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Introducing: Microsoft Office 365 - Teams

Many of our clients are familiar with Office 365, but often are only using the basic applications; Word, Outlook and Excel. There are however more tools at your disposal, one of the most useful to any business with a few staff is the Teams application.

We live in a world where more people are working remotely and on several different projects at a time, so it’s often challenging to keep everyone up to date. It can also be a nightmare keeping all the project information in one, easy to access place. Sharing information and files via email opens you up to people missing an email or using an old file. The Teams application allows you to quickly build a Team, add members and start a conversation. Crucially, everything related to that project is kept in one secure place. You are also able to add people from outside your organisation to a specific project.  Communication becomes much more effective when everyone is working better together.

When a new project comes in you can start up a new ‘Team channel’ specifically for that job. You are then able to add in the people you want to be involved in that job. From there you can have a conversation about the job. Add attachments such as plans, consents, contracts, videos, photos or anything else that will be useful or needs to be stored in a central location with access from anywhere. These can be edited by people with in the Team in real time. This ability to customise is particularly handy if a plan or document needs updating for people who are out in the field but need to access the latest files quickly.

The Project Plan within each channel is a tidy way to delegate work to people involved in the project. Everyone receives notification of the work they have been assigned and deadlines that need to be met. Within each ‘To Do’ you can set up what needs doing, how its is progressing and start / finish dates. Attachments can be added to each task as well. Meaning everything related to that project is in one place. If deadlines are approaching and the ‘to do’ needs to be completed, you can reassign the task to someone else or add additional people to help complete that part of the project.

As with most Microsoft Office 365 applications, Teams integrates across the platform. Users can move between group chats, editing documents, check dashboards and assign work. The ability to access Teams while on a job from a mobile phone or tablet device also means everyone can access the files where and when they need them. This gives you real flexibility and collaboration. Smarter use of resources also results in better efficiencies and faster delivery of projects.

If your company has Office 365 but you are not using Teams, or many of the other available applications, we are happy to assist with training to get you making the most from this powerful package. If Office 365 is something you have been thinking about but you’re not sure too sure where to start, just give us a call 06 757 3809 or an email – taranaki@bakertillysr.nz and we would be more than happy to get you started.