There are three types of chat in Microsoft Teams.

1. One-on-one chats: to connect with people individually.

2. Group chats: to speak with a group of people at the same time.

3. Meeting chats: to ask a question without interrupting the speaker.

Many of you must be aware of these and use all three types of chat, but there are other features to chat that you may not be aware of, which we will discuss in this blog.

Start a Chat

To start a chat, click on the ‘Chat’ from the left navigation and select ‘New chat ’ to add then type in the name with whom you want to chat. You can also start a one-on-one chat from someone’s profile card. Open it by choosing their picture in a channel or by using search.

Once you’ve selected New chat and entered a person’s name, compose your message in the box at the bottom of the chat. To open formatting options, select Format beneath the box where you type your message.

Delivery Options

By clicking the ‘!’ button beneath the message while sending a conversation to an individual or small group, you can choose from three delivery choices. The possibilities are as follows:

1. Standard: The message will be delivered in the usual manner.

2. Important: The message’s title will be ‘Important,’ coupled with an exclamation icon.

3. Urgent: In addition to the headline being ‘Urgent,’ the receiver will be notified every 2 minutes for the next 20 minutes.

Posts in a channel have only one delivery option: ‘Important,’ with the same formatting as conversations.

Pin/Unpin chat

A conversation can be pinned or muted in the same way that we do in channels. To pin a conversation just hover over it and click on the ellipses ‘…’ and select pin.

The pinned conversation can be seen at the top, and to view the conversation in chat or unpin click on the ellipses ‘…’

Mark as unread

Mark a message as unread if you don’t have time to respond right away.

Save Messages

You can also save the messages by clicking on the ellipses and selecting ‘Save this Message’.

Messages you’ve saved are saved in your profile (accessed via your picture in the top right-hand corner).

Replying to a specific message

Within a conversation, users will be able to respond to individual messages in one of two ways. They may select “Reply” from the list after hovering over a message and clicking the ellipsis menu (…). Users may also right-click on a chat message and then select “Reply” from the context menu.

Create a task from the message

With the ability to create a task directly from a message in Teams, you can capture that important thought, to do item, or comment before it slips away. Convert any message into a task with the click of a button, and without the need for an additional app. Hover your mouse over any message in a Teams conversation and select the ellipses (…). On the pop-out menu choose More actions > Create task

In the new window, fill in the specifics of your assignment in the new window and adjust the parameters to match your requirements. The task will be put according to the Create in option.

a. If you choose Tasks, this will add the task to a To-Do list.

b. If you choose a plan name, the task will be added to a Planner plan.

With either selection, the task will also show up in the chat so others can see it too.

Share chat and channel conversations to outlook

You can send a copy of a chat and channel conversations as an email to Outlook from within Teams. Right-click on the message and select ‘Share to Outlook’

Choose the recipient, you can also add attachments or customize the message and then click ‘Send’ to share your chat.

Note: The Share to Outlook feature is currently not supported on mobile.

Final thoughts

In this blog, we have seen a few basic but very important features of the chat in Microsoft Teams. We think this might help you in a day of life with Teams. If you need any further assistance or if you need someone who can help you in the adoption of Microsoft Teams for your organization please email us at contact@beyondintranet.com

Microsoft List is a great app to collaborate over data and organize work. The lists created in any channel on Microsoft Teams can be accessed from the Microsoft Lists app on Office 365 because teams in Microsoft Teams are the Office 365 groups, so all the features we get in the Office 365 Lists app are in Teams.

Create lists using Microsoft list in Microsoft Teams.

