This New Microsoft Teams Feature Gives You Project Management Superpowers

Collaboration and connected workplace are constantly popping through your social feeds, but what about project management? Isn’t that mission-critical to collaborating? (Yes. Of course.)

And, it turns out, Microsoft Teams has a new feature for that. Microsoft added the new Lists app to Teams for both business and government customers. Lists, a Microsoft 365 app announced by Microsoft during Build 2020. The appropriately-named Lists feature enables teams to create lists and track information across projects and workloads. Users can tap into ready-made templates or build custom lists from Excel or other alternatives, like SharePoint.

“Microsoft Lists is a Microsoft 365 app that helps you track information and organize your work. Lists are simple, smart, and flexible, so you can stay on top of what matters most to your team. Track issues, assets, routines, contacts, inventory and more using customizable views and smart rules and alerts to keep everyone in sync.”

—Microsoft Tech Community Blog

If you’re asking, didn’t they already have that feature? then you’re probably getting Lists confused with Microsoft To Do or Tasks, Microsoft Lists is different in that it’s accessed in Teams from the tabs bar. Lists also includes eight standard templates and three industry-specific ones for heavy compliance industries, including healthcare (Patients), government agencies (Incidents), and financial institutions (Loans).

So, how does Lists work in Teams and what can it do for our organization?

Great question. Let’s get straight to how the Lists feature in Microsoft Teams supports specific heavier-compliance industries that are seeing increasing demand since the COVID-19 pandemic started.

• Healthcare organizations can use the Microsoft Lists Patients template to keep healthcare professionals aligned, tracking patient progress and outcomes while keeping peers and other frontline healthcare workers informed—securely and in strict HIPAA compliance.
• Government users can respond with a coordinated incident response effort using the Microsoft List app to track incidents and align on coordinated, uniform incident responses. The Microsoft List app closes communication gaps and siloes typical in demanding government sectors navigating staffing and resource limitations.
• Financial institutions can speed up the loan approval process by using the Teams app to track and approve loans in Teams in collaboration with colleagues across departments.

And no matter your industry, you can start a fast, interactive conversation on individual list items in Teams, for uninterrupted collaboration. The Lists app is an efficient way to respond to feedback on individual initiatives.

Each conversation is a channel message in Teams, supporting all of the platform’s dynamic messaging features like ‘@’ mentions, GIFs, stickers, emojis, and attachments—you know, to keep dialogues fun, and productive.

Watch the video from Microsoft below to skim the at-a-glance features. Then go deeper with our Cloud experts to learn about other Microsoft Teams features you might not be using yet that can fuel more engagement and higher productivity across all of your teams.