Last week, Microsoft Corp. has rolled out a new chat-based workspace system called Microsoft Teams. Designed to enhance productivity and communication among the employees, the program offers collaboration capabilities, content and the tools needed for them to work with Microsoft Office 365.
“At Microsoft we aim to empower every person and organization with the technology to be more productive as individuals and in groups,” said Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft. “Office 365 is the broadest toolkit and platform for creation, communication and collaboration. Microsoft Teams adds a new experience to Office 365 as the chat-based workspace designed to empower the art of teams.”
Microsoft Teams is built on four core promises:
Chat for today’s teams
As the popular movie quote goes - "All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.", the program is not just a place for employees to discuss their projects online but also a way to express their personality with emojis, GIFs, stickers and memes within their digital workplace, conversation rooms are visible to the entire team, but there's also a private chat room.
A hub for teamwork
With the program, employees can use voice and video meetings, as well as using Microsoft Office 365 capabilities like Microsoft Office documents and Microsoft Graph. There's also a cross-application membership service, called the Office 365 Groups that helps users to move one collaboration tool to another.
Customizable for each team
Microsoft believes that every team is unique in their own way, so with this, they are also offering teams to customize the experience to meet their specific needs. Each member can create their own channel to organize conversations based on a topic, and with a feature called Tabs, this provides quick access to frequently used documents and applications.
In addition, Tabs can be created for Office 365 services like OneNote, SharePoint and Planner, or third-party solutions, such as Zendesk and Asana coming soon. Third-party services like Twitter are also available in the program.
Security
Since this is a global scale release, Microsoft Teams offers the most advanced security by Microsoft Cloud, encrypting every data at all times, along with a multifactor authentication providing enhanced identity protection.
Microsoft Teams will support key compliance and data protection standards, such as the data processing terms with European Union Model Clauses, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act business associate agreement (HIPAA BAA), ISO 27001, ISO 27018, and SSAE 16 SOC 1 and 2 report.
“We’ve designed Office 365 to meet the unique needs of every group, with purpose-built applications — like Outlook, SharePoint and Yammer — that all naturally work together. And now with Microsoft Teams, Office 365 accommodates all workstyles,” said Kirk Koenigsbauer, corporate vice president of Office.
Starting from 2 November 2016, Microsoft Teams preview is available to all Office 365 commercial customers with Office 365 Enterprise or Business plans. Office 365 IT administrators can enable Microsoft Teams for their organization from the Office 365 admin center.
For more information, visit the Microsoft News Center or engage with the Microsoft Twitter community at @OfficeNews and @MSFTNews using #MicrosoftTeams.
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