Choosing the right microsoft appSource solutions for your business
Selecting business software has become more complex now that Microsoft Marketplace hosts over 12,000 applications spanning AI, cloud, and industry solutions. The recent unification of AppSource and Azure Marketplace creates a single destination where you’ll find solutions for Dynamics 365, Microsoft 365, Teams, and Power Platform. Choosing the right solutions requires a structured approach that balances functionality, vendor credibility, and long-term business alignment. Define your business requirements before you search Start with real business problems, not tools Document specific challenges your teams face instead of hunting for generic solutions. Identify workflow gaps, integration needs, and performance bottlenecks across your Microsoft environment to ground the search in reality. Map your current workflows end to end Outline how work moves today, where it slows down, and where handoffs break. Clear workflow mapping exposes inefficiencies that software needs to solve, not mask. Bring the right stakeholders into the room early Engage IT, operations, and end users from the start. Each group contributes critical insight into technical requirements, daily usability, and long-term support needs. A shared requirements list prevents costly surprises later. Document technical, user, and compliance needs together Capture integration requirements, expected user volumes, security standards, and compliance obligations in one place. A unified view keeps decisions aligned across departments. Separate must-haves from nice-to-haves Must-have features support critical operations or regulatory requirements. Nice-to-have capabilities improve productivity but are not essential. Clear prioritization keeps decision-making focused and realistic. Plan for growth and geographic expansion Consider how requirements may change as your organization scales. Solutions should support increased user counts, added workflows, and multi-region deployments if global operations are part of the roadmap. Use a decision matrix to stay objective Assign weighted scores to each requirement based on business impact and strategic importance. A numerical framework reduces bias and makes tradeoffs easier to justify. Define budget boundaries early Document financial constraints upfront to eliminate options that are not viable. Budget clarity saves time and helps teams focus on solutions that fit both operational and financial goals. Evaluate publisher credibility and support infrastructure Publisher reputation directly impacts solution reliability and long-term viability. Review the publishing company’s background, years in operation, and customer base size. A one-person operation may lack resources to provide enterprise-grade support, while established vendors typically offer dedicated account management and 24/7 technical assistance. Examine the publisher’s geographic presence and support coverage. If your organization operates across multiple time zones, verify that the vendor maintains regional support teams or partners who can provide real-time assistance during your business hours. Evaluate their response time commitments through service level agreements and escalation procedures. Check whether the publisher holds Microsoft partner certifications and specialized competencies relevant to your industry. Partners with advanced specializations demonstrate proven expertise and maintain higher standards for solution quality. Review case studies and customer testimonials from organizations similar to yours in size and industry vertical. Advaiya’s Microsoft Solutions Partner designations across Modern Work, Data & AI, Digital & App Innovation, Business Applications, and Infrastructure validate our deep expertise in helping enterprises choose and implement the right Microsoft solutions. Assess technical integration and compatibility Technical compatibility determines whether a solution will enhance or disrupt your existing technology stack. Request detailed documentation about API requirements, data connectors, and authentication methods. Test whether the solution integrates seamlessly with your current Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, or Power Platform configurations without requiring extensive custom development. Analyze the solution’s impact on system performance across all connected components. Some applications may consume significant processing resources or create database bottlenecks that slow down other business operations. Use Microsoft AppSource’s test environments and free trials to conduct performance testing in controlled scenarios that mirror your production environment. Verify data security standards and compliance certifications. Enterprise solutions must align with your organization’s security policies and meet industry regulations such as GDPR, HIPAA, or SOC 2. Review data residency options if your organization requires information to remain within specific geographic boundaries. Organizations planning cloud migration should pay particular attention to data sovereignty requirements and compliance certifications when evaluating AppSource solutions. Analyze user reviews and implementation support Customer reviews provide insights into real-world performance and common implementation challenges. Focus on reviews from enterprise customers rather than small businesses, as their use cases more closely align with complex organizational needs. Look for patterns in feedback regarding ease of deployment, ongoing maintenance