1. Go to Microsoft Teams, and click on the ellipses from the quick launch.

2. Click on the Find an app search box and search for Lists.

3. Select the ‘Lists app’ appear in the search result.

4. Click on the ‘Add to a team’ button from the window.

5. Select the channel in which you want to create a list.

6. Once you select the channel, click ‘Set up a tab’.

7. From the next screen click, the ‘Save’ button.

8. You can see a ‘Lists’ tab added to the selected channel. Now, click ‘Create a list’.

9. From the ‘Create a list’ page, select one of the following options:

a. Blank list: Choose this option to start from scratch. Give your list a Name, Description(optional), and select any other options you want. The list will save to ‘My lists’ unless you choose one of your SharePoint sites or Teams from the ‘Save’ list. When you are finished selecting options, select ‘Create’.

b. From Excel: Create a list based on an Excel spreadsheet.

c. From the existing list: Choose this option to save time and create a new list based on the columns in another list. Your new list will start with the same columns but will not have any data.

d. Templates: Select a template, such as an ‘Issue tracker,’ to see what columns the template has. You can then scroll through sample data to see what to include. Select the templates that fit your specific needs. Click the ‘Use Template’ button.

10. I have selected the ‘Issue Tracker’ template here.

11. Give your list a Name, Description, Color, and Icon. Then click ‘Save’.

12. You can see your new list in the tab with the list name. You can now create your data, organize and share it with other users in your organization.

Final Thoughts

This blog covers how to use Microsoft Lists with Microsoft Teams. If you have any questions about Microsoft Lists or any other aspect of implementing the Microsoft Lists app for your organization, contact us today for a free Microsoft Teams consultation.

Initially, Microsoft will provide 13 base templates based on tasks like managing a project, promoting an event, or coordinating incident responses. The base templates have a predefined team structure with set channels, tabs, and apps; they can be duplicated but not edited.

Currently, a team has many capabilities and most of these are supported by team templates but not all. Below I share what capabilities these templates do and do not support.

Supported capabilities

a. Base template type
b. Team name
c. Team description
d. Team visibility (public or private)
e. Team settings (e.g., member, guest, @mentions)
f. Auto-favorite channel
g. Installed app
h. Pinned tabs

Not supported capabilities

a. Team membership
b. Team Picture
c. Channel settings
d. Connectors
e. Files and content

The remaining capabilities will be added to the templates in future updates.

New templates and their properties

Microsoft created templates based on specific industry needs.  These templates include priority apps that are available on the app source. Initially, Microsoft will publish 13 templates spanning key business scenarios and industries so users can get more from using Teams.

It will be possible to extend or override certain special templates with additional properties based on your specific needs. However, some base template types contain properties that can’t be changed.

The following are the templates and their properties.

Template limitations

Team templates have some limitations in terms of channels, tabs, and apps.

How to create a team from templates

1. Click on Teams from the left navigation on your MS Teams client.

2. At the bottom of the teams’ list, click Join, or create a team.

3. Now, click on the ‘Create a team’

Note: If you don’t see the Create a new team option, you may not have the necessary permissions to create your teams.

4. A new window will pop up, select any template under ‘Select from template’. As you can see below, we selected the ‘Contoso Events Management’ template.

5. Once you select the template, it shows you the team templates’ structure (channels and apps).

6. You can customize the team name, description, and channel names in a template.

7. After you create the team, users receive guidance on how to best use and further customize the team. Each template comes with its instruction manual.

When this will be released?

Microsoft will begin rolling this out in the first week of October. They expect to finish the rollout by the end of October.

Final Thoughts

Microsoft Teams is a great platform to collaborate with everyone in your organization. The new templates provide a basic structure for a team for those who are not sure how to get the most out of this platform.

If you have any questions about the Teams templates or any other aspect of implementing Teams for your organization, contact us today for a free consultation.

Let’s first understand what is a team. A team is a collection of people, content, and tools that work together to produce a business outcome for your company. Teams are built on Microsoft 365 Groups, and changes to Microsoft 365 group membership sync to the team. Teams can be dynamic for project-based work, as well as ongoing, to reflect the internal structure of your organization (for example, departments and office locations). Conversations, files, and notes across team channels are only visible to members of the team.

Let’s Learn How to create a team

1. Click on Teams from the left navigation on your MS Teams client.

2. At the bottom of the Teams list, click “Join or create a team”.

3. Now, click on the ‘Create a team’

Note: If you don’t see the Create a new team option, you may not have the necessary permissions to create your teams.

