What are the Benefits of Microsoft Teams for Your Business?

What is Microsoft Teams and What are the Benefits for Your Business?

In November of 2016, Microsoft launched its new program, Teams.
Teams is an expansive collaboration program designed around efficiency and creating a more productive workplace. You may ask, what are the benefits of Microsoft Teams for my business? Many of its features are designed for global, remote and internal departments, with a focus on productivity. With the acquisition of Skype, Microsoft has rolled in many of Skype’s pre-existing features with modern-day enhancements such as; document collaboration, one-on-one chat, team chat, plus mobile audio & video calling capabilities. In a nutshell, Teams is an application that makes it easy for your staff to communicate in seconds, but it is also so much more.

Teams’ main focus is to make sharing documents and information easier within your organization. Sounds pretty simple right? While many companies have tried, Microsoft has absolutely excelled with Teams. Out of the box, it’s easy to use and lightweight, while also providing fantastic security updates, while adhering to compliance policies. In this article, we are going to cover how exactly Teams delivers on its promise of productive work, integrated uses, and other additional features within Teams that you may not have known about.

Streamline Your Productivity With Collaboration Tools

The beautiful part of Teams is that it’s one program that lets you work seamlessly with 20+ others. You only need one program to effectively streamline communication and make collaboration easy. Teams allows the complete control of a shared workplace specifically designed for Office365 applications. These applications include PowerPoint, Word, Excel, Planner, OneNote, SharePoint, Delve, and PowerBi. One great feature within Teams is the fact that you have the ability to work on a document with one or more users at a time, with live edits.
The purpose of teams is to give your business one central program that adds functionality and coexists with pre-existing Office365 applications. Most organizations already use Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc. – But wouldn’t it be nice to be able to share and collaborate on these file types in one simple chat solution? With the ability to share across and communicate across many channels, it’s hard to lose with Teams.

Integration of Teams with Microsoft Office365

Seamless integration with Office365 products may be Teams’ strongest selling point. What’s the point of having 20 different applications if they can’t work together? With your current Office365 subscription, you have access to over 20 pre-installed applications that work seamlessly with each other. With Teams, you’re able to integrate all of these apps into one easy to use solution, saving your organization time and money. Integrated software for Teams includes Skype for Business SharePoint, Exchange, Yammer, OneDrive, and more.

At TRACKtown, we utilize all features within Teams because we believe in it. For us, the ability to quickly share encrypted information between our employees is crucial in our productivity. Plus, having all your information available on OneDrive ensures that your employees will have constant secure access to important documents when they need them. We also absolutely love the quick chat aspect for easy communication between different channels of our organization. We are constantly on the search for the end-all-be-all when regarding computer technology and software. If we use it, why shouldn’t you?

MORE Benefits of Using Microsoft Teams

Besides increases in communication between channels, Teams also possesses many other additional features that are proven to increase productivity. Hands down, one of our favorite features in Teams is the ability to schedule meetings directly within the application. When scheduling a meeting you’re able to see the timing for when the meeting is, who will be there, and what the meeting is about. After selecting who you’d like to invite to the meeting, users can sync their Office365 calendars with Teams to receive a reminder prior.

This seems like a lot, right? Don’t worry, Microsoft also incorporated an expansive help section that will make the transition into Teams is an easy one. Here you can find the answer to any question you may have with the application or even find demo’s on select topics.

Secure Encrypted Messaging

We briefly touched on this topic in the sections above, but as you know, TRACKtown is an advocate for the security of technology and information. Above all, our main business goal is to keep our customers safe.
With the installation of Teams, you receive cutting-edge security and compliance capabilities. All data transferred and shared with other users is encrypted while in use and at rest. For us and our clients in many industries, this is HUGE! Microsoft prides itself on the fact that Teams and all Office365 applications are compliant with ISO 27001, HIPAA, SOC 2, and the EU Model Clauses. This is incredibly important for businesses that are required to adhere to these internal and external policies. A business that is not compliant can end up paying millions of dollars in fines due to a data breach. We’re here to make sure that never happens to you.

Microsoft Teams Integration with Office365 Phone Systems

With Microsoft Teams, it’s easy to integrate your current Office365 cloud phone service. Although, before being able to use Microsoft’s phone services, you will need to purchase a calling plan with them. Below we have listed out some of the features within Teams’ phone capabilities.

• Call History
• Hold/resume
• Speed dial
• Call transferring
• Caller ID
• Masking
• Extensions
• Call Dialing
• Multi-Call Handling
• Simultaneous Ringing
• Voicemail Capabilities
• Text telephone support

With the services provided by Office365 and Teams, your business is sure to thrive in a more collaborative and productive environment. In this article, we’ve highlighted many key features and the benefits of Microsoft teams for your business, but if you have any questions, feel free to let us know. We’re always available to help make the information technology world a better place.

Not on Office365 yet?

Luckily for you, installation and migrating to Office365 has never been easier. If you’re interested in improving the productivity of your business and cutting costs, give us a call. Stay tuned for more blog updates on the power of Office365, brought to you by TRACKtown Computer Services.