With the escalating threat of the COVID-19 virus and an increasing number of countries and companies combating the spread by implementing lock down and work from home strategies, it is important to pick the right tools and technology to make working remotely as easy as possible. I am not reviewing all the different options out there (Zoom would be one of them), but just punting what I know and have found to work well…Microsoft Teams!
I worked from home about 2-3 weeks before our lock down, most of the tool sets worked and the worst issues came when connecting over our corporate VPN (disconnects, bad audio and video quality). In the end Teams worked the best by far and was much more stable than the other tools.
My next few posts will be about Microsoft Teams, what it is and how to best use it.
Microsoft Teams
What is Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams is a relatively new member of the Office 365 collaboration family and from the way it is promoted at Microsoft events definitely the replacement tech for Skype and Skype for Business.
Microsoft Teams is a platform to communicate and collaboration via different channels and mechanisms e.g. online meetings, chat and video.
The strength of Teams is that well it is based around teams (even teams of 1). It enables you do a lot around your workflow and productivity. Teams comes built in with a lot of features but also a great framework that enables 3rd parties to provide apps for Microsoft Teams.
A lot of the built in features are built around Office 365 functionality and productivity which includes chats, document collaboration and storage, tasks, notes etc.
Get Started
Microsoft Teams comes in various licensing options including a FREE version that can be used by anyone. Same as Office 365 you get more and more features the higher (and more expensive) your license goes. Click below to download the app and install (available in Apple, Android and Windows environments and stores)
https://products.office.com/en-za/microsoft-teams/group-chat-software?SilentAuth=1
Will start exploring some of the great features in the next post.