Microsoft Teams 4+

I was a reluctant participant to Microsoft Teams when it came out. I felt that this is yet another application that’s purporting to bring teams together and make it easier and fun for distributed teams to huddle. I am glad I was wrong. Teams kind of grows on you. It doesn’t have a lack of features... but they are presented in a way that facilitates better interaction. Yes, there are issues when you invite someone external to participate on your Teams. This part of having external users I thought was quite difficult in the beginning... but it has come a long ways. Also, the part where you are having live events with external participants. I can understand that Teams has to observe a fine line between external participation and security. I think they have done that. I also find the limits on video conferencing a challenge; but for internal meetings, it works rather well. I love how you can bring in various assets into the meetings and engage with them. There’s a lot to love about Teams, and a lot to poke holes at... ultimately, the type of application will drive the engagement from your participants, and your eventual appreciation.

Praise: Internal integration of various technologies (Skype, Sharepoint, Outlook Calendar, etc.) and external connectivity with Office 365 constituents is seamless and functional. In particular, remote meetings capabilities, including chat, desktop share, audio, all work well within our corporate network. Also, client-based app and web-based app have essentially the same functionality and look-and-feel, which is definitely preferred. iPhone-based mobile app works well so far. Very good compliment to the main Teams usage on my corporate Microsoft Surface Pro.

Criticism: I was never a fan of the Sharepoint-based file presentation and interface. Windows Explorer in details mode using libraries, shortcuts, etc. is preferred for file management. Maybe Sharepoint file presentation is needed for tablet devices. I’m a longtime laptop point-click user.

Also, in meetings, it was not obvious how to re-display the control bar (enable mute, for example) once the control bar disappeared automatically. I learned how eventually, but guidance on such important items should be more prominent. I had to hunt for a solution.

Ok so we all know the global pandemic has bringed us to do everything at home. I am a student that uses this app DAILY and i really like it, but recently they did this new update that changed everything but not a lot because you could still understand everything that u have to do in the app so over all i liked the update. BUT there is this section on Microsoft Teams called assignments ( keep in mind that i have been using this app for YEARS)(*with no problem at all*) this section let you see all your assignments that you have to do and they’re due dates, how much they’re worth, etc. And this section was divided by every class, teams, group, etc. For example: if you went to assignments it would appear a list of all of ur classes, groups, teams, etc. And you have to click the class that you would like to see the assignments. I really liked how they were divided BUT now in the new update all of the assignments are put together and i REALLY DONT LIKE THAT because i like to keep everything very organized and i dont like that the assignments are all mixed together. Overall i like this app a lot and its very easy to use is just the little things that bother me a tiny bit.