Discovering what’s possible in your Microsoft Teams environment.

Microsoft Teams and its growing relevance with WFH.

With an active, robust global connected workforce already moving at cloud speed, Microsoft Teams quickly assembled a presence across hybrid working models, home offices, and continents. Earlier this year, Microsoft announced that its Microsoft Teams collaboration platform crossed the 250 million monthly active user threshold, up from the 145-million-daily-active-user milestone only a business quarter prior.

Microsoft Teams continues to see a commanding surge in users since the mass office exodus of 2020—leaping from 20 million users in November of 2019 to a stunning 44 million in March of 2020. Microsoft Teams continued its remarkable growth metrics, even outpacing the Zoom collaboration platform. So, it isn’t shocking to learn that communication platforms like Microsoft Teams and Slack are flourishing in a disparate, connected workforce. The 250 million boast-worthy Microsoft Teams users is a feat even for the technology mammoth—a milestone most communication platforms won’t ever achieve.

While Microsoft’s already widespread market presence has made the platform widely accessible, the constant Microsoft Teams updates and added functionality empower an immersive, engaging user experience to promote a higher level of collaboration across your connected workforce.

How to leverage project productivity hacks with Lists in Microsoft Teams?

Microsoft Lists is a Microsoft 365 app for tracking information and organizing work. Lists are streamlined, intelligent, and flexible so your disparate teams can focus on critical business priorities. Track issues, routines, contacts, assets, inventory, and more using flexibly, fully customizable views and smart rules and notifications to keep everyone connected and in total alignment.

Collaboration and connected workplace are top of mind for all technology leaders in today’s digital age, but project management is still mission-critical to empowering collaboration and greater performance outcomes. Microsoft Teams has a feature to streamline project management too. There is a Lists app on Microsoft Teams for both business and government users.

The aptly named Lists feature allows teams to create lists and track information across projects and workloads. Users can leverage plug-and-play templates or build custom lists using Microsoft Excel or other alternatives, like Microsoft SharePoint.

Lists are commonly confused with both Microsoft To-Do or Tasks. However, Microsoft Lists is accessed in the Microsoft Teams platform—directly from the tabs bar. Lists also include eight standardized templates and three industry-specific ones for strict compliance industries, including health and wellness (Patients), government agencies (Incidents), and financial institutions (Loans and Credit).

Here’s how Microsoft Teams Lists feature supports the above compliance-heavy industries:

Healthcare organizations leverage the Microsoft Lists Patients template to keep healthcare professionals aligned and tracking patient health outcomes while keeping peers and other frontline workers fully inundated—securely and in careful HIPAA compliance.

Government agencies deploy an orchestrated incident response effort harnessing the Microsoft List app to track incidents and align on coordinated, uniform incident responses. The Microsoft List app eliminates siloes and obliterates the communication gaps typical in demanding government sectors to navigate both staffing and resource limitations.

Financial institutions accelerate the loan and credit approval process using the Microsoft Teams app to track and approve loans in Teams in collaboration with colleagues across departments.

Regardless of your business type or industry, with the Lists app in Microsoft Teams you can start a fast, interactive conversation on specific list items from Teams, for seamless collaboration. The Lists app is an efficient way to respond to feedback on individual initiatives without ever leaving the Microsoft Teams platform.

Each conversation in Teams is a channel message, supporting the platform-wide Microsoft Teams dynamic messaging features like ‘@’ mentions, stickers, emojis, GIFs, and attachments—keeping interactions meaningful and productive.

How to combat screen fatigue with Microsoft Teams Dynamic View?

The majority of  SMBs and larger businesses across the enterprise—wherever they are—have catapulted to a fully remote, connected workforce. Working from home has become a regular part of our daily lives and company cultures. And yes, the Zoom fatigue is real. With an endless blitz of video conferences and presentations, while maintaining efficiency, many professionals are feeling more isolated and overwhelmed by the end of the workweek.

The Dynamic View feature in Microsoft Teams enhances meetings on the Teams desktop app previously only displaying either the presenter or participant in a small frame file—splitting the view between participant cameras, shared content, and presentations. Dynamic View increases the visibility of both slides and key speakers in meetings and Microsoft Teams live events.

Dynamic View is designed to engage, instantly improving the size and display of shared content like PowerPoint slides on Teams calls and live Teams events. Microsoft Teams Dynamic view enables attendees to view slides and the key presenter—both easily side by side—in larger frames.

Dynamic view features the current speaker with a clear, intuitive frame to quickly discern who’s talking as topics and speakers turn and highlights team members using the hand raised feature to broach relevant questions and topics.

Useful and Surprisingly Hidden Tools in Microsoft Teams

Here are five to try in Microsoft Teams for maximum agility:

1. Incorporate internal and external communication in one click.

To email external partners’ content from within Teams with Outlook, click inside a chat or a channel on “More Options” –> “Share with Outlook” – and boom! An Outlook message opens with your post ready to go!

2. Tag teammates in Microsoft Teams for quick-hit priorities.

To create tags (if enabled by your IT admins), click on “Teams” go to “More Options” and select “Tags”. Then easily assign tags to specific team members, departments, or groups.

3. Reposition Microsoft Teams sidebars to a pop-out chat.

Send a text or an email without disrupting or leaving your group meeting with “Pop-Out Chat”. The Pop-Out Chat opens impeccably in a separate window without interruption to your meeting experience or flow.

4. Take Microsoft Teams on the run.

For a mega-flexible work experience and connection, download the mobile Microsoft Teams app on your smartphone for tighter collaboration across all Teams channels, wherever you are.

5. Discover more possibilities with Microsoft Teams apps.

Explore the endless gamut of applications to keep your teams organized and engaged and increase productivity. Seamlessly integrate and leverage Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, edit OneNote documents, manage project workflows with Microsoft Flow, and more.