Chapter 1
Getting to Know Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams has become a hot topic these days, especially with how our world changed in the year of 2020. We went from many people working on-site at their jobs to the entire world changing how they work due to COVID-19. When I first started writing this book, the world we live in looked entirely different. People were not working from home like they are today. Organizations have been forced to shift their way of thinking and change how their employees' work. With so many people now working remotely, many organizations are transitioning to Teams.

IN THIS CHAPTER, YOU WILL LEARN THE FOLLOWING

• Overview and benefits of Microsoft Teams
• Environmental readiness and driving user adoption
• Teams architecture

Overview of Microsoft Teams

Teams is a hub used for teamwork in Microsoft 365 where (if enabled) people inside and outside your organization can meet, chat, and collaborate in real time all in one place. Teamwork is an important aspect of the modern workplace and is a key element of enabling digital transformation within organizations. Whether from a mobile device, tablet (see Figure 1.1), or computer, you can easily run Teams no matter the platform.

FIGURE 1.1 Examples of Microsoft Teams on devices

Key Benefits of Microsoft Teams

Teams has many feature benefits:

• Hub for collaboration and teamwork in a modern workplace: Organizations and teams across the globe are moving from working in offices to working remotely or adopting a hybrid workplace. Teams provides the ability to keep teams connected while users work apart by making Teams available globally.
• Meeting experience: Host online meetings as a 1:1 meeting, with a team (see Figure 1.2), or stream live events for up to 10,000 people with consistent experiences across platforms.

  FIGURE 1.2 Teams meeting with group

  You can take your meetings a step further with together mode. Together mode is a meeting feature that uses AI segmentation technology to digitally place participants in a shared background. This experience makes it feel like you are sitting in the same room with everyone else in the meeting or class (see Figure 1.3). Together mode helps make meetings more engaging by helping you focus on other people's facial expressions and body language. It's also great for meetings where multiple people will speak during brainstorming sessions and roundtables.

  FIGURE 1.3 Teams meeting together mode

• Instant messaging: Connect instantly by using instant messaging one-on-one or with a group.
• Calling: With Teams calling you can implement Direct Routing and Calling Plans using Microsoft phone systems.
• Devices: Connect Teams through devices such as headsets, speakerphones, desk phones, room systems, conference phones, and certified Teams web cams.
• Apps and workflows: Teams is an extensible platform that allows you to integrate all types of apps within Teams. You can customize workspaces with tabs, connectors, and bots, as well as integrate your apps and automate workflows to fit your needs using Teams.
• Distance learning: Since in-person conferences have been shifted to online-only due to COVID-19, many have been using Teams to host their events. Smaller conferences have used the regular meetings feature while larger conferences have been using the Live Events feature for running sessions.

  For higher education, virtual classrooms can be created with Teams, which empower teachers to teach and students to learn virtually.

• Frontline workers: Many organizations that have frontline workers have been empowering their shift workers through using Teams.
• Healthcare: Healthcare workers can also be empowered to securely collaborate and communicate by helping clinicians and administrators perform their jobs more successfully with Teams.
• Education: Build collaborative classrooms, manage remote learning, enable a secure online classroom, on-demand webinars, and facilitate distance learning.
• Security and compliance: Teams comes with enterprise-grade security integrated with the Microsoft 365 Security and Compliance Center and Azure Active Directory. Teams safeguards your privacy by design by offering advanced security and compliance capabilities so you can collaborate without compromising security and privacy.

Teams for Work

Teamwork is an important aspect of a modern workplace and is a key element for enabling digital transformation within organizations. Teams brings together tools and communication methods that can fit the needs of a diverse workforce.

FRONTLINE WORKERS

Teams has been helping organizations digitally transform their frontline workers by creating a single hub for teamwork that provides a deeper connection across your organization (see Figure 1.4).

FIGURE 1.4 Microsoft Teams for frontline workers

Walkie Talkie App in Microsoft Teams

Another way to equip frontline workers is with the Walkie Talkie app in Teams (see Figure 1.5). This app allows your frontline workers to communicate securely with a familiar push-to-talk (PTT) experience without the need to carry bulky radios. Walkie Talkie works anywhere with Wi-Fi or cellular connectivity.

Shifts for Microsoft Teams

Shifts in Teams is a schedule management tool that provides the ability to create, update, and manage schedules for team members backed by tools such as AMiON, BlueYonder, and Kronos.

Shifts features include:

• Schedules: Create a schedule from scratch or import an existing schedule from Excel. A Shifts schedule displays days and team members (see Figure 1.6) and if you are an owner of multiple teams, you can manage different Shifts schedules easily by toggling between schedules.
• Day Notes: Add notes to share day reminders and important news.
• Groups: Name a group by a job function or location to keep groups organized then add people to the groups.
• Shifts: Choose a slot to assign a shift. Create a shift from scratch or copy from an existing one. Add activities such as training or a specific task. You can also add open shifts to a schedule that anyone can request. If needing to review shift coverage, you can easily view the schedule by people or shift type.
• Requests: Review requests for time-off, swap shifts, or offers.
• Time Clock: Turning this feature on enables team members to clock in and out of a shift easily with a mobile device (see Figure 1.7). Enable location detection to ensure team members clock in from a designated work site.

  FIGURE 1.5 Teams Walkie Talkie

  FIGURE 1.6 Teams Schedules

• Share: As you edit a schedule, the changes will be saved automatically but your team only sees the updates when you share it out.
• Export or Copy: You can export a schedule to Excel and if you need to reuse a Shifts schedule, you can copy it to the date range you want.

FIGURE 1.7 Teams Schedule Clock in

Tasks by Planner and To Do

Simplify the task management process with Tasks in Teams. The Tasks by Planner and To Do app in Teams is a feature that brings together your individual tasks from Planner and tasks from Microsoft To Do so you can more efficiently cross them off your list (see Figure 1.8).

FIGURE 1.8 Tasks by Planner and To Do

If your organization wants to streamline tasks for frontline workers, Tasks include capabilities that enable you to target, publish, and track tasks at a scale. Task publishing allows your organization to publish task lists targeted to specific locations (teams) across your entire organization to define and share a work plan to be completed at the locations. For example, anyone on the publishing team can create task lists and publish them to specific teams. Publishing can be done through the desktop or easily from a tablet or mobile device (see Figure 1.9). Managers of the recipients can review the published task lists and assign individual tasks to their team members (see Figure 1.10).

FIGURE 1.9 Publishing tasks on a desktop

FIGURE 1.10 Assigning team members

The Tasks by Planner and To Do app also has a feature that allows you to display tasks and information associated with them in rows and columns called a List view (see Figure 1.11).

FIGURE 1.11 List view

NOTE    Microsoft Teams provides a way for technology to unlock a new future for frontline workers. To read a study Microsoft published on how technology can provide a way to empower frontline workers, please visit www.microsoft.com/en-us/worklab/work-trend-index/technologyunlocks-a-new-future-for-frontline.

HEALTHCARE

Teams provides the...