10 Ways to Boost Microsoft Teams Productivity

Using Microsoft Teams for business can be a fantastic way to improve productivity at work. The problem is that many teams struggle to learn how to best utilise the software, or don't know what tools are available when they need them.

Here are 10 ways to help you use Microsoft Teams to boost productivity and help your team collaborate more effectively.

Customise Microsoft Teams Notifications

Microsoft Teams can send a lot of notifications in an active team. The overwhelm of notifications can slow progress and make it harder to concentrate. Instead of getting all the notifications, have your team set their notification settings so they only see the most important updates for them.

Use Productivity Bots

Integrating productivity bots into Microsoft Teams makes it much easier to stay on top of work. Using different bots can also customise what Microsoft Teams can do to better fit your team’s needs. Icebreaker is a good example for new teams, but there are bots for almost any need.

Use File Collaboration Tools

Working as a team gets a lot easier if you use the collaboration settings tools in Microsoft Teams for businesses to customise who can access and edit files. Assigning certain projects, files, and resources to the specific people who will work on them makes it easier to stay organised. Plus, using notifications well makes it easy to see when documents have been updated.

Use Search Bar Commands

Search bar commands make it easier to change certain settings in teams, access information about other members of your team and prepare for meetings. Here are three of the most common and most useful search bar commands:

● /dnd – ‘Do Not Disturb’, tells team members not to message you.
● /activity – Shows a specific team member’s recent activity.
● /testcall – Let's you test call quality before going live.

Forward Messages to Dedicated Channels

Using dedicated channels for specific parts of your team's project, and forwarding messages to those channels makes it much easier to find critical information. This feature helps keep your team organised and also minimises the time spent trying to find the files or information you need.

Manage Your Current Status

Each member of your team has a ‘status’ that can be used to tell other members of the team what they’re working on, whether they are available, and more. Using these statuses gives you the freedom to limit interruptions so you can focus, and makes it easier to tell team members that you’re available for a consult.

Use Keyboard Shortcuts

Teams comes pre-loaded with a wide range of keyboard shortcuts that can make your work much easier. Use /keys in the search bar to see a complete list of the shortcuts currently enabled. Use them to save time and make your team more effective.

Take Advantage of Urgent Messages

Urgent messages in Teams allow you to tag specific messages so that they push notifications, alerting the people you need to talk to right away.

Use urgent messages by selecting the exclamation mark under the chatbox and selecting urgent from the menu.

Organise Meetings and Events with Plans in Microsoft Teams

You can also use your meeting planning space to make it easier to stay on task during meetings. Add meeting notes, an agenda, articles, and documents to read ahead of time, videos, and more to your meeting plan. Just refer to the plan to keep things on track and minimise distractions and unnecessary extras during your meetings. Using this tool will make Microsoft Teams calling much more effective

Final Thoughts

There are plenty of other productivity tools available to use in Microsoft Teams, these 10 are just some starter options to make the program more effective. Feel free to continue exploring other Microsoft Teams functions until you find the right combination of tools, features, shortcuts, and functions to help your team.

Don’t let tool overwhelm get in the way after you install Microsoft Teams. Use these tools to make it easier when you get started and to establish helpful habits with your team.