It is needless to say that Microsoft is a brand that needs no introduction, however although you may have heard or used their collaboration tool, Microsoft Teams before, you might not know exactly what it is and how or what to use it for. In this article, you will learn:
- What is Microsoft Teams exactly?
- 5 features you should know about before using Microsoft Teams
- Overall pros and cons of Microsoft Teams
- Final thoughts and the best way to use Microsoft Teams
What is Microsoft Teams exactly?
Microsoft Teams is a chat-based collaboration platform focused mainly in large business communications such as online meetings and file sharing for big teams with significant amount of members. Although it offers other project management features, most teams around the world only use it’s real-time chat and video call capabilities.
5 features that you should know about before using Microsoft Teams
Whether you are barely discovering or have used (or is using) Microsoft Teams, here are some of the project management features that collaboration tools like MORNINGMATE can offer before you build your entire workflow around Microsoft teams or searching for other alternatives:
1. Real-time chat and comments
Microsoft Teams offers a live chat for your team to communicate through different channels where they can directly tag members, attach files, and make video calls from the same window. However, sometimes you might find yourself lost and confused in the conversation as work progresses. That’s why having a chat box AND a project brief post that allows you to comment directly like MORNINGMATE’s project manager is ideal for exchanging feedback, keeping record of all the file versions, and finding the project brief easier.
2. Video meetings
Out of all of Microsoft Teams’ features, the one that takes the crown is their video conference capabilities that offer a variety of ways to connect with your team to make meetings feel natural, seamless, and more engaging. But something you might not know is that you can use MORNINGMATE and integrate your Microsoft Teams account to use its video conferencing features. You can continue using this video conference capability as well as ZOOM meetings through MORNINGMATE without having to lock yourself fully to the entire Microsoft Teams platform and ecosystem.
3. File sharing
Whether it is through chat, video call, or directly on the platform, Microsoft Teams allows you to upload the files you need to share with your team, all on the same platform. However, unlike MORNINGMATE, the platform doesn’t keep a clean and clear record on a feed that makes it easer to track files and it’s even easier when you look for them with the advanced project search bar.
4. Task calendar
Microsoft teams offers only a calendar view for you to see your entire workflow, tasks, and pendings, which can make it limiting and frustrating with the lack of information and flexibility it offers in adapting your workflow view to your needs. MORNINGMATE offers from calendar view to gantt charts, project feeds, and even task list views so that you can do work your way.
5. Simple notifications
Like almost all the apps, Microsoft Teams will send you notifications to keep you up to date with the latest work activities. This feature offers the basic notification alerts, but that depending on your workflow can easily get lost in the crowd. MORNINGMATE offers not only regular notifications, but has an activity page in every project board that hubs all the alerts that belong to that project only, making it easy and simple to keep yourself updated with work.
Overall pros and cons of Microsoft Teams
Here are some other characteristics to consider:
Pros:
- In-chat translation
- GIF and emoji integration
- Third-party app integration
Cons:
- Message threads are confusing
- Lack of notifications
- Limited number of channels
Final thoughts and the best way to use Microsoft Teams
More than project management collaboration, Microsoft Teams is an amazing communication tool that should be used complementary with integrated project management collaboration softwares like MORNINGMATE, which not only offers you better productivity and team workflow management tools, but also let’s you take advantage of the best features Microsoft Teams has to offer. Curious to see how MORNINGMATE stacks up compared to other brands? Check out our latest collaboration tool comparison report for more information.
