At Acquire, we love teams! It has created a shared workspace letting us work from anywhere and making it easy for our  team to chat, collaborate on files, and work with our favourite apps. It's simplified our collaboration internally, reduced the number of emails and has redefined an organised workspace.

Teams is built on Office 365 groups, Office Graph, and the same enterprise-level security, compliance, and manageability as the rest of Office 365. Teams leverages identities stored in Azure Active Directory (Azure AD). When you create a team, here's what gets created:

When you create a team from an existing group, that group's membership, site, mailbox, and notebook are surfaced in Teams. Don't miss the new org-wide team, a special type of team that pulls in every user in your organisation and keeps membership up to date with Active Directory as users join and leave the organisation.

To customise and extend Teams, add third-party apps through apps, bots, & connectors. With Teams, you can include people from outside your organisation by adding them as a guest to a team or channel. As part of Office 365, Teams offers a robust development platform so you can build the teamwork hub you need for your organisation.

Managing Teams

As the admin, you'll manage Teams through the Microsoft Teams admin centre. To learn more:

To stay on top of what’s coming for Teams and all other Office 365 products and services in your organisation, be sure to check Message center and the Teams roadmap. You’ll get announcements about new and updated features, planned changes, and issues to help keep you informed and prepared.

Upgrade from Skype for Business to Teams

Teams is the primary client for intelligent communications in Office 365, eventually replacing Skype for Business Online. To learn more about the new features coming to Teams, see the Microsoft 365 Roadmap. To complement persistent chat and messaging capabilities, Teams offers a comprehensive meeting and calling experience, with built-in, fully integrated voice and video. Check out Teams is now a complete meeting and calling solution in the Microsoft Teams Blog.

If you’re running Skype for Business and are ready to upgrade to Teams, or if you’re running Skype for Business and Teams side-by-side and are ready to fully move to Teams, we have the tools, tips, and guidance to help make your transition successful. 

Teamwork and Office 365

Every team is different; there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to collaboration. Office 365 is designed to meet the unique needs of every team, empowering people to communicate, collaborate, and achieve more with purpose-built, integrated applications.

When deciding which Office 365 apps and services to use, think about the work your organisation does and the types of conversations your teams need to have.

  • Teams, as the hub for teamwork, is where people - including people outside your organisation - can actively connect and collaborate in real time to get things done. Have a conversation right where the work is happening, whether coauthoring a document, having a meeting, or working together in other apps and services. Teams is the place to have informal chats, iterate quickly on a project, work with team files, and collaborate on shared deliverables.

  • Outlook for collaborating in the familiar environment of email and in a more formal, structured manner or when targeted and direct communication is required.

  • SharePoint for sites, portals, intelligent content services, business process automation, and enterprise search. SharePoint keeps content at the center of teamwork, making all types of content easily shareable and accessible across teams. Tight integration with Outlook, Yammer, and Teams enables seamless content collaboration across conversation experiences.

  • OneDrive for Business for storing files and sharing them with people that a user invites. Content that a user saves to OneDrive for Business is private until the user shares it with others, making it the best option for storing personal and draft documents that are not intended to be shared or not ready to be shared.

  • Yammer to connect people across the organisation. Drive company-wide initiatives, share best practices, and build communities around common topics of interest or areas or practice. Crowdsource ideas to foster open discussions with people across the company.

  • Office apps are all the familiar tools that people know and use regularly, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote.

    If you’re an existing Skype for Business user or planning to be, Microsoft Teams could also be the perfect tool for you. Here are three reasons why switching to Teams could be a beneficial decision for you and your business:

     1. Low Maintenance

    Unlike Skype for Business Server Edition, Microsoft Teams doesn’t require customers to purchase software up front. With an on-premise server, users must configure and install it themselves on their IT network. This type of software needs to be maintained, and can lead to higher capital expenditures for a business. Microsoft Teams uses an online server, meaning it is a cloud-based application. A cloud system allows you to upgrade simply by placing an order. You won't have to maintain your own equipment other than the phones themselves and the hosting provider will take care of keeping its software up-to-date and secure. 

    2. More cost effective for smaller businesses

    Smaller companies can benefit from switching to Microsoft Teams. With an on-premise server, a business purchases the software for a set price, regardless of how many employees are using the system. With Microsoft Teams, small businesses can access enterprise-class voice, chat and collaboration tools for just a few dollars per user per month. Because this cost is dependent on the number of users, a company with less employees could be paying exponentially less for Microsoft Teams than they would be for an on-premise server alternative. If you and your small business are current customers of Office 365 looking to improve your ROI, Microsoft Teams could be the way to go.

    3. Unbeatable simplicity

    Microsoft Teams has integrated access to the entire Office 365 suite, offering simple yet intelligent integrated communications. The interface is user-friendly and incorporates tools and tricks to aid collaboration and cohesion. Teams connects seamlessly to SharePoint and OneNote tools, and provides persistent and searchable threaded chat and content that is easy to follow and reference. Teams is a robust, customisable collaboration hub that delivers intelligent communications, all in one location. 

Want to know what's new to Teams?

To find out what's new in Teams click here

Training, Events and More 

If you're new to Teams, need to get your staff on board or would like to upskill on the new features, Acquire one of our friendly Business Managers who can connect you with an expert for onsite training or provide details on our next Acquire Microsoft event.
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