requirements, and vendor responsiveness to feature requests. Determine whether the publisher provides implementation assistance or if you need to train internal teams or engage an IT partner. Implementation support significantly reduces time-to-value and minimizes disruption to daily operations. Request references from customers who have deployed the solution at similar scale. Speak directly with IT leaders who have managed the implementation to understand resource requirements, timeline expectations, and post-deployment optimization efforts. Ask about hidden costs such as additional licensing fees, training expenses, or required infrastructure upgrades. Conduct thorough testing and proof of concept Never commit to an enterprise solution without hands-on testing. Take advantage of free trials, demonstrations, and sandbox environments to evaluate functionality against your documented requirements. Create test scenarios that replicate your most complex business processes to identify potential limitations before full deployment. Involve end users in the testing process to gather feedback on usability and workflow compatibility. Technical teams may approve a solution that ultimately frustrates daily users due to counterintuitive interfaces or excessive steps to complete routine tasks. Balance technical capabilities with user experience to ensure adoption success. Run pilot programs with a limited user group before organization-wide rollout. Pilot programs reveal integration issues, training gaps, and change management needs that may not surface during initial testing. Set clear success metrics for the pilot phase and establish go or no-go criteria before proceeding with broader deployment. Compare the total cost of ownership Application purchase price represents only one component of the total cost of ownership. Calculate ongoing subscription fees, user licensing models, and potential volume discounts for enterprise agreements. Some solutions charge per user while others use consumption-based pricing tied to transaction volumes or data storage. Factor in implementation costs, including
Microsoft 365 Copilot training: What users should learn before rollout
Enterprise leaders face a critical challenge when deploying Microsoft 365 Copilot. Many organizations struggle with low daily usage after initial provisioning despite the platform’s widespread adoption. The gap between licensing and effective adoption stems from inadequate user training. Employees need structured preparation across prompting techniques, security awareness, and application-specific workflows to ensure your investment delivers measurable productivity gains. Why training matters before copilot deployment Organizations that rush Copilot rollouts without comprehensive training face predictable adoption barriers. Even Microsoft’s internal teams experienced challenges driving consistent usage across enterprise sales divisions despite rapid license provisioning. The disconnect occurs because AI-powered productivity tools require a different skill set than traditional software. As AI agents become more prevalent in automating workflows, understanding how to effectively interact with these systems through proper prompting becomes a critical business skill. Data governance concerns remain the biggest roadblock to adoption, with legal, compliance, and data security teams expressing apprehension about oversharing. Without proper training, users inadvertently expose sensitive information or fail to leverage Copilot’s capabilities effectively. Successful implementations require users who understand how Copilot improves productivity and workflow. Training sessions with real-world examples help teams adopt the tool and integrate it into daily operations rather than treating it as an experimental add-on. Essential prompting skills for maximum effectiveness Prompting represents the foundational skill users must master before Copilot deployment. Unlike traditional software commands, AI prompts require context, specificity, and iterative refinement. Employees need hands-on practice crafting effective prompts that generate actionable outputs. Goal-oriented requests Users learn to frame prompts around specific outcomes rather than vague instructions. “Summarize this 50-page contract, highlighting liability clauses and payment terms” outperforms “Tell me about this contract.” Context provision Including relevant background information improves Copilot’s responses. Training should demonstrate how adding project context, audience details, and desired tone shapes outputs. Iterative refinement Users must understand prompting as a conversation, not a single command. Training should show how follow-up prompts clarify initial responses and narrow results. Application-specific syntax Microsoft 365 Copilot behaves differently in Word, Excel, Teams, and Outlook. Users need targeted examples for each application they’ll use regularly. Organizations should provide prompt libraries with role-specific templates. Sales teams need different examples than finance or engineering departments. Pre-built prompts accelerate adoption by giving users proven starting points they can customize for their workflows. Security and data governance fundamentals Security training must precede Copilot access to prevent data exposure and compliance violations. Users need a practical understanding of how Copilot accesses information and what safeguards protect sensitive data. Document-level permissions Copilot respects existing SharePoint and OneDrive