What is Microsoft List and How can I use it?

Microsoft List is a powerful tool that allows you to create and manage lists of data, tasks, events, and more. You can use Microsoft List to organize your work and personal life, collaborate with others, and access your lists from anywhere. Here are some of the benefits of using Microsoft List:

• You can customize your lists with different views, filters, sorting, and formatting options.
• You can integrate your lists with other Microsoft 365 apps, such as Teams, SharePoint, Outlook, and Power Automate.
• You can use templates to create lists quickly and easily, or start from scratch and build your own.
• You can share your lists with others and control their permissions and access levels.
• You can use smart rules and alerts to automate workflows and get notified of changes or updates.

Microsoft List is a versatile and flexible solution that can help you manage your information and projects more efficiently and effectively. To learn more about Microsoft List, visit https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/microsoft-lists/lists-app

Unplugging What’s Next for Teams 2.0

Here's the full interview:

Microsoft Teams 2.0 now in Public Preview

Microsoft has released access to the Public Preview Program on March 27^th, 2023. This feature has to be enabled in your O365 portal to become available. There are currently some things missing from the new version but later this year Microsoft will be turning this on as the default version. In listening to Microsoft’s Anupam Pattnaik, Product Lead for Teams he provided information on when it will be released and what to expect from the new Teams Platform.

Teams 2.0 is a ground up rebuild of the application. The goal was a 2x increase in speed while using less than half of the resources. Is there any functionality that we are going to lose with the new Teams? Expect some changes on how to access some third-party storage spaces. One benefit is the ability to be active in multiple Teams tenants at the same time. The plan is to have feature parity before the end of this year.

Why should you turn it on today? It’s faster and takes up fewer system resources. But I’m not sure without feature parity you may be disappointed with doing this too soon.

Here are some of the things to expect from Teams 2.0:

• Launch app up to 2X faster
• Join meetings up to 2X faster
• Switch chats/channels up to 1.7X faster
• Consume up to 50% less memory
• Consume up to 70% less disk space
• Streamlined Actions: Less clutter simplifies notifications, search, messages, and channel
• Personalized experiences: Threaded conversations, customizable group chats, and interactive emojis give users more expressive collaboration
• Simplified meetings: Updates to the pre-join experience, gallery view, and screen sharing remove barriers to effective meetings

Check out What’s New in Microsoft Teams at Enterprise Connect 2023

Microsoft Teams Premium

Microsoft Teams Premium is a Teams license that allows organizations with Microsoft 365 subscriptions to enhance their Teams experience with benefits such as more personalized and intelligent meetings and webinars, enhanced protection for meetings, advanced management and reporting capabilities for IT, and advanced Virtual Appointments.

Whether you’re meeting one-on-one, for a webinar, or for a virtual appointment, help make every meeting a perfect fit for your audience. Easily create meetings that meet your specific needs. Use the power of AI to focus on what matters in every meeting. Help keep confidential meetings more protected.

Create personalized meetings in a snap that embody your company brand. Infuse your brand into virtual meetings with custom backgrounds and other options that embody your company brand. Stay focused on the meeting information that matters most with intelligent recap. Apply advanced meeting protection to deter data leaks, enhance encryption, and automate meeting safety options. Turn on advanced features that track business performance, manage queues, and help reduce no-shows. Engage any audience using advanced webinar functionality that automates communications and customizes presenter and attendee experiences.

Microsoft Teams Wiki is no longer supported!

Microsoft announced in January 2023 that it would be retiring the Teams wiki in February 2023. The decision to retire the Teams wiki was made due to its low usage and the fact that it was not as feature-rich as OneNote. Users who have created wikis in Teams will be able to export their content to OneNote notebooks before the retirement date. After the retirement date, users will no longer be able to create new wikis in Teams, but they will still be able to access and edit existing wikis.

Here are the key dates related to the retirement of the Teams wiki:

• Mid-August 2022: The Teams wiki channel tab will no longer be configured automatically during the creation of new standard channels.
• February 2023: The Teams wiki will be retired.
• January 2024: The Teams wiki will be completely removed from the platform.

If you are using the Teams wiki, we recommend that you export your content to OneNote notebooks before the retirement date. You can do this by following these steps:

1. Open the Teams wiki that you want to export.
2. Click the More button (three dots) in the upper-right corner of the page.
3. Select Export to OneNote.
4. Select the OneNote notebook where you want to export the content.
5. Click Export.

Once you have exported your content to OneNote, you can continue to edit it there. You will also be able to access it from any device that has OneNote installed.

