Making the most of Microsoft Teams by pixelbuilders

Making the most of Microsoft Teams

CONTENTS AN INTRODUCTION TO TEAMS

CREATING A SINGLE DIGITAL WORKSPACE

So you've got Teams, what's next?

MAKING THE MOST OF MEETINGS

Managing rotas and shifts

Apps and integrations

FINAL THOUGHTS

GET IN TOUCH

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AN INTRODUCTION TO TEAMS OPERAM EDUCATION GROUP

Teams is Microsoft’s take on chat-based communication for business, competing with platforms such as Slack and Zoom. It brings together multiple parts of Office 365 in a single workplace collaboration tool. Microsoft Teams is used by many businesses simply as a way to perform remote video meetings. However, Teams is often underused by businesses and used in isolation to other Office 365 products. Teams has so many more features available, allowing you to: ◆ Hold one-on-one or group audio and video calls, or textbased chats. ◆ Schedule and record meetings. ◆ Manage shifts across teams. ◆ Create a group for a particular project or team and use it to centralise files and chats for that team. ◆ Share screens during web conferencing. ◆ Share files. It can be accessed from the web browser, a desktop application, or a mobile app. You can also integrate your other workplace apps, such as Planner, Trello, GitHub, and many more. The majority of Microsoft 365 subscriptions include Teams as standard, so the chances are you have everything you need already to get up and running.

Get started with Teams

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“A SINGLE PANE OF GLASS INTO MICROSOFT 365” MTech IT Solutions

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CREATING A SINGLE DIGITAL WORKSPACE In theory, Office 365 can provide all the tools a modern business needs, whether its document creation, cloud-based file storage or powerful business intelligence tools. Teams is a vital cog of the suite - referred to by Microsoft as the "single pane of glass into Microsoft 365" - because it is designed to pull together all productivity platforms together into one place.

This is Microsoft Teams’ competitive advantage - it can integrate seamlessly with the Microsoft 365 suite as well as third-party tools, allowing people to work almost exclusively on a single user interface. This has created an environment of efficiency and collaboration that has allowed businesses to continue operating during the COVID-19 pandemic. Microsoft has increasingly ambitious plans for Teams, and continues to invest heavily into the Teams platform and enhance it’s offering. It is also promoting it as a platform for other developers, enabling a new generation of productivity apps. It can be hard to keep up with this ever-changing landscape, which is why we have created this ebook to help you make the most of Teams in 2021.

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SO YOU’VE GOT TEAMS... WHAT’S NEXT? MTech IT Solutions

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TEAMS AND CHANNELS To make the most of Teams, it’s important to use it in a structured, consistent way across the business. As with many complex platforms, there are a variety of ways to arrive at an outcome; however, some ways are better than others. Whilst it’s possible to create group chats, we mostly recommend creating Teams and their subsequent Channels (see Best Practice for exceptions!). This is because: ◆ It allows individual teams to self-organise and collaborate, all in one place. ◆ It allows for more privacy - conversations, files and notes across team channels are only visible to members of the team. ◆ Files that are shared in a channel (on the Files tab) are also stored in SharePoint. ◆ Channels can be enhanced with apps increase their value to the members of the team. Every Team created will automatically create a matching SharePoint Team Site, Office 365 Group and shared OneNote. This means you have a central location for shared documents. Whilst this is a huge benefit, it can cause some governance and admin headaches. Luckily, the admin side of Teams allows this to be managed.

What are teams and channels? In Microsoft Teams, teams are groups of people brought together for work, projects, or common interests. Within each Team you can create channels. Each channel can be built around anything you like, whether it’s a topic like “Team Events,” a department name such as “Marketing”, or particular projects. Channels are where you hold meetings, have conversations, and work on files together.

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Setting up teams and channels Setting up a team is easy and can be done in a few clicks. You will need to input a team name and a description, after which you can select the team members to be added. As mentioned previously, the new team will then create a matching Microsoft 365 Group. Once the Team is created you will need to add channels. A channel is a subsection of a Team; one labelled ‘General’ will be automatically created once you create the Team. However, you can add as many as you need depending on your business’ way of working.

BEST PRACTICE FOR TEAMS AND CHANNELS It can be incredibly easy to end up with a huge amount of different (and unnecessary) teams and channels. This can make it an increasingly arduous task to find the right information quickly. As with most things in business, it’s important to keep it simple: • Start with the General tab in your channel. The General tab is most likely the one that staff click on first, and is also most likely to be the area that contains the most important information. • Try to avoid adding teams for temporary or small projects, as your page will soon start becoming overcrowded and confusing. • Add important subjects as tabs within the channel. Before creating a new tab, think about whether the tab should be a different channel altogether. • As a follow up to the above, avoid using too many tabs - you'll quickly lose track of information. • Restrict channel creation and management to certain users to stop it becoming too unwieldy. • Have written processes to standardise teams and channels. Once you’ve got used to teams and channels, you can look into introducing apps and integrations to enhance your Teams experience.

