{"id":179319,"date":"2018-03-07T11:39:00","date_gmt":"2018-03-07T16:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ntegrait.com\/tell-me-why-arent-you-using-microsoft-teams\/"},"modified":"2024-02-06T13:28:58","modified_gmt":"2024-02-06T13:28:58","slug":"tell-me-why-arent-you-using-microsoft-teams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ntegrait.com\/tell-me-why-arent-you-using-microsoft-teams\/","title":{"rendered":"Tell Me \u2013 Why Aren\u2019t You Using Microsoft Teams?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\u00a0Don\u2019t You Want to Be in Control of Your Business?<\/strong><\/p>\n Guest post by one of our legal IT <\/em>support clients.<\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019m an attorney who owns a law practice with four offices throughout the state of Virginia. It\u2019s essential that my employees and I stay connected on the cases we work on. I\u2019m on the road a lot, so this isn\u2019t always easy to do. However, I recently discovered Microsoft Teams. I can\u2019t tell you how much it has helped me keep everyone on the same page.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It took me some time to do this because I often get overwhelmed with all the new business tools today. It seems like a new one is launched every day. Plus, everything we do is confidential, and I was concerned about using online communication solutions. However, when a colleague told me how much time and money he saved when his employees used Teams, I thought I\u2019d give it a try. Boy, am I glad I did.<\/p>\n Like me, I found that a lot of my business friends either didn\u2019t know about Microsoft Teams or they just \u201cdidn\u2019t have the time\u201d to learn it. When I heard this, I made it my mission to inform them and others how great it is.<\/p>\n So, What is Microsoft Teams?<\/strong><\/p>\n Microsoft Teams<\/strong><\/a> is a chat-based workspace in Office 365<\/strong><\/a> that lets you bring together other users and collaborate with conversations and content. The idea behind using Teams is to help you do more and increase your employees\u2019 productivity. Basically, it helps your teams get work done. You can easily integrate it with other Microsoft Office applications via its secure cloud.<\/p>\n Teams will help you standardize processes for your employees who do the same kind of work. With my employees spread out between four offices in different cities across Virginia, it was difficult to get a consensus on projects. Teams provides the organizational capabilities and transparency that we need to easily share information and make decisions.<\/p>\n This saves us so much time and effort. Our discussions and decisions in Teams are securely archived and stored in the Office Graph<\/strong><\/a> so we can go back into our Conversations at any time and review what was communicated. (Conversations<\/strong><\/a> is one of the main features in Teams.)<\/p>\n Here\u2019s How We Use Teams in A Law Practice.<\/strong><\/p>\n I set Teams up with me as the Manager. Teams organizational structure is much like the way our firm is set up. I\u2019m the Manager, and I oversee other managers in my four offices.\u00a0 So, I simply set up our Teams this way.<\/p>\n I can set the controls from Teams right from Office 365 Admin<\/strong><\/a> in the Groups Control Panel. Here I can establish who can create teams, and what features they can use. If I decide to add a manager or user, I can go in at any time and update the settings.<\/p>\n Teams has multiple settings that I can turn on or off at the Tenant Level<\/strong><\/a> in Office 365. To do this, I simply go to the Office 365 admin center<\/strong> and open Settings<\/strong> > Services & add-ins<\/strong>.\u00a0 From here I select Microsoft Teams<\/strong>. Then I sign in and go from there.<\/p>\n I set up Teams so my managers and I can all access:<\/p>\n It\u2019s easy to set up Teams with just a few clicks. All you need is a Team name and a description of what it is, then allow members to be added.\u00a0 Each new Team I create has a matching Group, OneNote, SharePoint site, and plan. I can also set up more than one Team.<\/p>\n I also use the Email Integration feature, so our users can send and receive emails from within Teams, and to any Channel<\/strong><\/a> with Connectors<\/strong><\/a> that are enabled. I only allow my managers to access Apps<\/strong><\/a>. These are third party tabs, connectors, and bots.<\/p>\n Each Team includes subsections called Channels. You\u2019ll have a General Channel and then you can set up multiple Channels within a Team. This way we can have focused conversations about different areas in our practice and collaborate on cases securely.\u00a0 We have Channels for our different areas of practice: Criminal Law, Personal Injury, Traffic Law, Real Estate.<\/p>\n Each Channel has Tabs<\/strong><\/a> that represent Conversations, Files<\/strong><\/a> and Notes.<\/strong>\u00a0 (Files provides access to all your Team\u2019s files and files in OneNote. Notes takes you directly to OneNote, and from within Teams we can view and edit notes without leaving the application.) Teams has automatic tabs that include Planner, Excel spreadsheets, Word documents and Power BI dashboards to name a few.<\/p>\n We add our own tabs as needed and customize Channels using the Connectors that are available in Teams. In our Teams windows, we can perform a variety of tasks without going outside the Team Application. We can delete, move, copy, edit and download Files.<\/p>\n I know I\u2019m getting pretty technical here. What I advise, and what I did was to ask my IT provider (my local Managed Services Provider) to come in and instruct me and my staff on how to use Teams.\u00a0 They were really helpful and gave me one-on-one training on how to set it up.\u00a0 Then they instructed my managers, and finally the rest of the staff.<\/em><\/p>\n Teams Has Really Enhanced our Communication Capabilities.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n