permissions. Users must understand that Copilot surfaces information they already have access to, making proper file permissions critical before deployment. Sensitivity labels Training should cover how to apply and recognize sensitivity labels. Users learn which documents require restricted access and how labels prevent Copilot from surfacing confidential information in inappropriate contexts. Oversharing risks Employees need examples of common oversharing scenarios. A marketing team member with access to unreleased product roadmaps could inadvertently include confidential details in Copilot-generated client presentations without proper awareness. Compliance requirements Industry-specific regulations like HIPAA, GDPR, or SOX require tailored training. Users in regulated industries must understand how Copilot interactions affect compliance obligations. Organizations that adopt document-centric security approaches before Copilot deployment experience fewer data exposure incidents. Site and team owners should receive additional training on management and security best practices, ensuring they configure permissions correctly across Microsoft 365 environments. Application-specific workflows and use cases Generic Copilot training produces mediocre results. Users need role-based, application-specific instruction that connects Copilot features to their daily responsibilities. Training should prioritize the applications each team uses most frequently. Copilot in microsoft teams Teams users should learn to generate meeting summaries with action items and decision points, catch up on missed conversations, draft professional responses that maintain appropriate tone, and extract key information from lengthy chat histories. Copilot in outlook Email-focused training covers drafting initial emails from brief prompts, summarizing long email threads to identify action items, adjusting tone and length of drafted messages, and scheduling follow-ups based on email content. Copilot in word Document creation training demonstrates generating first drafts from outlines or bullet points, rewriting sections for different audiences, summarizing lengthy documents into executive briefs, and creating tables and structured content from narrative text. Copilot in excel Data analysis training includes generating formulas from natural language descriptions, creating charts and visualizations through prompts, analyzing datasets to identify trends and outliers, and formatting and organizing data according to specifications. Organizations leveraging AI in business intelligence can extend Copilot’s capabilities to create more sophisticated data analysis workflows. Organizations should supplement Microsoft resources with internal use cases demonstrating how Copilot solves company-specific challenges. Collaboration and communication competencies Copilot enhances human capabilities rather than replacing them. Human-type skills like collaboration, teamwork, communication, leadership, creativity, and organization appear nearly five times more often than technical skills in job requirements. Training should emphasize how Copilot supports collaboration through meeting preparation, cross-functional communication, project coordination, and presentation development. Meeting preparation Users learn to generate agenda drafts, compile background materials, and prepare discussion points using Copilot before meetings. Cross-functional communication Copilot helps technical teams explain complex concepts to non-technical stakeholders by rewriting content for different audience levels. Sales teams benefit particularly from this capability when creating client-facing materials and proposals. Understanding sales process management fundamentals helps users leverage Copilot for creating more effective customer communications. Project coordination Training demonstrates using Copilot to track action items, compile status updates, and maintain project documentation. Presentation development Users practice generating presentation outlines from existing documents and refining slides for impact and clarity. Organizations benefit from showcasing how Copilot improves collaborative workflows rather than positioning it as an individual productivity tool. Training should include team-based exercises where groups solve problems using Copilot together. Continuous learning and adoption strategy Copilot training cannot end at deployment. Successful organizations implement continuous learning programs that keep skills current and surface organic best practices. Regular drop-in sessions Schedule lightweight, recurring forums every two weeks where users share discoveries and troubleshoot challenges. Innovation days Quarterly events
Apps for project management in Microsoft Teams