Microsoft Loop Environment vs Microsoft Teams: What are the main differences?

Microsoft Loop Environment and Microsoft Teams are both collaboration platforms that enable users to work together on projects, documents, chats, meetings, and more. However, they have some key differences that make them suitable for different scenarios and workflows. In this article, I will compare and contrast these two platforms, especially in terms of how they facilitate communication among users.

Microsoft Loop Environment is a new platform that was announced in October 2021 as part of the Microsoft 365 suite. It is designed to be a flexible and fluid workspace that allows users to create and edit content collaboratively in real time, using various components such as text, tables, lists, images, diagrams, and more. Users can also chat and comment within the same workspace, as well as integrate with other Microsoft 365 apps such as Outlook, OneNote, SharePoint, and Power BI. Microsoft Loop Environment aims to reduce the friction and complexity of switching between multiple apps and tools, and to enable users to work more creatively and productively.

Microsoft Teams is a well-established platform that was launched in 2017 as a hub for teamwork in Microsoft 365. It is designed to be a unified communication and collaboration platform that allows users to chat, call, meet, share files, and access apps within Teams and Channels. Users can also create and edit documents using Office apps such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote within Teams. Microsoft Teams aims to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of teamwork, and to enable users to communicate and collaborate securely and seamlessly.

One of the main differences between Microsoft Loop Environment and Microsoft Teams is how they approach communication. Microsoft Loop Environment focuses on asynchronous communication, meaning that users can communicate at their own pace and convenience, without having to be online at the same time. Users can chat and comment within the same workspace where they create and edit content, and they can also use @mentions to notify specific people or groups. Microsoft Loop Environment also supports synchronous communication, meaning that users can communicate in real time, by using voice or video calls within the workspace.

Microsoft Teams focuses on synchronous communication, meaning that users can communicate in real time using chat, voice calls, video calls, or meetings within teams and channels. Users can also use @mentions to notify specific people or groups. Microsoft Teams also supports asynchronous communication, meaning that users can communicate at their own pace and convenience by using chat or email within teams and channels.

Another difference between Microsoft Loop Environment and Microsoft Teams is how they organize content. Microsoft Loop Environment organizes content by workspaces, which are collections of components that users can create and edit collaboratively. Workspaces can be shared with anyone within or outside the organization, and they can be accessed from any device or browser. Users can also create sub-workspaces within workspaces to group related components together.

Microsoft Teams organizes content by teams and channels, which are groups of people who work together on a common topic or project. Teams can be private or public within the organization, and they can have multiple channels for different purposes or conversations. Users can also create tabs within channels to access files or apps related to the channel.

Both Microsoft Loop Environment and Microsoft Teams are powerful platforms that offer different ways of working together and communicating with others. Depending on the needs and preferences of the users, they can choose the platform that best suits their scenario and workflow.

Welcome to the new era of Microsoft Teams! | S7 E7

Microsoft YouTube video to discuss the next chapter of the Microsoft Teams story, with the public preview of the new Microsoft Teams app for Windows. In this episode, Derek Snyder speaks with Jeff Teper, President of Collaborative Apps & Platforms about what this means for the future.

Microsoft Teams Free(classic) vs. Microsoft Teams (free)

April 12th Is your deadline for the emergence of the new Microsoft teams (free) Is from Microsoft. If you currently using the previous version you are going to find out  that there is no automatic data transfer path between the two applications. 

If you want to have that free transfer you will have to pay for the $4 per month subscription of Microsoft Teams Essentials.

To see the new changes on this support page about the retirement of Microsoft Teams Free, now called Microsoft Teams Free (classic).

Microsoft's product page positions the new Microsoft Teams (free) tier as a product for home users and families, but the features it offers are pretty similar to the old classic tier overall. Video calls still top out at 100 participants and a one-hour runtime (one-on-one meetings can run for up to 30 hours). Each Teams (free) user gets 5GB of storage, while Teams Free (classic) users received 2GB each and a 10GB pool of shared storage. Both products offer unlimited chatting and access to shared files, task lists, and polls.