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MAKING THE MOST OF MEETINGS MTech IT Solutions

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MEETINGS Meetings are the most commonly used feature of Teams, so you’ll likely be aware of the basic features of the functionality. However, with new updates happening all the time, there are a number of new features available that can enhance your meetings and ensure that they are productive and engaging for all involved.

Screen Sharing You can share your screen in four different ways. These options will appear when you press the “share screen” icon during a meeting:

Desktop share – Shows your entire screen (including notifications and other desktop activity). This is useful if you need to share multiple windows. Window share – Shows just one window, useful if you just need to show one thing and would like to keep the rest of your screen to yourself. PowerPoint share – For presenting a PowerPoint presentation that others can interact with, moving through it at their own pace. Whiteboard share – For collaborating with others in real time, allowing you to sketch and attach notes to the meeting.

The Application Sharing feature allows you to hand over control of your desktop to another meeting attendee. Or, if another attendee is sharing their desktop, you can request control. It allows you to request, give, or relinquish control of the active desktop at any time, so that any meeting attendee can take the driver’s seat. Screen sharing has had a makeover recently on Teams. A recent redesign has made it easier for presenters to find desired content more easily. Click here to see our blog on this.

Breakout Rooms It can be hard to control large meetings and ensure they remain open and meaningful. By creating breakout rooms, you can split participants into small groups for lively conversation and brainstorming sessions. To start a breakout room, click the icon below:

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This launches a window where you can specify the number of rooms you’d like, and choose whether to automatically assign people to rooms or manually choose who goes in which room. Only meeting organisers on the desktop versions of Teams can create and manage breakout rooms. The organiser can join any of the breakout rooms, contribute to any of the room chats, and send announcements to everyone.

AI-based noise suppression This feature will automatically remove unwelcome background noise during your call or meetings, using machine learning to learn the difference between clean speech and noise. Please note this is only available on the Desktop version of Teams. To switch this on, click on your icon in the top right corner of the Teams screen and go to Settings, then Devices. Here you will see a Noise Suppression section, where you can choose the level of suppression – low, high, or off. It advises you to use 'Low' if you want people to hear music, but have a play around and see what works best for you.

All Together mode This new in-meeting mode uses “AI segmentation technology” to digitally place participants in a shared background. This is supposed to make it feel like you’re sitting in the same room with everyone else in the meeting:

To turn on Together Mode, make sure your version of Teams is up to date (click your icon in the top-right corner of the desktop, and select “Check for Updates) before your meeting. Then click the “Enable New Meeting Experience” button in Settings -> General, and then restart Teams. During your next meeting (you’ll need at least five participants), switch on Together Mode from the meeting controls at top of the window. There are a few different backgrounds to choose from, so have a play around!

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STAFF ROTAS & SHIFTS

MANAGING SHIFTS ON TEAMS If your organisation has employees that work on a shift basis and you need a rota scheduling tool, the Shifts feature within Teams may be a great solution for you. It’s a relatively new feature in Teams that replaced Microsoft’s StaffHub last year. It has been designed to manage the schedules of front line workers, such as shop assistants and phone operatives, who often work differing shifts each week. It aims to enhance organisation and communication between these employees and management. Shifts is a schedule management tool that helps you create, update, and manage schedules for your team. It allows you to:

◆ Manage shift/rota schedules on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. ◆ Approve employee requests to shift schedules and time off. ◆ Facilitate communication between mobile workers. ◆ Share documents, news bulletins and videos. ◆ Enable employees to clock in and out of shifts from their mobile devices.

If you have Teams as part of an Office 365 plan, then Shifts will be enabled as default. Shifts can only be created for people within your organisation.

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Setting up Shifts To view Shifts within Teams, click on the ‘three dots’ in the Teams menu bar. You’ll see Shifts as one of the additional apps listed:

Please note: You can only create a schedule if you’re recognised as an owner of the Office 365 Team you wish to create the schedule for. You can then create a team schedule. If you already have a schedule created on Excel, you can import this into Teams, or you can create a new one. You will be asked a few questions here, such as the name of the schedule, times zones and so on. After you have finished this section, you will be able to see an Overview screen, from which you can add shifts. You can add any colleagues to the Shift schedule as long as they have an Office 365 profile. For each shift, you can customise with colours, add details such as duration and lunch breaks, and add specific notes you want colleagues to be aware of. Once the shifts are created, they will appear as open shifts. You can now assign specific team members to each shift, or share to the team and allow them to request open shifts. There is a separate screen available for viewing, approving or rejecting requests.

