Microsoft Teams Archives

2023’s Top New Microsoft Teams Features

Microsoft Teams continues to lead the way with its innovative features. The October 2023 update introduces a suite of enhancements designed to streamline workflow, improve efficiency, and foster better connectivity. Let’s delve into these groundbreaking updates! 1. New Microsoft Teams App Microsoft has reimagined the Teams app, focusing on performance, reliability, security, and IT management. This overhaul has resulted in a platform that’s faster, smarter, and more user-friendly, ensuring a seamless experience across various tasks. 2. Meet App The Meet app is a centralized hub for all your meeting-related activities. It simplifies the preparation process and makes catching up on past meetings a breeze, boosting overall efficiency. 3. Live Translated Transcript Breaking language barriers, the live translated transcript feature supports over 30 languages. Available in Teams Premium, it ensures inclusivity and accessibility in global meetings. 4. Collaborative Notes in Teams Mobile This feature transforms the way meeting notes are taken ...

Kristy Mossoian2023-12-08T16:18:02+00:00

How to Reduce Background Noise in Teams Meetings

How to reduce background noise in Teams meetings Microsoft announced that you now have the ability to remove unwelcome background noise during calls and meetings with a new AI-based noise suppression option in Microsoft Teams. Whether it's shuffling papers, slamming doors, or barking dogs teams offers three levels of noise suppression to help keep distractions at a minimum. You can enable this new feature by adjusting your device settings before your call or meeting and selecting "High" in the "Noise suppression" drop-down. Note: This setting is currently available only in the Teams Windows desktop app. From the main Teams window Select your profile picture at the top right of Teams and then select Settings. Select Devices on the left and then, under Noise suppression, select an option. • Auto (default) The Teams app decides on the best level of noise suppression based on local noise.• High For this option, your computer's processor must support Advanced Vector Extensions ...

Red Level2023-02-16T16:01:21+00:00

Microsoft Teams vs Zoom, Which Should You Use?

When the FBI sends a warning to the public, it’s generally a good idea to heed it. The FBI recently issued a notice to the public citing security problems with the Zoom video-teleconferencing platform. The platform has been compromised in such a way, according to the FBI warning, that will make you reconsider the security of the system for things like remote learning of school-age children. That’s exactly what the New York City School district did. The district announced last week, due to security concerns, they will be transitioning to Microsoft Teams for their distance learning. Even SpaceX has forbidden its employees from using the tool. While the Zoom platform has good intentions, it is short-sighted for us to think a company that experiences a 500% growth boom overnight is prepared for the security risks that come with it. Current times have demanded businesses adopt a remote collaboration solution while still working with ...

Red Level2023-02-16T16:01:22+00:00

Work From Home Best Practices

The COVID-19 virus has created the new reality of working from home or remotely. We have a few best practices for you to keep communicating and collaborating, from both a technical and practical perspective. Microsoft published a letter from Lily Zheng in their Shanghai office. In this letter, she had three key points for your team and organization. Your Team: Stay Well Exercise every day, make sure you eat, and have a structured schedule Go All In Don’t put things off. Don’t cancel your standing meetings. Do everything remotely. Support your Teammates Check in on people. Instead of stopping by someone’s desk to chat for a second. Ping them on teams or a random video call to chat. Share photos of you working from home on Yammer. Your Organization: Share information remotely with live and recorded messages Have daily briefings that you can share a video or a recorded message. ...

Red Level2023-02-16T16:01:23+00:00

Microsoft’s Response to Education Institutions

Technology can play a vital role in reducing the impact of COVID-19 on people and organizations. Many schools and universities have moved to online courses to ensure everyone is still receiving an education during this time. Microsoft has introduced extended free trials and resources for clients to use to maintain collaboration, productivity, and security. Here is Microsoft's response for education institutions: New, Extended Free Trials for EDU Customers Office 365 A1 – Free versions to all educational institutions: This version provides unlimited chat, built-in group and one-on-one audio or video calling, 10 GB of team file storage, and 2 GB of personal file storage per user. You also get real-time collaboration with the Office apps for web, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. No restrictions for # of users. Get started for free Technical documentation Microsoft Teams for Free (Individuals and IT roll-out – in Office 365 A1 above): Provides unlimited chat, built-in ...