Project management teams need to collaborate and communicate across the company. It is important that project managers have the right tools in order to effectively work together. Microsoft Teams is one of the most popular modern workplace solutions that is helping Project Managers become more agile. Let’s look at how this real-time collaboration platform allows project managers to communicate in real time, manage documents, and many other features. Project management success with Microsoft Teams: Microsoft Teams is a great cloud-based solution for project management because it seamlessly integrates other tools into its interface. Multiple apps can be used for different task management within your Teams environment. This list includes business apps that are particularly helpful for project management teams. Planner and To-Do lists This tool is great for managing and collaborating on tasks with your team. You can assign them to the appropriate team members and then separate them into buckets that correspond with your project stages. Planner allows you to set the priority level of each task, create a timeline, modify the progress status, attach files and notes, and leave comments. To receive alerts about new tasks, you can connect your Planner to Outlook. This app is part of Microsoft Teams. It consolidates your To-Do tasks with your Planner tasks into one place. The project portfolio management tool manages and tracks all tasks within one app. You can create, assign, track, and share tasks with your team or individually. All of this is done in one app. You may find Tasks By Planner and To-Do on the left-side navigation of Microsoft Teams. This was previously known as Planning. To add the app, click the Ellipsis icon at the bottom of the navigation list. You can also add this tab to a Teams Channel. Forms Source: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/work-with-colleagues-to-create-edit-and-review-forms-in-microsoft-teams-333b97a3-41d9-48bc-a1cb-84a96bd44e14 You can create questionnaires, polls, or quizzes using forms. This will allow you to gather feedback from your clients and team, assess their satisfaction, and share ideas for improvement. Forms can be used to request that your project team submit the finalized project documentation. You can connect Forms to the correct SharePoint library with a Power Automate flow so that all submissions go there directly. Lists Source: https://www.microsoft.com/en-in/microsoft-365/microsoft-lists This Microsoft app is relatively new and helps you organize your work. Lists are a system of records. You can use them to organize your contacts, plan events, track issues and create project management task lists. It integrates with Teams so you can have conversations about list items, leave comments, and @mention other team members, as well as visualize any list with the date column using a calendar view. Approvals The approvals app is a great way to save time and nerves during the approval process. This app is essential for project management. All requests will be documented properly and readily accessible for future reference. It is no longer necessary to send emails asking for signatures or approvals, especially if multiple approvers are required. The entire process is well-structured by the app. It can be used to request approvals from any member of your team. This includes guests such as contractors, partners, and clients. SharePoint Online SharePoint Online is the backbone of document management in Microsoft Teams. SharePoint has made file sharing easy and reliable for team projects. Each Teams channel has a SharePoint site that includes a document library. The SharePoint document library stores files that are uploaded to and created in Teams. Teams and SharePoint allow team members to collaborate on documents, and updates are instantly synchronized between both platforms. Related: Facilitate higher workplace productivity by using MS Teams document management systems Microsoft PowerBI Adding Power BI reports into Teams makes it easier for people to work together and moves the work forward during meetings. You can add the Power BI app in Teams and share a report to a Channel. Integrations with third-party applications for project management Third-party project portfolio management software may be required depending on the complexity of the projects you manage. You can connect them to Microsoft Teams, so you can all collaborate on different projects with your team without having to switch between platforms. These apps can help you manage your project more efficiently using Teams integration. Asana Asana, which integrates with Microsoft Teams, is a popular application that has millions of users in over 200 countries and territories. Asana is an excellent tool for project managers to keep track of all aspects of the project. Asana allows you to easily build a project and create a workflow. Each member of the team can view their tasks and organize them. They can also prioritize their work and create subtasks. Asana’s task dependencies function is an especially useful key feature of the app. Asana lets team members track the status of their tasks and notify them when they are ready to start their part. Monday.com Monday.com is a cloud-based work platform that allows team members and project managers to customize and create project workflows. Connect Microsoft Teams to monday.com to get access to a range of features such as customizable workflow templates, time tracking, deadline-keeping, dashboards, and insights into the project. You can share and receive real-time updates with the Microsoft Teams Integration. @mention team members to “tag” get their attention on certain tasks and priorities. Search for links from monday.com boards and join conversations on Teams. Receive notifications and customize them to ensure you only get notifications about your most important priorities. Manage time visually using the timeline feature. This is a flexible and intuitive version of Gantt charts. Use the personal space tab to keep track of your inbox and project. Trello Before there were many project management apps, people used to only choose Trello or Asana. Trello, a web-based Kanban-style app that allows you to manage your projects in a focused and simple way, is an excellent choice for anyone who’s looking for an easy-to-use application. The Trello app in Microsoft Teams allows you to link your Trello workspaces to Teams. Trello is automatically started