Time Clock The Time Clock option within Shifts allows employees to clock in and out using their mobile devices. Managers can also set up optional location detection, to see where employees are when they clock in and out. These settings can be changed or removed at any time by clicking the Settings tab in Shifts in Teams. You can also export all clock in and clock out data as an Excel spreadsheet or download a report.

As you can see, Shifts is a comprehensive tool that is easy to set up and manage. If you'd like further help in setting Shifts up, Microsoft have put together a how-to video, which you can view here.

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APPS & INTEGRATIONS

APPS & INTEGRATIONS Microsoft Teams applications and integrations are essentially used to make things a bit easier - bringing together all the different aspects of the Office 365 toolset and enhancing collaboration. Microsoft has added integrations with other Office 365 apps, such as Word, Excel and SharePoint, but has also added a whole host of third-party apps. All apps can be found by clicking the three dots on the left-hand panel (you may need to use the search bar to find the app you’re looking for). With over 600 apps listed on the Microsoft Teams store, it can be more than a little daunting trying to work out which apps will work best for you. Below are some of the apps that we find really helpful. There are three simple ways to access the Apps menu in Teams: 1. Click on the Apps icon in the left-hand menu bar to access the full app menu. 2. Click the plus sign in the top navigation menu to pin a tool to the top of a channel. 3. Click on the three dots on the left-hand panel to search for an app.

PLANNER Planner is Microsoft’s ‘to-do’ app. It’s a great way to keep track of tasks for you and your team – and is already integrated with Teams so there’s no extra setting up. It’s also tied in closely with Outlook, sending you emails when tasks are reaching their deadline. Each Planner board is associated with a Team - you can add Planner for any given Team via the channel tabs. If you already use Trello or Miro for planning, there are Teams integrations for these too. Click here to see Microsoft’s guide to setting Planner up.

APPROVALS Approvals is a brand-new feature in Teams. Instead of sending an email or chat message asking for an approval (likely to get lost in all the noise), Microsoft have now released this as a new easy way of approving things. To quote Microsoft itself, “ [Approvals] enables everyone, from frontline workers to corporate headquarters employees, to easily create, manage, and share approvals directly from your hub for teamwork”.

Click here to see Microsoft’s guide to setting this up. MTech IT Solutions

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MICROSOFT FLOW With Microsoft Teams Flow, you can create workflows that are based on trigger events - taking away mundane tasks that a computer could be doing for you instead. This can range from simple tasks, such as sending a pre-written, automatic welcome message from your side to a new employee, to a multi-step workflow based on Power BI analysis of real-time data. Click here to see Microsoft's guide to setting Flow up.

INTEGRATION WITH ZOOM As one of the fastest-growing video conferencing brands in the market, you or your contacts may prefer using Zoom for conferences. With this integration, you can take part in Zoom calls and meetings without moving out of Teams. It will also give you complete meeting summary reports and meeting recordings.

POLLY Polly is a survey app that lets you create surveys in your Teams conversations. You can quickly create polls in your Teams channels and view results in real-time, meaning you don’t need a huge conversation thread or multiple emails clogging your inbox. You have the option to create multiple choice polls, freeform polls, or a mixture of both. Click here to see Microsoft’s guides to using Polly.

DBIT: PASSWORD MANAGEMENT TOOL When teams are working remotely, you can't be too careful when it comes to sharing passwords. DBit is a password management tool that enables the secure sharing of passwords within Teams. DBit allows you to share a password, or generate an encrypted strong password that automatically expires after a few minutes, removing them from the cloud server’s memory.

ADOBE CREATIVE CLOUD This integration is really useful if graphic design or visual presenting are part of your role. The app allows you to share various assets with your colleagues on Teams easily, without the need for screen sharing. You can also share entire folders of information using the secure, built-in cloud library, saving your team hours each week in meetings.

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BUILDING A SUCCESSFUL WORKFORCE WITH TEAMS The disruption we have all faced over the past year has been a challenge for businesses of all sizes. Embracing technology has been crucial for the survival of businesses, and this in turn has accelerated innovation and given us a whole range of collaboration tools.

Microsoft is heavily investing in Teams, with the majority of businesses only just scratching the surface of its capabilities. Teams can offer your business the opportunity to work more efficiently and collaboratively, allowing you to gain increased ROI on your Microsoft 365 licences and improving the working environment for your staff. As a Microsoft Gold Partner with a huge amount of collective experience in the technology arena, MTech can help. We have helped many of our customers make the switch to Teams, getting it up and running and getting it to work in the right way for their businesses. If you’re thinking of making the switch, or you already have Microsoft Teams but want to get more out of it, then please get in touch. We also keep an eye out on the latest Microsoft Teams updates (so you don’t have to!) and will feature these on our blog:

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