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Microsoft Teams has been an important tool to many businesses and remote workers throughout the pandemic.

Remote working is now common to keep staff, clients, families and communities safe during this unprecedented time. As some organisations are returning to the office, others remain fully remote, bringing a unique set of challenges. Businesses need to ensure that they provide the right technology and IT infrastructure to facilitate working efficiently and securely from home.

Microsoft have provided a key solution, Microsoft Teams, part of the Microsoft 365 family of products. It is a persistent chat-based collaboration platform complete with document sharing, online meetings and many more useful features enabling successful collaboration and communication, it’s aim is to improve teamwork.

It is a cloud- based platform and is supported on Windows, Mac, iOS and Android devices so it can be accessed from anywhere, providing there is internet access.

Here are some of the many advantages Microsoft Teams brings to remote working –

Video and Conference Calling – As colleagues work remotely, many will miss out on the face to face interaction that happens in an office environment. High quality video and audio enables meetings to be hosted and brings colleagues together, whether it is a one to one video call or a video meeting for an entire department, Microsoft Teams can support it.

Instant Chat – another great feature of Teams is chat messaging. Sending an instant text message containing a picture, gif, document or emoji can help lessen the feeling of isolation whilst working remotely and can keep colleagues engaged with their team and with work. Have a quick question for a colleague? No need to send an email, get an instant response from a chat message.

Document Collaboration – Microsoft Teams securely stores documents and makes them easily accessible. Businesses are able to access all their Word, Excel, PowerPoint, JPGs and PDF documents from centrally stored locations. They can edit them in real time, so that when changes are made by several users, the updates are synced, removing the worry over version control.

Channels – With Teams, you can focus your attention on work and prioritise your time better. Instead of spending time going through an email inbox, Teams separates information into channels and puts your information in context. The channel only contains conversations, meetings and documents related to the topic of that specific channel.

As Teams is rolled out across businesses, and it is developed as a product, our knowledge of the software is growing. David Allen IT Solutions have used Teams as their collaboration tool of choice. We invest time and resources into ensuring we stay up to date, not just with Teams but with all of the Microsoft services suite.

Contact David Allen IT Solutions for consultancy and we can help you to assess your business IT requirements and recommend the appropriate software solution. We can advise how Teams can work for you, your business and enable your team to work collaboratively.