Complete Collaboration and Communication
Microsoft Teams changed the way to communicate and collaborate between internal staffs and external clients. Many companies heavily adopted Teams since the start of Covid-19 pandemic. During this time, it was essential to maintain employee culture and collaboration hence why the platform has took off to become one of the most widely used business communication app today.
Teams brings a complete communication solution, quick message chat, voice and video conversations, screen presentation, conferences, etc. It allowed users to quickly exchange information and files, improve the weekly platform meetings and keep the team engaged. In addition to being fully integrated with other Microsoft productivity suite.
As an IT Manager of a company, if you’re already adopting Teams in your environment but still using different applications for meetings and communication, this blog post will detail the full offering of Microsoft Teams and reasons why you should consider the full Teams suite.
Increasing the options for collaboration
High performing teams thrive when they have easy and natural ways to connect, even when they’re apart. Microsoft Teams integrates meetings, messaging and calling services – along with familiar Microsoft apps – into a single, secure space.
Having the tools they use every day in one place saves your workforce time and makes them, and your organisation, more productive. However, many organisations aren’t getting as many productivity and cost savings benefits from Teams as they could be. For instance, they may not be using the latest features that give them more choices for meeting room configurations and phone communications.
Built-in security and compliance
Security is one of the main concern in businesses and it is reassuring the Teams platform is backed by Microsoft’s decades of experience building enterprise software and has spent USD 1 billion a year since 2015 on security research and development. More recently, in 2021, the company announced a commitment to invest an additional USD 20 billion over the next five years to develop advanced security tools.
Easy to manage
Teams comes with enterprise-grade management capabilities, so you can configure and set policies for teams or individuals. Plus, you control the features and settings within the app, from meetings and messaging to live events and guests, using the Teams admin centre.
If you’re not already on Teams, talk to our solution specialist today, setup a session and we’re happy to run through a demo for you.
Microsoft Teams Rooms
Many organisations are making tremendous progress using Teams to expand remote working capabilities. However, hybrid work has unique challenges, and it’s here to stay. According to a forecast by Gartner, “25% of the global knowledge workforce will choose their home as the primary workplace, and 45% of the workforce will be working from home two to three days per week.”
Room that work for everyone
Meeting space solutions play a vital role in facilitating collaboration. Many of today’s room systems offer basic capabilities designed primarily for people who are physically present. Too often, remote attendees feel like they’re on the outside looking in.
We’ve all experienced what this can look like: Ten people scattered across a 20-seat conference room waiting for someone to find the right cable to plug in a laptop, then craning their necks to see a laptop at the centre of the table and recognise colleagues amid rows of tiny icons. Audio is often spotty, and remote coworkers or clients can’t see who is writing on the whiteboard when it’s out of the camera frame.
Teams Rooms helps remove the barriers between spaces, places and people. It’s designed to deliver meeting experiences with all participants in mind, improving equity and inclusion by providing tools that work the same everywhere.
Right-size your meeting space
One of the most difficult aspects of arranging hybrid meetings is trying to make sure everyone can see, hear and distinguish their colleagues, no matter the size of the group or the location of the participants. Broadcasting a company-wide webinar is vastly different from holding a brainstorming session or a meet-and-greet for new hires. Setting visual and audio controls to optimise for one type of meeting can confound users when they switch to a different format.
Small rooms are an ideal way for three to five people to share spontaneous ideas on whiteboards
Medium-size rooms can connect as many as 11 people on-site, with many more attending online.
Large rooms, designed for 18 or more people, enable you to add a second screen to make sure everyone can see participants and content.
Joining and sharing are easy
Participants can reserve a Teams Room in Outlook, Teams or from a Teams panel. Joining with a single touch on a computer, phone or tablet. Once in the room, anyone can share content from their personal device, with no cables, wires or controller needed.
With a content camera and AI processing, attendees can also display physical objects, such as whiteboards or books, which will appear clear and vibrant on any screen. Microsoft voice recognition technology lets everyone know who is speaking and lists their names in the transcript, so team members can focus on the meeting, not on taking notes.
Everyone gets a front row seat
Along with other options, Teams Rooms includes the front row meeting layout, which displays all participants at eye-level – just as you would see them in person – rather than stacking headshots. Team members can simultaneously display content.
Chat comments are displayed on the side and can be sized for any screen, including a large conference room screen, to ensure that everyone can read them. A convenient hand-raise button encourages everyone to participate.
Connect with third-party solutions
Teams Rooms doesn’t just work within Teams. With Direct Guest Join, participants can also go to meetings hosted outside of Microsoft. And they don’t have to worry about learning unfamiliar tools, since they can continue using Teams for audio and video controls. A feature called Coordinated Meetings, which works with Surface Hub as well as Teams devices, configures cameras, speakers and microphones to give participants the best experience in any room, avoiding common problems like echo and other noises.
Remote management and built-in security
Administrators can conveniently manage Teams Rooms devices and settings in one place, the Teams admin centre, which contains tools for meeting set-up, inventory management, monitoring and secured delegated administration.
Microsoft-certified Teams devices and automated updates ensure that systems stay secured, so administrators can focus on other tasks. Administrators can also receive security guidance, including advice about device configurations.
Teams Rooms make meeting for employees and you as an IT manger’s life much simpler. Talk to our solution specialist, setup a demo session and see Teams Room in action.
Microsoft Teams Phone
Workers don’t always want to have to schedule a meeting or type their thoughts in a chat session. Sometimes the easiest way to connect is with a quick phone call.
Microsoft Teams Phone supports VoIP, so you can make internet and video calls or regular phone calls from the same app. Because it integrates with every part of Teams, Teams Phone is easy for employees to find and use. It’s also easy and cost-effective for IT to manage.
More calling options, fewer distractions
Teams Phone offers employees several ways to place calls using a computer, tablet or mobile device without having to leave Teams. On the Calls tab, they can start a voice or video call over the internet with any of their contacts. If they’re in a chat, they can click the phone icon to switch to a voice call.
People can also view their call history, including incoming, outgoing and missed calls, listen to voice messages or read a voice message transcript. Built-in AI helps identify and decline spam calls, enabling workers to focus on their tasks. People on the go can transfer calls between devices, minimising disruptions.
Using Teams on its own saves workers four hours a week from improved collaboration and information sharing, a Forrester Consulting study found. Teams Phone helps them save even more time.
A simpler, less costly connected cloud phone system
The benefits of Teams Phone extend beyond the Teams app. You can also use it for your office private branch exchange (PBX) phone system, saving money and simplifying administration by delivering calls over the internet through the Microsoft 365 cloud.
A Microsoft cloud-based phone system doesn’t just provide clear audio. It also enables you to scale faster and easily add services like auto attendant, call queues, captions and transcription, all from the same app where you host online team meetings and livestream video.
Teams Phone enables you to make all calls within your organisation without ever leaving the cloud, so you don’t incur any additional costs. If you want to simplify your IT environment even more, you can also set up Teams Phone to handle external calls, either with Microsoft calling plans or through a third-party provider.
Teams Phone allows the user to stay within the single platform for PSTN calling. Talk to our solution specialists, and book a demo.
Embracing the futre
By bringing together voice and video calls, chat, messaging and information sharing from anywhere, Teams keeps communication flowing and brings organisations together in ways that were unimaginable just a few years ago.
By adding modernised, money-saving telephony, simplified management and more options for seamless collaboration, Teams Rooms and Teams Phone usher in the next generation of connectivity, helping you improve the hybrid work experience and boost productivity throughout the organisation.