Skype for Business online contacts retirement

MC349675 · PA COMPUTER CONNECTIONS INC1

With Skype for Business Online retired on July 31, 2021, Microsoft will soon be commencing the decommissioning process of the supporting infrastructure no sooner than June 30, 2022. Key points: Timing: June 30, 2022 Action: review and have upgraded users take action as appropriate How this affects your organization: Any users in your organization that were upgraded from Skype for Business (either online or on-premises), may need to take one or both of the following actions: Actions Required: If these upgraded users had contacts in Skype for Business Online and have not yet logged into Teams since being upgraded, they must log into Teams at least once before June 30, 2022, to ensure any contacts from Skype for Business are migrated to Teams. If these upgraded TeamsOnly users still have Skype for Business Online meetings that they organized before they were upgraded to TeamsOnly, then before June 30, 2022, these users must either reschedule their remaining Skype for Business Online meetings as Teams meeting, or an administrator in their organization must convert these meetings to Teams meetings using the Meeting Migration Service. After Microsoft removes the Skype for Business Online infrastructure for a given TeamsOnly user, any remaining Skype for Business Online meetings organized by that user will no longer exist and hence will not function. For additional information, please refer to the following documentation:   Skype for Business Online retirement View this message in the Microsoft 365 admin center

New file sharing experience in Microsoft Teams

Microsoft is updating the file sharing and access control experience in Microsoft Teams to make it similar to the experience with other Microsoft 365 apps. We had announced this feature last fall but delayed the rollout to ensure the best customer experience. We apologize for any inconvenience that this delay may have caused.

Key points

• Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 51230 
• Timing: mid-March through mid-April 2021
• Roll-out: tenant level
• Control type: admin control
• Action: review and assess

How this will affect your organization

With this update, when users share a file from within Teams (desktop/web), they will have the option to create sharing links that provide access to:

• anyone
• people with existing access
• people within your organization
• specific people, including those in a 1:1 chat, group chat, or channels.

Before users share a file in a chat and channels, they will be notified if recipients don't have permission to view the file. The user can change permissions before they share the file (if they have permission to do so).

What you need to do to prepare

Teams honors the sharing controls defined in SharePoint. For example, if external sharing is disabled in SharePoint, then it is disabled in Teams as well.

The default file link permission in Teams will be the same that is set at tenant level, unless that setting has been overridden at the respective SharePoint site level.

Review your file sharing options in the SharePoint admin portal to ensure that they align with the requirements in your tenant.

Learn more

• Manage sharing settings in SharePoint and OneDrive
• Sharing files in Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Breakout Rooms

We have been doing so much work using Microsoft Teams, Zoom and other remote connectivity software that it is exciting to see that the software manufacturers are continuing to upgrade their products to make them even more capable as time goes.

One of Microsoft's flagship product's is Microsoft Teams and they have added the ability to use breakout rooms in their software. Here's an article on how to use that new feature.

Microsoft Mechanics - Building Power Apps

If you haven't discovered Microsoft Mechanics you really need to create a link to their publications on YouTube. They are full of insightful hints on how to use Microsoft products and might give you a leg up on developing a new program for your company.

In this episode, you will see a brief overview of the changes to the Power Apps application and also how to incorporate it back into your Teams environment. Take a look!

New Feature: Microsoft Teams room management within Teams Admin Center

Microsoft Teams Rooms provide a complete meeting experience that brings HD video, audio, and content sharing to meeting spaces of all sizes, from small huddle areas to large conference rooms. With this feature we are enabling easy management of Teams room devices in the Teams Admin Center.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 64022.

When this will happen

• The roll out will begin in mid-June 2020 and be complete by the end of June.

How this will affect your organization

Admins will be able to see the Microsoft Teams Room devices in Teams Admin Center > Devices > Teams Rooms, with the ability to manage devices remotely.

Some of the remote management activities include: changing device settings, restarting devices, device health monitoring of the room system and peripherals like cameras or microphones. Admins can also view device usage and call quality for meetings in which the device participated.

What you need to do to prepare

To enable device management for Microsoft Teams Rooms in Teams Admin Center, admins will need to ensure their Teams room devices are up to date with the latest software provided by Microsoft.

• Plan Microsoft Teams rooms
• Manage your devices in Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams Updates | May 2020 and Beyond

Here is a new posting from Microsoft Mechanics that shows quite a few new Teams updated for May 2020.

Here's what we'll show you:

• Expanded view of participants from 4 to 9 of the most recently active.  
• Raise Hand feature allows you to get the attention of others in a meeting. 
• New pre-join meeting experience lets you dial in your settings and background effects prior to joining a meeting. 
• Pop-out windows for meetings, chats, and apps coming soon to Teams.  
• Microsoft Lists brings the power of lists and related workflow automation into Teams as an integrated app experience.  
• Developer and admin experiences get better with the Visual Studio extension for Microsoft Teams and simplified publishing flow from Power Apps into Microsoft Teams.

