As Otago staff join their "fur babies" at home during the COVID-19 lockdown, Microsoft Teams is making collaboration easier.
No matter what team you're in Microsoft Teams has quickly become part of working life at Otago.
Only a month ago few University staff used the software programme, but when the nationwide lockdown was announced in late March, the ITS team rolled it out right across the University in just three days.
Director of IT Services Mike Harte says that Teams, a component of the Microsoft Office 365 suite, was going to be rolled out later in the year, but its implementation was fast-tracked when the lockdown was announced. This was done to ensure University staff had access to an easy to use collaboration and information sharing tool while working from home.
He says that you can set up groups in Teams based on work functions, or for a specific project and include people from any department. You can post conversations, store working files and there are a range of channels available to use, that can be made for private or public use.
"Just immerse yourself in it. I'd say go through some of the resources on the website, they might save you a lot of time and energy and do try the document sharing option it's great."
“You can set up one team that has a lot of channels. You can use the planner application, which is similar to the Trello boards that people might have used in the past, to plan projects and manage work streams.
“Perhaps one of the handiest things is the chat function that allows you to have quick conversations with people and it takes that 'noise' out of your email inbox. The chats are organised so you can see the topic threads more easily than having to search through your Inbox.”
Mike says if you're working in Teams you can push the call button and have a video or voice call with your colleagues, you can share screens, and collaborate on documents simultaneously.
“The other really cool thing is the tight integration with Office 365. So, you can collaborate with someone on a document at the same time, be that Word, Excel or PowerPoint. There's no need to send out a version via email for people to review and send back and the hassles of keeping track of multiple versions in peoples' inboxes.”
He says that across the University people are using Team in many different ways, there's 'no right or wrong way to use it'. However, there are some great tips and training resources available for people to get more out of Teams on the ITS website and LinkedIn Learning, which is free to all staff.
“Just immerse yourself in it. I'd say go through some of the resources on the website, they might save you a lot of time and energy and do try the document sharing option it's great,” Mike says.
Manager-International Marketing and Recruitment Megan Smith says Teams is a quick and convenient way to send messages and to have discussions with anyone who's in one of your teams.
Megan says International Marketing and Recruitment set up Teams as soon as they started working from home, and she loves many of the features.
“Rather than going through all the steps in setting up a Zoom meeting, you can just hit the colleague's name and call someone up straight away, and either have a voice of video call,” she says.
Her group set up channels for topics they can discuss such as marketing strategy.
“When I need a quick answer from the team, or a survey, I stick it in the channel and then get all the replies rather than sorting through email responses,” Megan says.
She is developing Teams with other University sections that her group liaise with, for instance with international admissions colleagues. There is also a Team for another specific project involving stakeholders from a number of different departments and divisions.
“With the first stage of the new University CRM about to launch, there's a Team for that, which has made it really easy for us to access the training materials and link to the training environment in one place.
"It's really, really easy to use, and a great way to communicate instantly with the team whether it be by chat, phone or video. It feels like we're all still together!"
“It's nice you can also have some fun within Teams using the reaction emojis – it allows for a bit more humour and interaction, when you can't do the usual face to face communication.”
Megan can see the International Office continuing to use Teams right across the University when staff return to campus. “It's a great way to bring people together,” she concludes.
University Team Leader Accounts Payable Aleisha Rowe says she's been using Teams for about six weeks, and when her team began working remotely, she got them all on board.
“It's really, really easy to use, and a great way to communicate instantly with the team whether it be by chat, phone or video. It feels like we're all still together! It has everything you need to keep in touch with colleagues and the selection of GIFs is hilarious. The instant chat function also allows us to discuss the different tasks and who will process what.”
She says while working remotely the videoconferencing feature has been extremely helpful and Accounts Payable are now using teams for their weekly team meetings.
“It's interesting to see the 'new work attire' and to meet the members in their bubble including all the 'fur babies'.”
Aleisha says when her team return to campus it will be back to face-to-face communication as they're in the same office, but she sees Teams as being a great tool to use to communicate across the wider University.