Improve workplace productivity with Teams document management
Many factors affect workforce productivity. One of these is the ability to find the right documents, resources, and files at the right moment. This affects enterprise productivity, the pace of work, and employee productivity. It also allows employees to concentrate on more valuable activities like innovation, strategy, training, and skill enhancement. Research shows that employees are spending more time searching for critical documents in cluttered online document management systems than they are focusing on providing workplace value. The research found that 54% of US office workers surveyed said they spend more time looking for files and documents than responding to emails and other messages. In their day-to-day business, organizations generate a lot of documentation and data that includes details about business transactions. This includes key information such as the transaction’s details, names of parties, amounts paid, dates, and the nature of the transaction. These documents, also known as source documents, must be stored in a way that is easy to locate. Organizations fail to address this crucial aspect, resulting in inefficiency and inefficient routine operations. This is compounded when you consider the documentation and information created by remote teams or dispersed workers in a hybrid work environment. It is not about just storing and cataloging but also accessing the information quickly for correct decision-making. To make accurate decisions on pricing, delivery, and overall experience, the procurement department needs to have instant access to real-time and historical data from different locations. However, it is not possible to delay the decision-making process while you search for information. Time is an important component of any business outcome. Therefore, procurement must have instant access to both historical and current information. Office 365 document management allows you to build highly scalable workflows. It also lets you say goodbye to clunky papers once and for all. You can create your own Office 365 document management software with minimal effort and all the customization options that you want. Is Microsoft using a document management system? It is. You can bet your bottom dollar! Microsoft 365 document management has become a reality due to the combination of solutions such as SharePoint Online, Microsoft Teams, and OneDrive. These services allow users to share, store, and collaborate on documents anywhere they are. It’s easy to overlook Microsoft’s document management skills on paper. This is until you discover the many perks that this ecosystem offers: There are countless search and filter options It can be difficult to find what you are looking for when there are many folders and documents. This problem isn’t solved by many document management search systems. However, Microsoft offers a number of search and filter options to find your document easily. Team collaboration It’s not easy to maintain project-specific documents. Document management systems today do a poor job of managing project documents and keeping relevant teams informed. Microsoft’s offerings, like Office 365 and Teams, are certainly different. Permission management and security Most document management systems do not allow users to restrict who has access to certain documents. Only certain users should be allowed to view documents. One department might not want members from another department to have access to their files. A department or group of users may have to add/edit permission, while another group might only have read-only permission. You might also want to share files with people outside of your organization. For instance, a member of the marketing team might wish to show the client advertising receipts or sales reports. Microsoft Team’s private and public files features are here to help. Depending on the type and content of communication, teams can categorize files as private or public documents. Public document sharing Files that are sent to the channels (team) automatically become available in SharePoint. Here, the files are saved in the cloud and available to everyone. SharePoint stores files that are shared with a larger group. This allows everyone to access all files. Private document sharing Contrary to team-focused SharePoint, OneDrive stores the files that are shared in private chats. OneDrive is the best way to save files that are private. Each employee can access his OneDrive account and use it to store his files. Teams then filter files that are exchanged via a group chat or 1:1 chat with OneDrive for Business. Employees have the assurance that their personal files and documents are kept private or only shared with a select group of people. Reliable version control functions Have you ever made changes to a document only to have to restore the previous version? Many users find it frustrating that legacy document management systems do not allow them to save the document history or restore previous versions. Microsoft offerings have saved history to check what changes are made and by whom. Keep the folder structure and naming. Document management systems tend to use the same folder structure and naming conventions throughout the space. Users are unable to name or organize folders in a way that makes the most sense for them. All changes made to the system