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If your South Florida business is looking for a collaboration and communication tool, there are only two fantastic options on the market right now: Slack and Microsoft Teams. Slack has been here for a while and has some excellent features, but the newcomer Microsoft Teams is giving Slack a run for its money. No matter what business you’re in, you need software like this to make completing and discussing work project more straightforward and faster — not to mention being able to do it over the Internet instead of in person. Let’s take a look at both options and find out which one is the best for your business.
What is Microsoft Teams?
Microsoft Teams is a brand-spanking new chat-based collaborative workspace in Office 365, designed to bring everything about your business together to get work planned, created, and done — all in one place. 365’s Teams is one of the best places to bring people, content, and conversations together in ways your business never thought possible. The best thing about these new software applications are that you can bring everyone together, even if they’re nowhere near each other! Business teams often have conflicting schedules and difficulty meeting up at the same time — after all, we’re all busy people. Microsoft Teams has the advantage of being pre-integrated with other Microsoft apps as well as being built in the cloud. Microsoft Teams was created based on the different model of business collaboration we know today — things aren’t the same as they were before the Internet, and Microsoft knows it. With flexible structures and constant information flow, Microsoft Teams presents us with a great solution that works with all the other business solutions we already have.
What Does Microsoft Teams Do?
Microsoft Teams makes work projects easy and intuitive by combining chat, meetings, notes, and attachments, featuring extensions for integration with products not from the Microsoft suite. Microsoft Teams isn’t hard to set up, and a created Team is the home for different chat rooms which are called channels in the app. Some meetings call for the whole team, and some only call for one-on-ones so that these different channels can be used for pre-defined groups and meetings at any point. Have a new employee you want to bring on board quickly, but don’t want to overwhelm them with a group meeting right off the bat? No problem — Microsoft Teams makes it easy to create a channel for them to learn and then ask questions on away from the group.
When one-on-ones are necessary, Microsoft Teams members can use Skype (voice or video) instantly with other team members. No more searching for, downloading, and troubleshooting in an outside application like Zoom to connect and discuss things in real time — just one quick click will connect you with your other team members. Microsoft Teams also comes with SharePoint capability, one of the best project-based features of Microsoft 365. SharePoint is a receptacle for files you can share with any members of your team through Microsoft Teams. Teams also connects everyone to PowerPoint, OneNote, Planner, Delve, and Power BI files when you want it to. Sharing updated documents, presentations, and spreadsheets is natural, including collaborative writing or editing projects. Team members are notified of any updates that occur within the files they are selected on.
What Does Slack Do?
Slack brings your work teams together like Microsoft Teams and integrates easily with outside applications such as Adobe Acrobat and Word. Documents are uploadable and viewable from inside the applications, so you’re not disturbed while working on a new project. Thread conversations allow short discussions or questions to be asked without interrupting the flow of the main project thread, or bothering team members who don’t need to answer a particular question. Slack allows you to add clients, partners, and vendors to channels, increasing the ability for collaboration with projects, getting the information you need to move projects forward, and voice or video calls through Slack. Screen sharing in Slack is an excellent way to demonstrate something to a client or a colleague. Just click the screen share button, and everyone can see what you’ve been working on. Files can be dragged and dropped directly into Slack, as well.
Is Slack or Microsoft Teams Best for Your South Florida Organization?
Since effective communication is the best way for a business to succeed and complete projects on time, Microsoft Teams is quickly edging out Slack. The ease of file-sharing and integration with other essential Microsoft 365 software is the easiest way to go, as well as the most powerful. Teams’ update following its original release was much more on point, and South Florida businesses have been taking notice. Let LAN Infotech set up Microsoft Teams for your business and get the information flowing.