What is our primary use case?
We primarily use the solution for team conversations. For example, I use it for filing team documents, although, for individual notes and things of that nature, I might use OneNote. I'm using it more and more now for video conferencing within the organization. I haven't really used it too much outside of the organization, although my plan is to use it outside of the company in the near future. Began using for team documents and plans. Teams provides a strong capability to consolidate all collaborative capabilities related to a team in one platform. This is especially important for project teams where the team members are spread across geographic locations and time zones. Incorporates improve and new collaborative tools such as Lists, Plans, Tasks into the tool that integrate into Outlook for notification and response to the assignements. These capabilities are truly game changing in project management and delivery in the COVID-19 world
How has it helped my organization?
In the past three months of continuous improvements the tools have improved and simplified collaborative efforts dramatically This solution is great for ad hoc video conferencing. It's so easy to start a meeting. We're finding more and more uses for the Teams video conferencing features. I'll be honest, it's a bit of a challenge for people to use the video aspect. The tendency for people is to not turn on their camera because they don't like the way they look or they're not able to sit in their pajamas during meetings if there's video involved. However, it's been a game-changer since the pandemic as it allows us to keep in touch with our teams remotely.
What is most valuable?
Microsoft has delivered integrated tools and collaborative capabilities that continue to strengthen and bring great value to Teams. This positions Teams as the collaborative tool that will soon become the standard in the market for capabilities. The document and plans/assignment improvements are game changes from a simplicity and functionality perspective. I really like the video conferencing, and the reason is because of the simplicity of scheduling and using the software. Since I'm using Outlook for my email and calendar management, and it's connected with everything. It's just a click of a button to schedule a meeting, and then, to activate or to start the meeting, it's just another click of a button. Everything is streamlined and simple. The seamless integration and easy coordination with mobile devices is a wonderful aspect of the solution. It's great that, even if I'm not at my desk, I can still attend the Teams video conference and interact in the same way that I would if I were at my desktop. There's an option to blur the background or to completely change your background. That's very helpful as we now use the solution to replace stand-up meetings. It removes background distractions for other users and allows participants to have a bit of privacy. I have a regular meeting with a couple of people on my team, and normally, we would meet at somebody's desk or in an office or in the conference room. With Teams, we can all attend, and all see each other and we can have the same outcome as we would if we were all in the same room. While digital meetings as opposed to in-person meetings takes a bit of time to get used to, the learning curve is short because of the seamless integration.
What needs improvement?
What would really help is extending the time that you're active on the mobile device because I can't find a way in Teams to restart the app automatically. For instance, in Teams, we use it as an organization for instant messaging and for text messaging. The problem is if I restart my mobile device, I have to remember to restart Teams in order to get the text messages on my device. It's not automatic. The solution should standardize the options across platforms. What I mean by that is, sometimes, on the mobile, there are not the same options and set up features and functions as are available on the web or on the desktop app. Everything should have the exact same functionality, otherwise, it's difficult if some people are on mobile and others are on desktop.
Buyer's Guide
Microsoft Teams
June 2022
Learn what your peers think about Microsoft Teams. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: June 2022.
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For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the solution for year now.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I haven't run into a problem with stability and I have not experienced any crashes, bugs, or glitches in the Teams App. You must remember this is a web app though. Any performance or stability issues that I have experienced were related to Internet service issues and not the Teams App.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I haven't run into a problem with the scalability of the solution. I've used it at my last job with teams that are as small as 15 people and the thing that's nice about it is that I can be part of a dozen teams and it easily maintains the communication to all the teams separately so conversations stay organized. We're business consultants, and, right now, there are about a dozen of us using it. The consultants are located in different geographic areas of the US, and there are even people working in India that are using Teams. Geographically, the solution expands to make communication possible anywhere. The organization I work with now, as I understand it, has plans for increasing usage. Right now, it's rather limited in terms of who is using it. Maybe 20% of the people on staff are and there's about a hundred people on staff in total. 20% of those people using Teams in a relatively limited way. Frankly, I'm trying to encourage people to use Teams and drop other video conferencing tools.
How are customer service and support?
I don't know how technical support is, to tell the truth. The type of technical troubleshooting I use for Teams is basically just seeking answers on the internet. I typically Google something if I don't understand an aspect of the solution. There are community boards and that sort of thing. It's worked out pretty well for me. I've never had a crash or a bug though, so I've never had to reach out to technical support to get them to get me back online or to sort out an issue of that nature.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We haven't used a different solution previously. This is the first video conferencing suite we've adopted in the company.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is web-based in terms of the style of set up and is very straight forward. I use the web-based setup because I wanted my experience to be the same no matter what device I use. As an example, I can use my work laptop, or my Chromebook or tablet and I have the capabilities to see and interact in the same way. There's an initial challenge though because if people that have the app have it installed on their laptop, for instance, and they're running an application on their device, it has a different look and feel compared to what's on the web version. We have one person to deploy and maintain the solution. It's actually a part-time role. It's one of the consultants who maintain it as part of his other duties. He's in charge of desktop devices and desktop applications. When a new person needs to be added, he just sets up the laptop and gets everything ready. He also maintains the license. With Microsoft 365, it's pretty straightforward. I just access the Office app or service and it installs directly. I may access the app through the cloud anyhow, so there's really no maintenance to do.
What about the implementation team?
We have an employee in house that maintains the licensing, however, we install the solution ourselves for the most part.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I don't handle the payments for the service. It's not my department.
What other advice do I have?
We're using the latest version of the solution. We just get the solution from the cloud, so it's always the most up-to-date option. I've noticed, since the pandemic, that, as of maybe three or four months ago, Teams was much more widely accepted in Europe than in North America. I believe this is starting to change. Recently though (late 2020) this has changed and especially since the roll-out over the summer and fall of improvements in collaborative document, planning and tracking capabilities. I would recommend marketing the tool to people by showing demos of the capabilities for people and actual use cases. If I were trying to bring this into a new company I would ask people what they were doing for communicating with teams, or how they were using text messages, collaboration tools, video conferencing currently, etc., so that I could actually demonstrate how to do that same thing. There's literally hundreds of text tools, collaboration apps and video conferencing options on the market. The key to a business' success at communication is to ensure the various teams are all on the same platform or using the same tool. That doesn't mean everyone in the company needs to use it the same way. If they're using the same tools, then at least, the base platform is the same and your company can build on that. Rather than Google docs for one thing and Microsoft Teams and, OneDrive, SharePoint, and all of these different tools, you've got to kind of pick a lane. I would rate the solution overall at about an eight out of ten. That's due to the simplicity and ease of use. There are great features available. However, it loses a few points because the setup and the admin capabilities are different across platforms.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.