Microsoft Launches the chat based workspace for Office 365 – Microsoft Teams

While it may seem strangely similar to other chat applications, such as Slack, Microsoft Teams boasts the ability to access Microsoft Office while staying within the chat window. Thus, it unifies Office 365 and takes shareability and collaboration to a whole new level.

[Image Source: Microsoft]

MS Teams is available at a glance, 181 countries and 18 different languages, Office 365 business clients who have any of the following plans: Business basics, Business Premium, & Company E1, S3 & E5.

MS Teams will also be available to clients who purchased E4 before retirement. General uptime is planned for Q1 2017.

"Using MS Teams, we look forward to creating greater openness, a digital environment that gives visibility to work, Integrated and accessible – at the team level – so everyone can stay informed.", That's Kirk Koenigsbauer, Vice Chair of the Board Team.

Core Promising Features:

Microsoft Teams uses a sleek and elegant chat design. Some of its unique characteristics include: the support of not only persistent but also threaded cats, Visibility for team conversations across the default team, and availability of private chat to chat in small groups. Teams even have Skype onboarding for voice and video conferencing. Teams also includes Emoji stickers, GIFs and custom memes.

[Image Source: Microsoft]

To become a hub for teamwork, built in tools like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, SharePoint, OneNote, Planner, Power BI and Delve are available; backed by Microsoft Graph, intelligent services are surfaced throughout the work space to help with information relevancy, discovery and sharing.

Microsoft Teams is also built on Office 365 Groups, the cross-application membership service that makes it easy to move from one collaboration tool to another while preserving their sense of context and share with others.

[Image Source: Microsoft]

Teams can be customized for and by the group as a whole. Team members have the ability to create channels to organize conversations based on the topic. Teams share the same connector pattern as the swap. For example, it may provide notifications and updates from third-party sites such as twitter or github.

Microsoft also launched Teams Developer Preview program a platform for the developers to start building integrations with Microsoft Teams right away.

Users can create Tabs that surface user web experience directly within Teams,  for an instant access to services in the right context, and collaborate around its content. Write Bots that surface user experience in chat and teams can engage with the service via queries and quick actions. Teams can send Connector notifications in channels so teams can easily get updates.

MS Teams security includes 24/7 data encryption at rest and in transit. It supports key compliance standards including EU Model Clauses, ISO 27001, ISO 27018, EUMC, SOC 1 Type I & II, SOC 2 Type I and II, HIPAA and FERPA. It has multi-factor authentication for greater identity protection and unique authentication via an active directory.

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Customers like Alaska Airlines, Accenture, Hendrick Motorsports, Valorem and more have already started using Microsoft Teams. They have shared positive feedback on how it is allowing their dynamic teams to collaborate in an even greater capacity than before.

"With our early use of Microsoft Teams in Office 365, we think this is the digital cockpit we've been waiting for," said Andrew Wilson, Accenture's Chief Information Officer.

For more information, visit the Microsoft News Center. You can also follow and interact with Microsoft's Twitter community through @OfficeNews and @MSFTNews.Teams

Via: Office Blogs