have automatically reflected all users. Notification and approval Some documents need executive approval before being sent to others (think invoices, performance appraisals, etc.). This is a major problem with most digital document management software. This problem is not an issue with Microsoft Teams. As Microsoft makes use of advanced automation like ChatGPT, Copilot, etc. Automation allows Teams to offer suggestions for various tasks, such as suggesting a file to be included in a conversation or reminding to follow up on an important message. Copilot may suggest files or documents included in a chat about a project. This can streamline communication and ensure all information is included. Document management with Microsoft Teams Microsoft Teams is one of the most effective modern workplace solutions to the question of “how to create a document management system.” Microsoft Teams was launched in 2017. It consolidates all aspects of document management so that there are no duplicated files or scattered records. It is important to know that Microsoft Teams document management occurs via SharePoint. A
How to utilize Microsoft Teams to manage projects more efficiently
We’ve received inquiries like the one above, asking if Microsoft Teams can be utilized as a project management tool. Why use Microsoft Teams for project management? Many are familiar with Microsoft Teams as a hub for communication. They understand it allows users to voice and video calls their coworkers, but that is often where their understanding ends; Microsoft Teams offers much more than simply keeping people connected. Microsoft Teams’ top intuitive features: Microsoft Teams is an all-inclusive communication and collaboration platform. It features document collaboration, presentation, whiteboarding, and other renowned communication tools. Stay informed with Teams and channels Microsoft Teams offers a platform for open, transparent communication between project managers across all aspects of the projects they manage. Let’s assume you’re a project manager in an IT company and have three projects for each customer. Create a team for each customer using the Teams tab, then create communication channels within those teams for each project you need to manage. It takes only a click of your mouse to add appropriate people or resources from within your staff members to each of these channels and teams. Make work accessible to everyone. Time tracking is of the essence when managing a project. Are you spending too much time trying to locate and work on essential documents in multiple folders or repositories? Doing so could be costing you valuable hours in the long run. MS Teams can save you time! To access and co-author Word documents and Excel spreadsheets from within Teams, just connect it to SharePoint. Don’t miss another deadline! Project management professionals understand the importance of deadlines. Microsoft Teams provides you with the ability to share an Outlook group calendar from within its platform. You can utilize Planner to assign task lists and stay organized. With Microsoft Planner integrated into your Teams platform, you’ll have another means of keeping tabs on tasks and project timelines. Be brave and customize your teams for maximum efficiency! Teams offer numerous integrations that can be customized. Don’t be intimidated to explore those options to make Team truly yours – there are countless third-party apps and services available in Teams’ Apps tab that you can choose from! Check out our blog Apps for project management in Microsoft Teams to explore some wonderful apps for efficient project management. Microsoft Teams can assist in solving project management issues. Project management challenges present themselves on a regular basis. As a project management professional, your role is to overcome these obstacles and deliver the desired business outcomes. There are various tools and techniques that can be employed for this purpose. Let’s examine some of the most pressing project management challenges Microsoft Teams can assist you with. Lack of communication Project managers face many difficulties, including poor communication. Poor communication can cause major delays to projects and cost overruns. Many times, different stakeholders in a project work in silos. This means they don’t share important updates with the entire team. MS provides numerous features that promote open working. Poor data management Project teams deal with a lot of data. It can be challenging to keep it organized and structured, leading to chaos in storage if not handled properly. Navigating and searching for accurate documentation becomes challenging due to these inefficiencies which cost valuable time essential for project management; ultimately leading to reduced business productivity levels as a result. Microsoft Teams’ seamless integration with SharePoint, OneDrive, and other Microsoft products enables you to efficiently manage your data while ensuring its security. Stakeholder alignment Project management involves many stakeholders. Internal stakeholders such as your project team, managers, and executives are important; but you also have external stakeholders like customers, suppliers and contractors, investors, and vendors – the list is endless! Coordinating all the different project stakeholders can be challenging. Sending different messages to each person involved in a project isn’t effective – make sure everyone is on the same page about project progress without needing mediators between parties. Microsoft Teams