In November 2016, Microsoft introduced Microsoft Teams. While many collaborative offerings are separate on-line services and apps, Teams relies upon Microsoft core offerings. Teams has been touted as the future chat-based collaborative workspace for Office 365.
The on-line collaboration landscape is jam-packed with providers such as Slack, Glip, Podio, Workplace and dozens of other emerging offerings. Collaboration apps are changing the way people work, bypassing enterprise borders to help people on disparate teams work together. Collaboration applications are addressing diverse business needs from messaging, workflow management, discussion boards, document creation, project management and time tracking.
The release of Microsoft Teams signals that Microsoft is gearing up to compete with other software collaboration services. Teams integrates with Microsoft Office along with other Office 365 services, such as SharePoint and Exchange, as well as some third-party services like Google Drive, YouTube and DropBox. Speculation exists that Microsoft is working to promote Teams and migrate clients away from Skype for Business in the future. The long-term objective for Teams is a complete collaboration solution that addresses groups, conversations and content.
The Microsoft Teams offering is built on top of O365 Groups that provides:
- OneNote
- Planner for team project planning
- OneDrive for Business
- SharePoint
- Power BI for business intelligence dashboards
- Office 365 Connectors for connecting external services
Microsoft Teams will assimilate:
- Skype for Business
- Group and sub group conversations
- Fully featured multi-platform apps
- Organization interactive charts
- Chat bots including a T-Bot and Who bot and support in the Microsoft Bot Framework
- “Tabs” to add additional user interface screens
Organizations considering Teams are encouraged to start the adoption process with Office 365 Groups, although Calendar and SharePoint will remain separate applications for now. Users will also have to be a member of Teams to maximize the experience.
Considering a Microsoft Teams project and need assistance? Contact your Communication Strategies Consultant.
