As remote work continues to be the new norm, virtual platforms such as Microsoft Teams have become essential for businesses to communicate and collaborate effectively.
However, with the plethora of features and functionalities that come with Teams, it’s easy to get bogged down and lose precious time. That’s why maximising your efficiency on Teams is critical for staying productive and achieving your goals.
What is Microsoft Teams?
Microsoft Teams is a collaborative platform that allows team members to work together virtually, no matter their location. It provides a range of features, including chat, video conferencing, file sharing, and task management. The all-in-one platform integrates with other Microsoft applications such as SharePoint, OneDrive, and Outlook.
Five ways to improve your Teams’ user experience
Create tasks from messages
Creating tasks from messages is a great way to ensure that important messages don’t slip through the cracks. With this feature, you can assign tasks to a team member and track their progress, making it easier to stay on top of your workload.
To create a task from a message, hover over the message and click on the three dots that appear. From there, select “More actions” and then “Create task”. This will open the task creation window, where you can add a due date, assign the task to a team member, and add any additional details.
Access files on the go
With the Teams mobile app, you can access your files and conversations on the go. This is especially useful if you’re working remotely or need to access important documents while away from your computer.
To access files on the go, simply download the Teams mobile app and sign in with your Microsoft account. From there, you can access your files and conversations, send messages, and join meetings. The mobile app is designed to be user-friendly and easy to navigate, making it a great tool for staying connected while on the move.
Organise your channels and teams
Teams can quickly become overwhelming if you’re not organised. Creating channels and teams will help streamline your workflow and make it easier to stay on top of workflows, tasks, and group projects.
To organise your channels and teams, start by creating channels for specific projects or topics. This will help you keep conversations and files related to each project in one place.
You can also create teams for different departments or groups within your organisation.
Real-time meetings and captions
If you’ve ever struggled to take notes during a virtual meeting, you’ll appreciate Teams’ real-time meeting captions and transcriptions. This feature automatically captions your meeting in real-time, making it easier to follow along and stay engaged. Additionally, Teams also provides a transcript of the meeting, which you can refer back to later.
To enable real-time captions and transcriptions, click on the three dots during a meeting at the top of the window and select “Turn on live captions”. This will enable captions, which will appear at the bottom of the screen. The transcript will be available after the meeting ends.
Customise notifications
To customise your notifications, click on your profile picture and select “Settings”. From there, you can select “Notifications” and adjust the notification settings to suit your preferences. You can choose to receive notifications for all activity, only activity that involves you, or no activity at all.
Teams offers a range of notification options, including desktop notifications, email notifications, and banner notifications.
Customise your Teams’ platform with help from the Microsoft experts
By following these five tips, you can improve your Microsoft Teams experience and maximize your efficiency.
The Microsoft specialists at Itopia can help you customise your Teams and entire Microsoft environment to ensure you’re getting the most out of your investment. Talk to them today and discover more.
Adam leads the Itopia team in Brisbane, helping professional-services firms get secure, productive and confident with their technology, in plain English.