Microsoft Teams Review

Microsoft Teams is trying to increase its presence in the video conferencing market. After Google Meet and many other free video conferencing platforms, Microsoft is also available for free to collaborate with your colleagues with some limitations.  Microsoft Teams is trying to increase its presence in the video conferencing market.

After Google Meet and many other free video conferencing platforms, Microsoft is also available for free to collaborate with your colleagues with some limitations.

If you are not using Microsoft 365 already then, it’s an expensive video conferencing option, but for existing users, it’s a cost-effective alternative.

Platform supported

You can use Microsoft Teams on all major environments including Android, iOS, Windows, Linux, and macOS. The application works exactly on all the platforms, so whether you use on Windows or Mac, Android or iOS, your experience will be the same.

User interface

The UI is clean and simple to understand. Admins can initiate an online meeting immediately or can schedule as per the requirement.

Set-up a meeting

As I mentioned earlier, it is available for all the major platforms including Android, iOS, Windows, Linux and macOS, you can download the app directly from the app store or Microsoft website. Download and install the app on your device, use your email account to log in. Microsoft Teams can also be accessed via a web browser.

For organizations using Microsoft Teams Rooms devices, it might take little longer to set up as each of these devices needs to be connected to the organization’s Microsoft Teams Account.

When you log in to the Teams, on the left you get all the options to schedule a meeting or call directly to your teammates.

When you click on ‘Meetings’ you get two options – Meet Now and Schedule a meeting. If you want to initiate a meeting right away click on the first option, then choose your audio/video settings to begin the call. Else, schedule your meeting by adding title, date and time details.

Once you are done with scheduling you can share a link with your team to join the call.

Join a meeting

The host or admin can invite or share a join link with you. Click on the link and you can join the call immediately.

The Mobile App

Microsoft kept clean UI of the mobile app. Log in to the app to join or schedule a meeting. The UI of the app is similar to the web and PC.

Features

Single window to schedule video/audio meetings with one person or a team. Using the Teams, one can organize a webinar or meeting with up to 10,000 participants.

The app is fully integrated with Microsoft 365 enabling you to schedule a meeting among the organization. In case you have a few guests to join, they can use a browser without downloading the application.

As like competitors, Microsoft Teams also has features including screen sharing and call recording, background blur and chat.

Teams’ UI is intuitive, filled with loads of features which enable admins to perform various functions easily. At the same time, this might be a bit overwhelming at first, for admins with plenty of features, integrated applications, and third-party options.

Performance

Microsoft Teams enables you to make one-on-one calls or group calls with audio-only or video. It is quite simple to connect with anyone in your Microsoft Teams account, just click on the name then click the video icon, and call. In case the other person is unable to answer, you can leave a voicemail-like message.

There are multiple options to call and few looks similar to Skype. For instance, some features from Skype for Business are being rolled into Teams. Teams does support VoIP calling features, in that you can call anyone with a phone using Microsoft's cloud-based PBX.

Microsoft Teams has some of the good tools and integrations with Outlook. With Teams, you can schedule a video call in advance and you get an alert before it begins. When integrated with Outlook calendar, you can check the availability of the other person to find a good time for a meeting.

Teams is available for free, that offers you unlimited chat and search meaning you can communicate with your team and always stay up to date with free chat and search capabilities. The free account offers 10 GB of team file storage and 2 GB of personal file storage per person. Teams let you collaborate in real-time with MS Office including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. Let your teammates access, share, and edit Word docs, PowerPoint, and Excel files in real-time.

Whether you are a small or large business, it lets you communicate and collaborate with teams up to 500K users. Share your entire screen or choose a specific app, a presentation, or a file. It let you integrate over 250 apps and services meaning plenty of functions can be enabled as per your requirements.

Microsoft keeps your data secure, it uses Secure Real-time Transport Protocol (SRTP) technology for video and audio data encryption. However, Microsoft itself can access all data stored on its servers. The admin and video conference host gets whole of control over who can join calls and meetings and what data can be accessed and shared. The platform also requires the use of multi-factor authentication (MFA) to protect users and businesses from unauthorized account access.