makes this possible. Teams allows you to bring together multiple departments and teams in one workspace where they can collaborate and communicate more efficiently. Knowledge management Sometimes, knowledge sharing is insufficient after a project’s completion. All the lessons learned from past and future endeavors can serve as valuable teaching points. Knowledge management is fundamental for successful project management. It allows you to identify best practices and provide reference points for your teams. Microsoft Teams can assist in solving this problem, by creating a knowledge base where all business documents can be stored securely. Project budgets and timing Any project manager should strive to finish within budget and on schedule. Various reasons could go wrong, causing delays or additional costs that should not have occurred in the first place. Microsoft Teams can assist in solving silo work, miscommunications, lack of accountability, and collaboration failures by helping solve these issues head-on. Microsoft Teams offers an easy-to-use integration with both native and third-party project management software, so you can communicate and collaborate with anyone regardless of the platform they use. To guarantee everyone stays aware of their tasks, Teams allows for connecting task management applications. Furthermore, Teams record all conversations for accountability purposes – making it simpler to hold everyone accountable for the project. Adherence to project management guidelines Every team working on a project should have clear project management guidelines with detailed instructions and steps. Collect best practices and create these guidelines; share them with your team members and give them all of the tools they need to automate certain tasks so they can focus on the project at hand. However, it is possible to disobey these guidelines and continue using antiquated techniques which bog down project management. Microsoft Teams can assist in solving this issue. It allows you to transform your project management guidelines into an action plan that your team can follow. Final thoughts on Microsoft Teams for project management Microsoft Teams has revolutionized the way project managers work. Teams require a solution to address all stakeholders involved in the project management
New capabilities in the third-anniversary edition of Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams turned three last week and released some new cool features for remote workers to be productive and safe in COVID-19 (coronavirus) outbreak. Using Microsoft Teams, employees can connect seamlessly, regardless of whether they are in an office cubicle or working from home.   Often such a case occurs when you are forced to work remotely, and it became a challenge to maintain connectivity during professional online meeting experience. With the third anniversary edition, Microsoft Teams is planning to add new capabilities to build the best online meeting experience to help users being more productive from a remote location. Let’s explore some of the new capabilities which already rolled out and some new ones which will be available later this year. Avoid background distraction  While attending Teams meetings from any location, the user with background blur feature can keep the focus on himself without worrying about background movement.  While attending Teams meetings from any location, the user with background blur feature can keep the focus on himself without worrying about background movement.  Minimize background noise Many of us, while working from home or remote location, face noise issues in the background and are not be able to concentrate on what is being said on online meetings clearly. Microsoft Teams have arrived at a solution with real-time noise suppression features to minimize distracting background noise and to allow us to hear what’s being said, clearly. Easy to participate in large meetings  With new “Raise hands” feature in Teams meetings, making it easier for attendees to participate in large meetings actively. Attendees can send a visual signal when they have something to say, and everyone in the conference will see a visual cue on the attendee’s video feed, as well as in the participant list. This will give an attendee the room to participate in the current conversation. Offline Experience  With offline support, users can now access Teams even when no network is available or with terrible network conditions. With offline capability, users can create and read messages, view calendar, browse previously viewed channels, pinned chats, and many more. Low-bandwidth support  Microsoft Teams is also now optimized to work in a low- or poor-performing network scenarios. With this support, the user will be able to send messages even with sub-optimal connectivity. In case when network bandwidth is too poor to send a message, the user will be notified, and a message will be saved until the user has returned to a functioning network.This feature will come to Teams over the next couple of weeks. Quickly reach a group of people all at once MS Teams allows creating a tag to categorize people based on attributes such as role, project, skill, or location. Tagging people helps the user to notify a group of people all at once by @mentioning a tag in a chat or in any standard channel of the team without having to type every single name. Anyone who has been given that tag will receive a notification as they would if they were personally marked by @. Automatic creation of an org-wide team For small to medium-sized businesses, for org-wide collaboration purposes, O365 global admin can easily create a public group that automatically pulls in every user in the organization and keeps the membership up to date with active directory whenever a user joins or leaves the organization.  