4. A new window will pop up saying Build a team from scratch and Create from an existing Office 365 group or team.

(Office 365 groups and teams relate to each other. When we create a Team it creates an Office 365 group on the tenant and if you already have Office 365 group created, so you can use the same group to create the Team in MS Teams. The benefit of using the already created group is that you need not add the members again to the team. It will be automatically added to the Team)

5. Here we click on ‘Build a team from scratch’.

6. Select the type “Private” or “Public”

(Private group can only be accessed by the owners of the Team. Only the users on the team who are owners or members of the private channel can access the channel. Whereas a Public team can be joined by anyone in the organization)

Also Read: Five Important Microsoft Teams Features

7. Give your team a name and a short description (not mandatory) and click on the ‘Create’ button.

8. Now, add members to your team and click ‘Close’.

9. You have created your team. Now you can start collaborating with the team members.

Also Read: 7 Steps to Add a SharePoint List or Page to Microsoft Teams.

Final Thoughts

Microsoft Teams is powerful enough to be used as a collaborative workspace for your organization and team members. If you still face difficulties with setting up your teams or channels on this platform or looking for any customization or integration,  connect with us instantly.

Keep reading more about Microsoft Teams and its latest features in our recent blog.

New Teams Features to Improve Meeting Experience

Responding to the competition with virtual meetings during this pandemic, Microsoft has been quick enough to launch a new meeting experience recently. After turning on the new experience and restarting Teams, the biggest thing you’ll probably notice is that any calls and meetings will pop out into their window, separate from the main Teams window.

To Turn on this feature follow these steps.

1. Click on your profile picture from the top right of the Teams.

2. Click on the ‘Settings’

3. Tick mark the checkbox for ‘Turn on new meeting experience’ and restart Teams.

4. To restart, right-click the Teams icon in the taskbar, then select Quit.

5. Reopen Teams.

6. Now, when you call someone or join a meeting you will see that it will pop outs in their window, separate from the main Teams window (as shown in the below image).

With this update, a few more things are added to the meeting controls. 

 Presentation Improvements 

Presenters on Microsoft Teams can pick the position they would like to appear in during the presentation. It also allows users to adjust the size of the video feed in a suitable ratio and enjoy the benefit of real-time captions to make the conversation engaging and impactful. 

Calling Improvements 

With the help of Outlook contacts, users can easily view the phone number and other contact details in the drop-down menu. This fantastic feature allows users to avoid skipping urgent and unavoidable calls. Through the Teams Admin Center, users can easily configure call forwarding settings in their tenants. This new teams feature allows admins to avoid skipping important calls. 

Music mode 

This new teams feature allows users to experience quality music while listening to live music or any form of sound from other devices. This mode has benefited many users as it enhances the overall experience of attending virtual calls through improved audio quality.

The magic of spotlighting people  

This form of target spotlighting specific participants allows target communication over virtual calls. When users are stressed, they are pinned to the screen. To highlight someone during the call, right-click on the person’s video and click on Spotlight from the menu that appears.  

Direct viewing of the content from the camera  

 This view improvises the image displayed, such as a whiteboard or a piece of paper, so that other participants can view it correctly. The transparency effect in this feature allows lightening of the arm, hand, or any other body part in front of the document displayed.

Call quality monitor 

This new teams features help track calls and monitor the meeting quality in Microsoft Teams. A sidebar also pops, which tracks the technical statuses of audio and video calls. Thus this feature reduces discrepancies faced due to spotty or lacking audio or video.  

Benefits of Keyboard shortcuts 

Ctrl-Shift-K on Windows or ⌘-Shift-K on macOS allows users to raise or lower their hands during the meeting. The raise hand feature enables users to submit their queries or add their comments without interrupting the flow of the meeting. This new teams feature has thus been very beneficial as it is pretty easy to use and does not break the flow of the discussion.   

Large Gallery 

A few days back, Microsoft announced that the video gallery would soon be increased from 9 (3*3) to 49 (7*7) and now they made it live. In the meeting controls, you can see an option to select the large gallery. So, if more than 10 participants share the video in your meeting, the large gallery option will be enabled. To choose a large gallery, go to ‘More Options (…)’ in the meeting controls and select a large gallery.