Learn more about Microsoft Lists at https://aka.ms/MicrosoftLists For a comprehensive roundup of all the new capabilities in Microsoft Teams, check out https://aka.ms/Teams2020Updates

Microsoft Teams – Overview on Communication

I don’t want to reinvent the wheel here because Microsoft has an excellent tutorial series on YouTube to give you the basics of what Microsoft Teams is, how it can be used and tips and tricks on making it a more productive application for you and your company.

What I want to do in the next couple of weeks is to put together a series of articles and videos describing potential ideas on how to make Teams an integral part of your communication. There are many functions that I use to help me manage my daily chores and to work with my Teammates. We have become a company that has both locally based employees and employees that are living out of state. It is important for us to be able to easily communicate with each other in meetings and in one-on-one conversations. We do this now with Teams and our Phone System which also has integration back into the Microsoft 365 products.

The simplest component of Teams to learn and work with is Chat. The three basic functions in Chat are:

• ·         Instant Messaging
• ·         Voice Calling
• ·         Video Calling

All this communication can be done one-to-one or one-to-many. By turning on external organization communication you can extend this communication with people outside of your organization that are also on O365 or Skype. Here is an article from Microsoft allowing you to create a team to work with suppliers or partners and add them directly to the team as guests. To learn how to set up a team, see Bring teams and resources together.

Here is Microsoft tutorial on adding guest accounts that includes a video showing how to set up your Organization’s Office 365 to allow for external access to your Team Groups.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/MicrosoftTeams/guest-access-checklist

Look at this to prep your system for allowing this function.

Back to usage. I use the Instant Message function to either begin a string of conversation with someone or to ask a quick question. Let us say I have a call waiting on the phone and I need to find out if someone can take the call. My someone in my case is several states away and I am not sure what he is currently doing. So, I send him a quick message with the call information, and they will get a notification with the message on their screen. If they can take the call, they respond and let me know and I can move on. If they respond asking me to take a message, I can do that as well.

Voice Calling: I can click on the call button as well to do the same thing. This gives me the ability to discuss further what may need to be done more quickly than what you can type in text message.

Video Calling:  I love seeing the other person face to face. This gives me the ability to see their true response when talking to them. You obviously need to have cameras on both ends to be able to do this but if you are serious about Teams having the right equipment in place makes using this application so much easier. 

Equipment

There are so many ways to skin this cat. In a simple desktop environment, having a webcam in place and a headset with a good noise cancelling microphone will give you what you need. If you have a laptop with a built-in webcam you are all set. That will have the microphone built-in and of course you probably have speakers built-in as well.

I like the Jabra Headsets because they are not only good quality but add more function to what I can do. I use a more expensive set that hooks into our desk phone, computer, and Bluetooth devices all at once. It makes using that headset for multiple purposes very easy. So, whether I am talking on the desk phone, through my phone app on the computer or on Teams or on my cell phone the one headset is doing it all for me.Microsoft Teams – Overview

I hope this has given you a good starting place and some ideas on how to use the communication aspects of Microsoft Teams.

If you have any questions please don’t hesitate reaching out to me at bob@bobstechtalk.com .

Message Center Major Change Update Notification

Microsoft sent out notification of another change in their Office 365 licensing that will be starting Nov 22, 2019. It involves Microsoft Teams Licensing and states:

To align Microsoft Teams with other workloads, we will be retiring the ability to disable Microsoft Teams for all users of a particular license category.

Note: Edu Faculty and Edu Student license categories are excluded from this change.

We'll be gradually rolling this out to customers starting November 22, 2019, and the roll out will be completed by the mid-December.

[How does this impact me?]

Users who were previously disabled for Teams via this option will now become enabled for Teams. Admins who wish to continue to disable these users will have to do so via the “Manage Product Licenses” option in the Office 365 Admin Portal Active Users page.

I normally jump to the How Does this impact me? section to see what we need to do. I don't currently know of any of you that this will cause a problem for but if it does let us know and we can address it.

A deeper look at Microsoft Teams

This is a May 3, 2017 article written by David Branscome of Microsoft. I have always felt that it is important to take a deep look at the tools that you think that you want to use to fully take advantage of they offer and can do for you. If you are willing to make the monetary investment in it, shouldn’t you also make the investment of your time to get all that you can from the dollar investment.

This article is a great way of taking a closer look at the components of Teams and how it works. I like it because it allows you to create a working SharePoint site with great interactivity for your organization’s use.

Who can access Teams? It is all about licensing through Office 365. See the chart below.

Make sure to read all the planning documentation on the www.successwithteams.com website.