Reimagine Remote Working with Microsoft Teams

Sathish Veerapandian, Harsharanjeet Kaur, Ashok Madhvarayan, Sriram Rajamanickam

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781801811019
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Virtual Reality
• Index: Computer Science

Get a 360-degree view of Teams as a secure collaboration tool with best practices and recommendations for using Teams efficientlyKey Features• Master and manage virtual meetings easily using Teams• Understand the essential security and administration aspects of Microsoft Teams• Communicate and collaborate effectively with your colleagues using Teams and M365 apps such as Sway, Yammer, and StreamBook DescriptionThe outbreak of the pandemic has forced the world to embrace remote working and the modern style of virtual business. However, end users may find it challenging to cope with this sudden change in working style, not aware of all the features and remote working tools available to make their life easy. Microsoft Teams is an exceptional platform, adopted by many organizations for unified communication and collaboration, and this book will help you to make the most of its capabilities.Complete with step-by-step explanations and screenshots, this book guides you through the topics that you'll find useful in your daily use of Teams. You'll learn how to manage your teams and projects with Microsoft Teams in a structured and organized way. The book provides hands-on information with a focus on the end user side to help corporate users to increase productivity and become a Microsoft Teams superuser. Finally, you'll explore the most effective ways of using the app with best practices and tips and tricks for making the most of the features available for your scenario.By the end of this Microsoft Teams book, you'll have mastered Microsoft Teams and be fully equipped as a modern collaboration end user to effectively increase your remote work productivity.What you will learn• Find out how to secure your documents and data with Microsoft's security• Improve your organization's productivity and engagement with Microsoft Teams• Integrate Teams with other Office 365 apps such as SharePoint, OneNote, and OneDrive• Automate your regular tasks with easy end-user automation options• Discover best practices and etiquettes for using Teams efficiently and effectively• Explore tips and tricks from expert MVP and Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) authorsWho this book is forThis book for anyone who wants to improve their day-to-day productivity using Microsoft Teams. Anyone with access to Office 365 apps will find this book useful irrespective of their designations. Fundamental knowledge of Microsoft Office 365 Applications is required.

Section 1 – Managing Your Meetings, Projects, and Workforce

Once you complete this part, you will be fully competent in managing your meetings, tracking your projects, issues, and tasks, and easily managing your workforce from Teams teams and channels. We highly recommend using these features and functionalities only from the Teams desktop client for a full-featured experience.

In this part, we cover the following chapters:

• Chapter 1, Managing Meetings in Teams
• Chapter 2, Project Management in Teams
• Chapter 3, Workforce Management in Teams

Chapter 1: Managing Meetings in Teams

Microsoft Teams is a hub for teamwork in Office 365. A key part of being successful in collaborative work is to stay on top of all meeting schedules and manage them promptly without any overlap. Microsoft Teams helps you to meet in a smarter way and to have focused meetings, which can eventually increase users' productivity.

Microsoft Teams delivers a unique end-to-end meeting experience that features the human element of face-to-face interaction, while helping people stay focused before, during, and after meetings to accomplish more together. Meetings in enterprises have changed drastically, with the majority of the workforce connecting remotely, and, in this chapter, we will cover the key features that are available in Microsoft Teams.

This chapter will cover the following main topics:

• The various meeting options available in Microsoft Teams to schedule or join meetings
• Creating surveys, polls, customer feedback, and employee satisfaction via Microsoft Forms
• Seamless document meeting notes via Microsoft OneNote
• Using the channel Calendar to stay up to date on a particular Teams channel
• How Microsoft Bookings helps in organizing meetings and appointments with stakeholders

Upon successful completion of these topics and getting hands-on with a few practice scenarios, you will be fully comfortable in managing your meetings effectively with Microsoft Teams.

Meeting options via Windows/Mac

Microsoft Teams provides various ways to schedule meetings via the Teams desktop client / Teams Web on your Windows/Mac, mobile devices, or iPad/tablet devices:

1. Log in to Microsoft Teams using your credentials. On the left side, you will see the Calendar button. Click on New meeting and schedule a meeting.
2. Click on the New meeting dropdown in the top-right corner and select Schedule meeting.
   
   Figure 1.1 – New meeting drop-down menu
3. You have an option to modify the view of the calendar to show meetings for a day, work week, or calendar week.
   
   Figure 1.2 – Calendar view options
4. Add a title for the Microsoft Teams meeting that gives a quick insight into the meeting for the recipients.
5. Modify Time Zone if required.
6. Require Registration allows the meeting organizer to request participants to register for an event.
   Note
   If you require the user to register for this event, we cannot add a channel to the meeting. The registration link can be modified.
7. Add participants by typing in the first few letters of the recipients' names and Teams will pull out suggestions from the address book.
   
   Figure 1.3 – Looking up recipients in the address book
8. You will also notice that the availability of the participants is shown automatically based on the date and time that you choose. This helps you to adjust the meeting time directly, avoiding any decline responses. This availability feature is limited to internal organization members.
   
   Figure 1.4 – Availability of participants
9. To invite someone outside your organization, type in their email address and they will get a link to join as a guest. You can also add optional recipients.
   
   Figure 1.5 – Inviting a guest
10. Choose the start and end date and time from the date picke...