Working Remotely Checklist Day Two: Team Colloboration

With the new norm different today and into the foreseeable future, smart technology will become even more integral in our lives. It helps us connect, collaborate and communicate, and maintain productivity.

Collaboration has been shown to improve innovation, reduce stress and uplift morale.

Give everyone access to Microsoft Teams by either activating the bundled version within Office 365, or leverage a free six month trial to get started with your team collaborations today.

Getting started

If you or your customer haven’t yet activated Microsoft Teams, we have collated some quick DIY videos to help you along your journey to our new temporary norm:

Introduction of Microsoft Teams, click here 2:42 min
Get your teams Running , click here 2:11min
Over view what is MS teams and Channel, click here 1:26 min
More detail around channels: select here
Upload and share files , click here 1:07min
Create instant meetings with Meet now, click here 2:11mins
Join a Teams meeting, click here 1:31min
For Admin user, select here

If there is no existing Microsoft Teams license then leverage a FREE six month trial as follows:

Click here to access Click here to access the FREE six month trial through Mace IT Services
Click here to talk to one of our consultants

Tips and Tricks for working remotely with Microsoft Teams

1. Make the most of meetings

Meetings are about the people in them, not the technology. The most effective meetings have a clear purpose. Use your meeting description to detail what the meeting is for. Learn more about driving great teamwork with our Art of Teamwork materials.
Use chat to share reminders or pre-read documents to your audience before the meeting.
Record the meeting its easy!

2. Be inclusive and use your video

When you’ve got robust bandwidth, turn on your video Tip: Use background blur if you don’t want your background to be a distraction. Video really amps up collaboration in meetings (but if you’ve got limited bandwidth, turn off video to maintain high-quality audio). Make sure you know how to join a meeting in Teams before the meeting starts.
Practice inclusion – ask everyone for their input. If someone’s audio is too low, or if their device is causing problems, deal with it at the start of the meeting so that person won’t be excluded.
Don’t forget to keep track of your mute button!

3. Track notes and action items, share frequently used documents

Take notes and share follow-ups in chat. It’s harder to get a casual recap in the hallway when there is no hallway. Use an app like Planner, Asana, or Trello to track tasks.
For something that you usually handle with one meeting and informal, hallway catch-ups, schedule a 15-minute follow-up meeting a few days later. Be sure to include prep work in the meeting invitation.
In channels, create tabs for important files, websites, or dashboards so the content is available to everyone on the team.

4. Customise your virtual workspace

Pin your favorite 1:1 or group chats so they always appear on the upper left.
Drag and drop your teams so they are in priority order, and hide teams you don’t work in often.
Manage notifications in your Profile Settings so you’re only getting them when you want to.
Install Teams on your mobile so you can join meetings and collaborate.

Case Study

Whether you’re new to remote work or temporarily working from home, Microsoft Teams is there to help you be productive from anywhere and in so many ways.

For Lily Zheng, GCR M365 BG Lead, and her team working remotely from their homes in Shanghai the learned experiences while adapting to their new temporary norm are published here. Find out why Lily’s key takeaways are to “stay well, go all in, support each other and note that most things can be moved online”.