When Microsoft Teams is embraced across an organisation, you often find it becomes your new desktop, with communication from colleagues and contacts, files, tasks, workspace, nearly everything is now managed within your MS Teams account. However, this can mean that you’re bouncing around the application from one window to another! We’ve put together 5 useful tips that could help you save time throughout your working day.
1. Manage your MS Teams view
Ensure you have quick access to the Teams and Chats you frequently use. If working within Chat, make sure you pin your favourite or most frequently used people to the top of the screen. You can do this by clicking on the three dots and select “pin”, you can unpin a chat at any time, for example when a project is ended and you’re no longer working with that person. This is a great way to see any new messages that appear, as they will appear in bold and not be buried in your recent conversations.
2. Pop out active chats
You may find that you’re constantly moving from window to window to answer a Chat message, particularly if you click on a pop-up box to answer a colleague. To keep your place within Teams, it is possible to pop chats into separate windows. When active in a Chat, there is a little box in the top right-hand corner with an arrow pointing to the top right (mouse tag is “pop out chat”), click this. This particular chat will now appear in its own window. So, if you’re busy working somewhere else in Teams you can launch this window from your task bar and liaise with your colleague or contact, without losing your current location in your main Teams application window.
3. Use the Activity icon
When you have been in a meeting or out of office you can find yourself with lots of activity on your return. The Activity module, by default the top icon on the left-hand toolbar, allows you to view all targeted conversations, actions and updates. So, if a colleague or contact has “@” you, or there has been a response to something you have posted, or specific notifications for you, this is a great place to view them all at once and catch up with the most important activity first. If you click on any of the notifications, you will be taken to the relevant place within Teams. This is a great way of prioritising in between meetings, allowing you to catch up with general updates when you are ready.
4. Make use of your personal workspace
Microsoft recently added a default Chat which will show your own name. You will find this automatically pinned at the top of all your chat messages. This is a great space for you to make notes, drafts, upload files and it’s really to replace that pad we, or at least I, have next to my desk! It’s great for saving links that you may want to refer back to at a later date. It can also be accessed by the Teams search facility, rather than flicking through pages of notes. By default, it will also give you a tab to see your organisation (if this is created) and will pull through your LinkedIn profile once logged in. However, my favourite is the Activity tab, this is different to the activity on the tool bar (see tip 3), this “activity” is a history of everything you have done in MS Teams and a great way to jump back into something.
5. Have a play with Loop!
Loop is a relatively new application that is now present as a short cut when writing chat messages to colleagues and contacts. If you love a list this is the app for you! You can get rid of that scrap of paper or notepad, but still keep that positive feeling of ticking things off your list. When in a chat, click on the circular icon with the line through it, mouse tag “loop”.
You can then select what type of list you would like, tick list, checklist bullet points or even a task can be easily created to help manage your day-to-day activities. You could use this in your personal workspace (tip 4) or directly with a contact. If you wish to share with a team, when creating your loop, click on the line just above your text that shows who has access and edit the audience. Once saved you will see a copy icon on the far right, which will enable you to share the link with a team. If they click the link they will be able to access your list via the browser.
These MS Teams tips may seem simple, but if you haven’t come across these features before they can make a big difference. It’s that age old saying “you don’t know, what you don’t know!”
Our Professional Services team, work with businesses to streamline the use of MS Teams to make sure they’re getting the best out these tools, helping individuals, teams and businesses work more efficiently. If your organisation could benefit from expert, tailored advice, please get in touch with our User Adoption Team to see how we could help you.
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5 useful time saving tips for Microsoft Teams users…
When Microsoft Teams is embraced across an organisation, you often find it becomes your new desktop, with communication from colleagues and contacts, files, tasks, workspace, nearly everything is now managed within your MS Teams account. However, this can mean that you’re bouncing around the application from one window to another! We’ve put together 5 useful tips that could help you save time throughout your working day.
1. Manage your MS Teams view
Ensure you have quick access to the Teams and Chats you frequently use. If working within Chat, make sure you pin your favourite or most frequently used people to the top of the screen. You can do this by clicking on the three dots and select “pin”, you can unpin a chat at any time, for example when a project is ended and you’re no longer working with that person. This is a great way to see any new messages that appear, as they will appear in bold and not be buried in your recent conversations.
2. Pop out active chats
You may find that you’re constantly moving from window to window to answer a Chat message, particularly if you click on a pop-up box to answer a colleague. To keep your place within Teams, it is possible to pop chats into separate windows. When active in a Chat, there is a little box in the top right-hand corner with an arrow pointing to the top right (mouse tag is “pop out chat”), click this. This particular chat will now appear in its own window. So, if you’re busy working somewhere else in Teams you can launch this window from your task bar and liaise with your colleague or contact, without losing your current location in your main Teams application window.
3. Use the Activity icon
When you have been in a meeting or out of office you can find yourself with lots of activity on your return. The Activity module, by default the top icon on the left-hand toolbar, allows you to view all targeted conversations, actions and updates. So, if a colleague or contact has “@” you, or there has been a response to something you have posted, or specific notifications for you, this is a great place to view them all at once and catch up with the most important activity first. If you click on any of the notifications, you will be taken to the relevant place within Teams. This is a great way of prioritising in between meetings, allowing you to catch up with general updates when you are ready.
4. Make use of your personal workspace
Microsoft recently added a default Chat which will show your own name. You will find this automatically pinned at the top of all your chat messages. This is a great space for you to make notes, drafts, upload files and it’s really to replace that pad we, or at least I, have next to my desk! It’s great for saving links that you may want to refer back to at a later date. It can also be accessed by the Teams search facility, rather than flicking through pages of notes.
By default, it will also give you a tab to see your organisation (if this is created) and will pull through your LinkedIn profile once logged in. However, my favourite is the Activity tab, this is different to the activity on the tool bar (see tip 3), this “activity” is a history of everything you have done in MS Teams and a great way to jump back into something.
5. Have a play with Loop!
Loop is a relatively new application that is now present as a short cut when writing chat messages to colleagues and contacts. If you love a list this is the app for you! You can get rid of that scrap of paper or notepad, but still keep that positive feeling of ticking things off your list.
When in a chat, click on the circular icon with the line through it, mouse tag “loop”.
You can then select what type of list you would like, tick list, checklist bullet points or even a task can be easily created to help manage your day-to-day activities. You could use this in your personal workspace (tip 4) or directly with a contact. If you wish to share with a team, when creating your loop, click on the line just above your text that shows who has access and edit the audience. Once saved you will see a copy icon on the far right, which will enable you to share the link with a team. If they click the link they will be able to access your list via the browser.
These MS Teams tips may seem simple, but if you haven’t come across these features before they can make a big difference. It’s that age old saying “you don’t know, what you don’t know!”
Our Professional Services team, work with businesses to streamline the use of MS Teams to make sure they’re getting the best out these tools, helping individuals, teams and businesses work more efficiently. If your organisation could benefit from expert, tailored advice, please get in touch with our User Adoption Team to see how we could help you.
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