Here is how it looks. 

Up to 20,000 participants 

Microsoft limits the size of interactive meetings to 1,000 participants, with a seamless shift to a ‘view only’ mode after the limit is met for up to 20,000 participants. 

Together View 

There is always some fun needed when you work in Teams and as everyone is working from home nowadays. Employees miss the fun they used to have when doing a meeting in the same room. Together view is a fun element introduced to Teams by Microsoft. It lets you feel like you’re in the same shared space with everyone in the meeting. Microsoft uses AI to segment your face and shoulders and place you and your co-workers together in a virtual space. 

Focus mode 

Usually, our focus needs to be on the content shared on the screen during our meetings, but many of us get distracted by the video feeds and other things on the net. To get rid of it, Microsoft has introduced the Focus mode. Focus mode is available when content is shared. It hides the video feeds and other things from the screen and focuses only on shared content. 

It’s available in the meeting controls under More options (…) > Focus mode.

Final thoughts on New Microsoft Teams Features

With a stunning range of 1000 participants to 20,000 people in a virtual call, the latest attributes of Microsoft Teams aim to upgrade the experience of attending meetings in the comfort of our places. Microsoft is constantly brainstorming and looking for ways to reduce the problems faced during virtual meetings. They are targeting all the users’ pain points, and with the help of the latest technology, they are upgrading old ways of operations. Through constant feedback from users across the globe, they are improving every bit. 

And this is not all. To give a more detailed and engaging experience to its users, Microsoft is geared up with several new teams features like adding live transcripts and translating live captions into subtitles so anyone can follow a meeting held in another language. So we are sure this is not all for Teams! 

Learn more about Microsoft Teams 

1. Create private channel

Teams owner can create a private channel to collaborate with specific members. Because it is a private channel,  only owner and members can access and view the content.
A private channel is useful in following scenarios:

a. When you need a space to collaborate with specific team members on a specific project.

b. When you need to share sensitive information like budgets, resourcing, or strategic positioning to specific people.

Currently, private channels do not support Stream, Planner, Forms tabs, and connectors.

You can create up to 30 private channels in a team and each channel can have a maximum of 250 members.

2. Cross Channel Posting

Sometimes you might have some information you want to share in multiple teams, which is why Microsoft introduced cross-channel posting.

The great benefit is that each post will have a separate identity and any reply to this post stays within the channel, which means members of other channels cannot see replies posted in other channels.

Users can select the specific channels where they want to post. Multi-channel posts can be sent to any channel in any team in which user is an owner or member.

3. Pin Channel

Some channels are more important and used more frequently in comparison to other channels. Depending on the number of Teams and channels you are part of, sometimes it becomes ifficult to find your relevant channels quickly. This would be a great reason to use the Pin Channel feature to pin your favorite or most used channels on the top.

The name of the team will appear under each pinned channel, so you can easily find  new content from the channel.

4. Announcements

Sometimes you have some important announcements to share with your peers that you need to highlight. In Microsoft Teams you can share announcements as well the headlines.

You can even choose if you want to give a image background or a specific color background to your announcement.

5. Priority Notification

Sometimes we want to share messages with people on urgent basis nd also want them to immediately respond to them. Using priority notifications feature can be best in such a senario. Teams has two types of priority notifications: “Important” and “Urgent”. When we select either option, it adds the word “IMPORTANT!” or “URGENT!” to the message.

Note: Urgent message will notify the recipient or group in each 2 minutes up to 20 minutes until they read the message.

Final Thoughts

As we continue to explore how to work with each other remotely, it is important to know the best ways to connect and collaborate effectively. The features we discussed above in Microsoft Teams can help you accomplish these goals.
We help companies like you by setting up Teams in your environment or any type of custom development, microsoft teams integrations, deployment and adoption needs you have.
If you have any additional questions on how to use Microsoft Teams for your organization, contact us today.

To help you in the quest to avoid scavenger hunts at work, Microsoft now has a way for you to integrate your SharePoint Lists and Pages with Microsoft Teams.

