Microsoft Teams is a powerful collaboration tool that integrates chat, video meetings, file storage, and application integration into a single platform. Teams can literally transform the way your employees communicate and operate on a daily basis. Here we show you how to maximise teamwork with Microsoft Teams for your business and reap the benefits that come with it. 
Understanding Microsoft Teams 

Microsoft Teams falls part of the Microsoft Office 365 package. It is the communication platform that allows teams to chat, host video calls and more. Let’s highlight some key features of Microsoft Teams: 

• Chat: You can communicate through one-on-one or group chats, with support for text, emojis, gifs, and attachments. 

• Channels: You can organise conversations and content into channels, which are dedicated spaces for specific topics, projects, or teams. 

• Meetings: Teams includes built-in video conferencing and audio calling capabilities, where you can schedule and join meetings directly from the platform. 

• Files: Users can access and collaborate on files found in SharePoint or OneDrive. 

• Tasks: You can create, assign, and track tasks directly within Teams. 

Teams also offers extensive integration capabilities with other Microsoft 365 applications, such as Outlook, SharePoint, and OneNote, as well as third-party apps and services through connectors and APIs. 
Setting Up Microsoft Teams for Success 

Setting up your team’s workspace for Teams is a relatively easy process. Define your team's structure and objectives, then create channels within Teams to organise conversations and content by project, department, or topic. Use descriptive names and descriptions for channels to make them easily identifiable and searchable. 
Effective Communication with Microsoft Teams 

Using the Teams chat and channels for daily communication is quite simple. You would use the chat feature for quick conversations or one-on-one discussions and channels for organising discussions and sharing updates. 

When conducting virtual meetings, you should remember to be punctual and follow a clear agenda. Try not to interrupt others, instead use the hand up feature, which will notify a meeting runner that you have something to add. 
Enhancing Collaboration in Microsoft Teams 

With Microsoft Teams you can also share files and collaborate on documents in real time. This allows you to effectively manage tasks and projects directly within Teams, without needing to manually save to your desktop and lose your progress accidentally. By utilising the Planner and To Do integration feature, you can facilitate better task management in your business. 
Optimising Microsoft Teams for Different Business Needs 

Every business has a goal to enhance productivity, and that can easily be achieved with Microsoft Teams. You can customise Teams with project management apps, file-sharing platforms and even communication bots; there are a variety of ways that businesses use Teams for collaboration. 
Advanced Tips and Tricks 

On a scale of 1 – 10, how nifty are you with your keyboard shortcuts and hidden features? Well, saving time is saving money, so take some time to learn some handy shortcuts to enhance usability on Teams. If you’re looking to measure and analyse collaboration, you can track key performance indicators such as response time and project milestones to get started. 
Microsoft Teams is the future of business collaboration, designed to enhance productivity and streamline teamwork. 

If you’re looking to enhance your existing Teams usage, give Microsoft Teams Voice Breakout a try. This product in collaboration with Vodacom allows you to save up to 20% on voice calls, collaborate intelligently and improve productivity.