflows. Optimizing its features will help your business sustain faster, more consistent growth.