7 Steps to Add SharePoint Lists to Microsoft Teams

1. Go to Microsoft Teams channel.

2. Select the “+” symbol on the menu.

3. ‘Add a tab’ dialog will appear.

4. Select SharePoint under ‘Tabs for your team’. If SharePoint is not visible, you can find it by typing in the search box at the top right. 

5. Select the pages and list appearing on the tab.

6. Choose the SharePoint page you want to integrate into teams and click ‘Save’. You can also alert your team about the new tab by clicking keep the Post to the channel about this tab selected.

7. Your SharePoint page will then appear as a Tab in teams. See below image to know how a list will appear when added as a tab.

You can see a list in the tab using the same process. Also, you can  add new items to the list in the tab or you can click the ‘Open in SharePoint’ button.

Final Thoughts:

SharePoint pages are great way to share organizational news, documents, ideas etc., while SharePoint lists are a great for collaboration. if you are a Microsoft Teams user and want to have your SharePoint pages and lists in your teams channel you need to follow this blog.

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to our SharePoint team at contact@beyondintranet.com

Amidst the difficult situation due to Novel Coronavirus, organizations have increasingly looked to offer more employees with remote working options. Some of them are still evaluating if they have the right infrastructure in place.

If your organization is evaluating your team’s efficiency working virtually, we want to share how Microsoft 365 applications and custom workflows can be a savior.

As Microsoft Gold partners, we would like to share information on how to use the popular Microsoft 365 services and tools in order to help  your employees improve their collaboration with remote teams.

 Here are the Top 5 M365 Services and Tools

1. Microsoft Teams

Remote working is all about collaboration, communication, and transparency. One of the most useful tools in the Office 365 suite for keeping coworkers connected is Microsoft Teams. Microsoft Teams Integration gives users the ability to easily collaborate via chat, voice calls, video meetings, and screen shares.

Users can also participate in virtual meetings, securely share files, and set up group chats with their project team members. Teams is available anytime, on any device, and a component of most Office 365 subscription plans. For those looking to test out the platform, check out the Microsoft Teams Free Plan.

a. Create channels for each department

A major question arises is how you ensure various departments adopt Teams. Teams offers you the ability to create separate channels for each team in your organization.

You can create sales, marketing, HR, accounts, or individual project teams’ channels. Every Channel you create within a Team by default contains tabs that allow team members to access Conversations, Files, and Notes.

You may also want to add tabs for other Office 365 and 3rd Party apps that departments or teams in your organization already use. These tabs might include Power BI, Planner, Smartsheet, JIRA, GitHub, Adobe Creative Cloud, and others.

b. Set up Governance

Teams give you the ability to govern who controls channel creation. As an admin, you can assign roles to team members like owners can control the channel while members and guests can view chats, files, etc.

If you and your team are facing difficulty adopting Teams, we have experts who can guide you to a seamless teams adoption. They can even handle customization request on Teams. To learn more, simply connect to us at contact@beyondintranet.com

2. Employee Directory

Another popular add-in organization rely on in SharePoint is the Employee Directory Software.

This is a ready-to-use add-in which automatically captures your employees’ data from your SharePoint user profile and displays the information in an attractive UI on any device, no matter what your location is. This cloud-based directory helps you access your remote employee’s details and connect to the right people in your organization faster.

When working remotely, we know every staff member needs help for knowing who is who and what their skill set is. Basic details about your team members such as the  Full name, title, location or office, contact numbers, emergency contact numbers, email ID, department, skillset, and projects working on can be easily found on the card or list layout .

One can easily search team members based on any of the above categories and shown on any device wherever you are. This makes it ideal for teams to access from anywhere.

Another important aspect of our Employee Directory is you can also connect to any team member on Skype for business, message them or do instant chatting without leaving the Directory Platform.

Learn more about our Employee Directory here or Book a free demo with our expert now.

3. Dynamics 365 CRM

Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM (D365) is a cloud-based software which can be integrated with various sales and marketing, analytical, accounting and other collaboration tools.

