Showing posts with label slack. Show all posts
Showing posts with label slack. Show all posts

Sunday 2 February 2020

Microsoft Teams Thoughts

Teams is pretty similar to Slack (which I use heavily for nearly 18 months).  The teams and channels concept make software development a pleasure even more so for teams with remote people which is pretty much all the software teams i work with for the past few years.
Teams brings multiple different functions under a single application.  Has all the feature of Zoom and Skype for Business for calling and meetings.
Note: Skype is being depreciate.  Teams supports also supports large meetings.  Allows you to add your own apps and approved ISV apps such as planners, Shifts.
Teams has a great calendar inside teams and you can use outlook to arrange Team meetings.
Each channel has Posts, files and Wiki (I love and use Wiki's in teams a lot, but you can remove the Wiki tabs easily)
Teams chat has the ability to share code snippets and the give control function is great for support and peer working.  The activity notifications work better than using email as your notification system which a lot of people tend to still do in large enterprise software projects.
Chats can now pop out into it's own window so it is separate from you MS teams client.  Very useful.
The reactions (e.g. like, surprise) within channels  are useful to build a strong team spirit.
Easy to add Canvas Power Apps, and work great with the Power Platform.
Teams native app is available on Mac, iOS, Android and Windows 10.

Zoom is more like Skype: Has meetings and chats, no file collaboration, apart from attachments in chats.  Files not 1st class citizen.  A small sub set of what Teams does.

Issues:
It's busy and users often don't like it for a few weeks.
Need to orientate yourself - the functionality is there, you just need to find it.
Apps don't keep session state when you change apps or focus.  MS I believe are going to offer popups and keep persistence shortly.

Updated: 20 May 2020: Who is a Chat/Conversation bot app that utilities MS Graph data: