Item: Microsoft Teams
Rating: 4
Author: sameer chhabra

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

MIcrosoft Teams has been implemented some time back (say about 6-7 months back) within our organization as a replacement for Skype for Business. It has been launched throughout the organization and not within a specific team as such. It offeres a wide variety of solutions such as team audio/video calls, real time file update feature, file sharing on cloud feature, group team chats etc. The unique and primary business solution that is offers is that of real time file update on cloud by the team members which eventually help in keeping the status tracker updated all the time without going into the hassle of sending and getting it updated via email which turns out to be a very inefficient task.

Pros and Cons

Firstly, it enables us to form team groups within the platform which ultimately helps in team chats and file sharing within the teams and also lets the file to update in real time by all the team members within the group.
Secondly, Teams is the only platform where we have different applications embedded and we can use those to prepare different types of files within the teams and thus we don't have to scroll outside teams for the same. For example, onenote, Jiracloud, planner, stream, wiki are different platform embedded within Teams to help us use them and complete our tasks
Thirdly, Teams is directly connected to sharepoint which i think is the most useful feature of the same. We can upload all the files on to share point so that anyone who we want to send the file can access the same via share file.

The most important point to work upon is the Graphical user interface (GUI), Teams GUI is not very easy to use and thus it takes a lot of time for a new user to understand its feature and to further use them. Therefore, work could be done to improve its GUI so that it becomes user friendly.
I noticed that whenever I log in daily and directly go to Teams, it takes a quite a lot of time to connect to its server and to come online as compared to other products like zoom which are blazingly fast . Thus the time taken by Teams to connect to its server for the first time could be improved.
Teams is a really heavy software considering the vast features it offers and the embedded additional platform like Jiracloud, onenote etc embedded into it which in turn makes the software really slow at times. therefore, efforts could be made to improve its processing power.

Return on Investment

The ROI has certainly been really amazing since we started using Teams. This primarily because now we are using only Teams and my organization is not using any other service platforms and this saves them a lot of money
One for reason for a increased ROI is the speed with which the tasks get done since they can be completed in real time on Teams cloud as compared to the emails exchanges which takes a whole lot of time.
One other positive impact that Teams has created is that all of my team now is more connected then ever since we have a platform now to work and simultaneously talk informaly when needed. This enhances the enthusiasm within the team

Alternatives Considered

Zoom

Although by far, Zoom is lagging behind by a lot when compared to Team but still that is the only product which can be compared to teams as it offeres audio/video calls and chat functionalities which are similar to Team. However, teams is far ahead of it since it offere a whole lot of other features such as real time file sharing, sharefile access, access to other applications embedded within teams, group chats etc. which count for the reason as to why my organization selected Teams.

Support Rating

I would like to give full rating to Teams as it is just the best product in the IT field available right now and is way above its competitive softwares as it offers a lot of other functionalities which the other software products fail to provide. Also, the support has been really amazing as I called the Teams support once since Teams was not opening on my system and the Teams support helped me resolve the issue within one hour.

Usability

I have deducted one point just so beacuse the GUI of Teams is a bit difficult to understand for a first time user and thus the user takes quite a lot of time to understand the same and use all its features and Secondly, the software is pretty heavy and thus it takes some extra time to do some tasks as compared to other products.

Key Insights

Do you think Microsoft Teams delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Microsoft Teams's feature set?

Yes

Did Microsoft Teams live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Microsoft Teams go as expected?

I wasn't involved with the implementation phase

Would you buy Microsoft Teams again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Zoom, Skype for Business (formerly Lync), McAfee Endpoint Security

Likelihood to Recommend

Microsoft is really great product and actually its a bliss for indivuduals working in large teams since it keeps all the team members well connected via team groups and file sharing within the different teams in the organization. However, I do think that this software is not pretty well suited for freelancers aka people who work on clients single handedly since they could perform all the above mentioned tasks via emails or skype and hence it is not best suited for them.

Teams- The ultimate communication and file sharing platform for teams.

Overall Satisfaction with Microsoft Teams