The platform helps improve interdepartmental communication by being  the next evolution of a combined ERP and CRM product. It combines features from major Dynamics systems into a single, powerful platform. The areas of focuses are:

• Customer Engagement
• Field Service
• Sales & Marketing
• Finance and Operations
• Project Service Automation
• Business Central
• Talent Supply Chain Management
• Artificial Intelligence

Dynamics 365 introduces intelligent cloud solutions that connect data, drive smarter decisions and give you a complete end-to-end process. It gives you immense opportunities to track your team’s performance closely with intuitive dashboards and reports and boost the transparency in work culture.

We want to help you understand how to get most out of the full spectrum of D365 abilities. We have helped businesses across numerous industry segments implement Microsoft Dynamics CRM to achieve their intended goals.

Rethink what’s possible with Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Let’s discuss your project.

4. SharePoint Intranet for enterprises

The greatest advantage of SharePoint is its adaptability and ability to customize. With such features, it becomes an ideal technology to be used to create cool and useful company Intranet pages.

The Sharepoint Intranet is one of the most popular collaboration tools available today. Managing remote employees can be crucial if your organization does not have the right platforms to collaborate and find information.

Corporate Intranet sites can accommodate several widgets like:

• Employee Directory with custom filters
• Business information
• Company policy and procedures
• Project management widget
• Relevant videos for team members
• Document libraries
• Time zone, weather, and calendar
• Industry news and latest company news
• Announcements
• Latest blogs and articles
• Knowledge repository

There are several benefits of having an intranet for remote employees:

• Communicate with Individuals & Groups with Ease
• Share files & documents online
• Manage & Collaborate on projects
• Provide customer service & support from anywhere
• Get shared calendars, so you stay up to date on important meetings
• Consolidate processes, workflows, and procedures into one system
• Manage content development & marketing strategies

5. Document Management System and Secured File Sharing

In most companies, remote staff struggle to find relevant information or documents that they need. According to the IDC, knowledge worker spend roughly 2.5 hours per day, or 30% of the workday, searching for information. This figure increases when your team is in different locations.

SharePoint based Document Management can help organizations reduce expenses by making their documents easy to find. The platform ensures easy creation, secure storage, fast search, and various document retrieval types including rare file extensions.

The approval workflow and user permission system make the document management seamless and full proof. Some other features that boost the Document management system’s effectiveness are:

• 1. Different user access permissions
• 2. Impressive storage capacity (1 TB per organization with additional 10 GB per license in SharePoint Online)
• 3. Powerful indexing and metadata functionality
• 4. Versioning capabilities
• 5. Robust search features
• 6. Multiple layers of security with all kinds of document
• 7. Wide range of supported file types

Here is the process for Office365 Global and Teams admin to customize the Microsoft Teams meeting invite for all users in the tenant. Admins can add the following items to meeting invite:

1. Organization’s logo

2. Specific URLs

3. Custom footers that can include statements for privacy or security and phone numbers for technical support.

You need to follow these 7 steps to customize your Microsoft Teams invite.

1. Sign into the Microsoft Admin center

Global or SharePoint admins can access the dashboard by logging in:

https://admin.microsoft.com If you are already logged in, click ‘Admin’ from the app launcher as.
Note: If you see a message that you don’t have permission to access the page, you don’t have admin rights.

2. Click on ‘Show all’ in the left pane of the Microsoft 365 admin center.

3. Under ‘Admin centers’ select ‘Teams’ you will be redirected to the Microsoft Teams admin center.

4. Select Meetings > Meeting settings in the Microsoft Teams admin center.

5. In the email invitation section customize the following four fields

a. Logo URL – image URL (.jpg or .png)

b. Legal URL – Organization’s legal page or privacy policy URL.

c. Help URL – website contact page.

d. Footer –add privacy, disclosure, or contact information (phone number, address, etc). 

6. Click Preview invite to review it before it is live.

7. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save.

Note: After customizing, the meeting invite changes may take an hour to reflect.

Final Thoughts

The process above shows the ability to customize Microsoft Teams meeting invite and adding the organization’s logo, legal and help URLs with the footer to add privacy, disclosure, or contact information.

If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment below, or reach out to our SharePoint team for more questions. You can reach us at contact@beyondintranet.com