Nimmbus has changed to ctm Information Technology
As a part of our firm-wide rebrand, the Nimmbus name has now been retired.
You may have noticed that over the last few months more and more meeting requests are coming through on Microsoft Teams rather than Skype for Business this is due to Microsoft preparing to retire Skype for Business next July. For just over a year, customer’s that use Office 365 are set up use Microsoft Teams. If you haven’t already, we would recommend that you start planning your transition from Skype for Business to Microsoft Teams.
Teams has the functionality of Skype for Business but has so much more. It is not just a chat app and if used correctly can help to improve workplace productivity!
Here are some points to try and help you understand teams and use it most effectively.
Think of Teams as a house. Each team created is a different house and everyone included in that team will be included in everything that goes in that house. You want to avoid creating too many teams or being a member or too many different Teams. Try to create them based around how various groups work and collaborate together.
Each channel can be thought of as a room, the main room is the general channel where everyone can hear/see what everyone says. All posts are visible here and can be much more interactive as you can use reactions, emoticons, GIFs, memes, stickers etc! This makes it more personable and lets people express their personalities and connect as a team even though they are not physically together.
In the middle of the house you have a hallway. You can stand in the hallway, open the doors to the rooms you are most interested in, and hear all the conversations going on in the various rooms – without leaving the hallway. In Microsoft Teams, the hallway corresponds to the “Activity Feed.” Opening the door to a room corresponds to turning on “Channel notifications”. You don’t have to turn this on though as at any time, you can walk into the room and get up to speed on everything that has happened in the room.
Sometimes you might want to have a private conversation with one, or a few people in your house. A conversation that is not heard by everyone else. In Teams you do this using “Chat” or “Calls”. Whatever you write or say here is only for the ones present. If you frequently have private conversations with a group of people, you can create a group chat.
Tabs can be thought of as posters pinned to the walls in your various rooms. This helps the ones in your room focus on what’s most important and it helps them find what they need. Here you can pin things of importance – such as Excel spreadsheets, shared notes and other apps.
Check out the Microsoft site for best practices for organizing teams in Microsoft Teams.
If you would like any more information or are interested in moving over to Teams then please get in contact, our team would be happy to help.