Microsoft2023-02-16T16:01:23+00:00

MASCO Corp. Aligns IT with the Business to Transform as a Modern Workplace

MASCO Corp. designs, manufactures and distributes branded home improvement and building products worldwide. Its industry-leading brands include Delta® and Hansgrohe® faucets, Behr® paint, and Kichler® decorative and outdoor lighting. With about 10,000 associates throughout the company, IT is challenged to stay abreast of technology to digitally transform MASCO as a modern workplace. The Situation In 2005, MASCO targeted about 10 siloed business units each functioning with a decentralized structure. There was little-to-no communication with corporate IT. At the same time, fragmentation plagued other internal departments. The concern in communications, for example, was broken intranet hubs, a lack of cohesive communications with associates causing confusion and a need for new tools to improve business services. Essentially, MASCO was in disarray requiring an infrastructure upgrade to stabilize the company’s technology stack. Specifically, IT was challenged to: Upgrade old hardware Digitize the backend, and migrate from SharePoint 2003 and old Microsoft Access databases ...

Red Level2024-02-29T18:57:09+00:00

Upgrade Skype for Business to Microsoft Teams

On July 30th Microsoft formally announced that Skype for Business Online was going to be retiring and a lot of our clients have been reaching out to us wondering how this will impact them. “We aren’t ready for Microsoft Teams.” “We don’t know what Teams is.” “We use Skype, what do we do?” We can help you answer those questions and concerns. Microsoft has shared that Skype for Business Online is going to be retired on July 31st, 2021. Which gives you plenty of time to learn and implement Teams into your organization. However, after that date, the Skype for Business Online Service will be completely inaccessible. As of September 1st, of this year all new Office 365 customers are going to be directly using Teams for chat, meetings, and calls. A disclaimer that we want to make sure you know is the Skype consumer brand, product, and Skype for ...

Red Level2023-02-16T16:01:26+00:00

Teams button is missing in Outlook… What Do I Do?

The Issue: You do not have the icon to add Teams connectivity to your Outlook appointments (see below). The Solution: 1. Open the Teams Client application Start > Type the word Teams > Press enter 2. Click your profile picture in the upper right corner 3. Click the button: Check for Updates Look close for Messages in Teams Note: Teams will display a few messages to you to let you know when the updates are complete. 4. Close Outlook 5. Reopen Outlook 6. Create a new appointment and the Teams connectivity button will be there. …. </Boom> A full computer reboot may be needed if you have not installed windows updates in a while.

Red Level2023-02-16T16:01:31+00:00

Reduce Noise Level and Manage Membership in Microsoft Teams

If you have a large family as I do, you know that sometimes the holiday party gets really noisy because there are just a lot of people. Same goes for Microsoft Teams within, especially in a large organization. Fortunately, there are a couple of things you can focus on in Microsoft Teams to effectively manage the membership and reduce the noise level. Let’s begin with reducing the chatty noise. There are two settings that you can add into your large scoped teams: General channels - Change the post permission setting to allow just the owner to post, or, create an alert so posting will notify everyone (which is recommended for large teams). @ Mentions - Configure what type of mentions are allowed or enabled within the team. Mention @ a person: Mention someone by name Mention @ an app: Do an app mention for a channel, then everybody within that ...

Red Level2023-02-16T16:01:32+00:00

Microsoft Teams Naming Convention

Let’s start with a question. What do you call a fake noodle? ........ An IMPASTA How does this dad joke relate to this blog topic? I get into that below. Does this ever happen to you: The proliferation of groups or teams in Microsoft Teams or Office 365 is so vast that you don't know which one you should join? The nature of Teams or Groups aims to foster collaboration within organizations. As an administrator, you want to provide a certain degree of autonomy to your users to foster collaboration across or among themselves. This degree of autonomy leads to a “self-service” scenario where people can just create any kind of groups as they seem fit. As a result, a lot of groups can be created with very similar names. This is a major issue from a user’s perspective if there are a lot of Office 365 Groups or Microsoft ...

Red Level2023-02-16T16:01:32+00:00

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