New Files experience in Teams powered by SharePoint The new file experience in Teams provides you the ability to have a rich preview across 320+ file types, create views, sync files to your computer, work with metadata, pin files to the top, take actions like check-in and check-out, and much more.  Store recordings in region storage when Stream isn’t available in Go Local Teams meeting recordings get stored in Microsoft Stream cloud storage. In contrast, cloud recordings are currently not allowed/enabled for customers where Stream service is not available in the corresponding Go Local region. Now Microsoft is going to change the current behavior by allowing “Allow cloud recording” and turning it ON by default. This modification will store the recordings in the respective in-region data center. Pop-out chat windows for easy chat switching For smooth movement between ongoing conversations, now Teams will allow the user to pop out individual chat conversations into a separate window. Teams Devices Microsoft is planning to expand the Teams devices ecosystem and offer some options specific to verticals, including on-the-spot employees known as “Firstline workers.” Microsoft is adding support for Teams on: Include up to 10,000 users in an individual team In Microsoft Teams, the upper limit on individual team members has been increased from 5,000 to 10,000 users. This upgrade will start rolling out to customers soon.  Group chat with up to 250 people Sometimes we need to collaborate with a large group – members from multiple teams without creating a team as a group chat. The group chat feature will allow up to 250 users in a group conversation to quickly do a group chat. This upgrade will start rolling out to customers soon. Microsoft Teams continues to expand to meet the needs of users in all roles and across industries enabling work continuity during challenging times. Work from home (WFH) is made easier with Microsoft Teams! Teams allow you to quickly connect with teammates and be more productive from home as well.  Get a consultation from us today to know how quickly you can deploy and adopt technology solutions like Microsoft Teams to make your distributed teams and remote workers more productive.Â
Work continuity during COVID times
Last week, as the news kept flowing in from around the world about how COVID-19 could become a pandemic, Advaiya proactively started workshops for its managers and the teams on how to protect oneself, their coworkers and families through distancing, washing hands and general disinfecting, as well as to be prepared in case of complete lockdown situation. Though Advaiya, with its globally distributed team and expertise in modern workplace technologies, is fully equipped and experienced in quickly deploying and helping adopt technology solutions that make distributed teams and remote workers more effective, this situation was unique and needed rigorous and immediate action. The team members were trained on practicing social distancing and respiratory hygiene, through all-hands meetings on Microsoft Teams and various short group discussions and then continued to remind through posters in the office premises. We conducted workshops for the managers on how to manage teams remotely and mock drills for IT infrastructure readiness. We had all the meetings on Teams even while in office. We also implemented a crisis communication app for gathering any relevant updates and communicating in a proper way. Working in a lockdown situation for a week now, the extensive use of O365 and MS Teams for collaboration and communication has been quite effective. The managers hold daily stand-up meetings with their teams in the mornings using MS Teams video conferences. The importance of formal work and task management, when there are only a few opportunities to informally check-in, cannot be overstated. Some of the teams, like marketing and HR using MS Planner to manage the tasks of the day. The project teams are relying on our customized implementations of Azure Dev-Ops and Project Online ensuring that there is clarity as regards task assignment, work status and issues. Apart from project and regular work, our team members are taking the opportunity to devote more of their time and efforts towards learning, such as obtaining professional certifications, which are funded by Advaiya. We have also identified many initiatives to build technical components and solution assets and also to upgrade internal applications. These initiatives typically involve building connectors or interfaces with newer technologies like Microsoft Power Platform, the new Project or extensions for Teams. Our work has helped organizations ensure easy and secure access to information, documents and applications from anywhere, automate processes and build flexibility and resilience. And even as situations have become a bit challenging, with support and resourcefulness of our team members, we continue providing superlative customer service, without risking our or our community’s health in any way.
Microsoft Teams and Project Online integration using Microsoft Flow
Microsoft Flow is a cloud based workflow service that enables automation of common tasks and business processes across the most common apps and services.