Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams evolved out of Skype for Business. It offers VoIP calls, video and audio conferencing and chat.
Teams as a ‘chat-based workspace in Office 365’ allowing teams to work together within one window to enhance teamwork. It works great for any organisation which uses Office 365 suite. Teams is fully integrated with Office 365 Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Planner, Power BI and Delve as well as its cloud storage and sharing services such as SharePoint. The platform enforces team-wide and organization-wide two-factor authentication, single sign-on through Active Directory, and encryption of data in transit and at rest.
The programme works well for small-medium size teams that collaborate closely on specific projects. Even if team members are geographically dispersed, they can manage everything smoothly and efficiently within the Microsoft Teams digital space.
Microsoft Teams is likely not a good fit for a large team that reports to the same supervisor or manager but doesn't work specifically on projects together.
Pricing plans
Free option available during the Covid-19 period.
Microsoft teams are included in all Office 365 Business and enterprise packages.
- Microsoft 365 Business Basic – £3.80/month/host
- Microsoft 365 Business Standard – £9.40/month/host
-Microsoft 365 Business Premium - £15.10/month/host
Office 365 E3 – £17.60/month/host
Capacity
- Meeting capacity: 250 people
- Events: 10,000 attendees
- Maximum number of team users 300 – unlimited
Key benefits of Teams
- One centralised hub
- No extra cost to Office 365 users
- Office 365 integration
- Microsoft enterprise security & compliance set up
- Azure Active Directory integration capability
- Teams will prioritise audio quality over video quality, when bandwidth is insufficient
Drawbacks
- Internet explorer, Safari and Firefox are not fully supported
- There is a learning curve, there are many different functions to get familiar with
- The app limits screen displaying to a maximum of four screens at once