Here around the halls of C5 Insight, we talk a lot about working together better—but what does that mean? We strive to provide strategies to connect, communicate, and collaborate both efficiently and effectively with those who will listen.
Let’s talk about one of the platforms we recommend to foster both communication and collaboration in the digital workplace…
Microsoft Teams: Work Together Better
In a previous blog, Yammer vs. Microsoft Teams, I said working together better starts with communication. Well, Microsoft Teams gives team members the ability to communicate and is known as the “hub for all collaboration.”
To recap, communication is the act of sharing or exchanging information from one person to another via a connection (e.g., phone call, email). Collaboration takes place when multiple people work together to accomplish a shared goal.
Teams Takes Over
Microsoft Teams (“Teams”) has been growing exponentially since its release in 2016. As of December 2018, 21% of organizations use Teams, while only 15% of businesses use their competitor’s platform, Slack. Teams is projected to be the second, most-used chat app in the workplace, runner up to Skype for Business, by 2020 (source).
Per Microsoft, Teams is also referred to as the “hub for all teamwork.” Not only is Teams the replacement for Skype for Business chat, but it’s the one-stop-shop for your organization’s internal workflow. Users can find all of the information and tools they need to get the job done in one place; saving a considerable amount of time.
As organizations start to roll out Office 365 Groups and modern Team sites, Teams should be standard in any Office 365 deployment. But let’s keep things in perspective—a super fancy, handy dandy new widget does not guarantee wide adoption across your organization. For Teams to truly benefit the bottom line of your business, the app needs to be put to work.
You may be thinking, “all of this sounds great, so what’s the point of this post?” As I said, no matter how impressive a tool is, the success of its adoption heavily depends on various factors such as user training, communication, and constant testing. If your organization does not give direction and govern new technology well, the adoption rate will be defeating, and momentum will be lost.
Microsoft Teams Usage Report
How do we know how users are using Teams?
How many users are there?
How active are they?
Conveniently, Microsoft provides a robust reporting dashboard to answer these questions so you can monitor how your teams are doing.
- Go to https://admin.teams.microsoft.com.
- Click Analytics & Reports.
- Under the Report dropdown, Click Teams Usage.
You will see four reports; the first two give general usage by device and user. The more helpful report is the Teams Usage report—not very configurable as of right now, but useful nonetheless.
The Teams Usage report gives a bird’s eye view of each team’s overall activity and helps you make more informed decisions. For example, a Teams Usage report is helpful if you are running a pilot rollout or simply monitoring Teams after a launch. The report measures the following data points:
- Active users
- Active users in teams and channels
- Active channels
- Messages
- Privacy setting of teams
- Guests in a team
For a detailed screenshot with callouts explaining each feature, quickly interpret the report on Microsoft’s blog.
Be sure to regularly monitor your organization’s Teams usage to equip users with training and guidance as well as uphold governance for successful implementation. Take advantage of the data you can gather now using the Teams’ reports to inform how your organization could use the platform more effectively in the future. Remember, the reporting will only get better as Microsoft continues to update their products.
Please reach out to us if you have any questions or need help either rolling out Microsoft Teams or anything Office 365 or SharePoint related. We’re here to help you work together better!
