We're a tech services company and have numerous use cases for this solution, whether it be for meetings and chat, for collaborations, sharing files, document libraries, collaborating on Word documents and Excel. We use the solution every day, almost as much as we use email. We're partners with Microsoft and I'm the company delivery practice director.
It's improved our organization by enabling us to create a channel where we collaborate on all the projects and communicate instantly. You can set up a meeting for that channel which links to your personal calendar, it's very good.
I believe the chat messaging is a very valuable feature. It's not like Skype or Google Hangouts where you chat and once you're done you'll never find it again. This solution sticks with the chat until it's deleted and it also enables the application of backend retention policies so it can be saved longer. If you need to adhere to any regulation or compliancy regarding data retention you can set policies for that. Within a Teams meeting, you can put in all your meeting notes, whiteboards, all sorts of communication tools that you use. It's a very simple, intuitive platform. The learning curve for clients is minimal.
If you're using this product in a big corporation with a lot of data to manage, finding something specific can become very complex and the solution can become a little bit quirky. If I'm searching for a file in Teams, I might not find the relevant information right away. I think the search feature could be improved in that regard although any platform might have issues when dealing with masses of data. It's a management challenge when you're dealing with that amount of data.
I'd like to see better ways of managing data, perhaps create a life cycle, possibilities for deletion or archiving. So, at this point we don't have, there is a way to do that, but it's it's really complex to do. There's a way to do it now but it's very complex.
I've been using the solution for four years.
It's a very stable solution. Once in a while we may have some issues when users complain that things are moving slowly, but I've never experienced outages.
It lives in the cloud, so it's scalable. We're a relatively small company and have approximately 300 users but some of our client companies are huge and can have somewhere between 10,000-30,000 users. We don't have dedicated deployment staff but we have an internal IT department that takes care of things.
The quality of technical support really depends on the tier of support a company has. We don't have any issues because we have a lot of Microsoft and former Microsoft employees, but if we were a client without premier support, then we'd want to see some improvement in the technical support.
We used Skype before moving over to Teams. Some of our clients also use Slack so we use it too. Teams is unique because the other solutions are more for chat or video but lack the collaboration of Teams.
The initial setup is straightforward. Because the software as a service is part of Office 365, it only requires a user a license, and then you can download the product or push it with whatever tools you have, whether it's configuration manager or Intune, you push it to the endpoints. The other way it can be set up is using an SAAS application, where you don't have to worry about infrastructure in the backend, and you just need a good internet connection.
From what I know the licensing comes in a bundle. There is an enterprise license that comes with email, Office Suite like Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint and a second possible option without the added features. I believe that the fees are charged based on the number of users.
The transition to this solution is very quick so don't hesitate to give it a go, particularly for anyone already using Microsoft products. If they're using Google or Slack, it depends how they want to consolidate it. The adaptation to this solution is very quick, clients love it and can easily see the power of it. It's a cloud collaboration piece and integrates with products.
I would rate this solution a nine out of 10.
In multiple organizations, we have been using Atlassian Confluence as a knowledge base, and for development. Our developers use it alongside Jira.
What I like the most is the Wiki software that comes with Atlassian Confluence.
The interface is good and it's pretty easy to use. Most developers have some experience with Jira, which makes it pretty easy for people to pick up. We don't usually need to provide them a string.
They can easily take on some of the features from Slack.
They could try and copy Slack more and bring them into the market a bit quicker. That would be helpful for them.
I would like to see integration with Slack.
There could be improvements with the app ecosystem. For example, if we look at Teams, there is now an entire ecosystem. With Teams, you can essentially install any apps and do any integrations. Third-party, similar to Microsoft.
It's more about integrations with third parties. That is also something that could be better.
I think it can be more competitive, considering the competition they are now going to get from Slack and Teams. For example, if you look at Microsoft Teams, Microsoft is providing 365 for free with Slack.
I have been using this solution for approximately seven years.
We have not had any issues.
We have 1100 users.
The customer support is pretty good. If you reach out to them, they are very helpful.
The initial setup is pretty straightforward, I have never had any issues.
When you purchase this solution you get some support.
Jira and Confluence go hand in hand. If it's for development, and if people have money to pay for one product only, they usually end up purchasing Jira, and not Confluence.
But at the end of the day, it's an ecosystem. It really depends on how much you want to integrate and how much you want to dive into it.
It really depends on what ecosystem they invest in and what they're looking for.
You have to look at the use case and if you already have an application in your ecosystem which is fit for purpose, you have to ask yourself, why you want to go out and pay for another product?
I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.
