Microsoft Teams works on top of Microsoft 365 and connects with third-party cloud services to provide group communications and collaboration. Designed as the successor to Microsoft's Skype for Business Online, Microsoft Teams provides a single interface for chat, voice/video conferencing with screen sharing, calling, cloud voicemail, group mailboxes, as well as document and app sharing. Teams is fully integrated with Office/Microsoft 365 and relies on Exchange Online and SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, and Microsoft Entra (formerly Azure Active Directory (AAD)) for opening up its complete set of capabilities. Your company can run Microsoft Teams only or you can deploy a hybrid architecture that supports Teams in conjunction with self-hosted Microsoft Skype for Business Server.
Progent's Microsoft Teams experts offer online and onsite expertise to assist companies of any size to evaluate the business benefits of Teams, plan and implement a cost effective upgrade to Teams from Microsoft Skype for Business or Microsoft Lync Server, and tune or debug a Microsoft Teams environment. Progent can assist your organization to configure and support a cloud-only communications ecosystem powered by Teams, and Progent's Skype for Business Server experts can help your organization to create a hybrid deployment that combines Teams with your on-premises Skype for Business Server system. Progent can assist you to integrate Microsoft Teams with Microsoft 365 Exchange Online, Microsoft SharePoint Online, and Microsoft 365 apps as well as with your in-house PBX, your PSTN connection. gateway, and conference room telephony equipment.
Progent's Cisco-certified network infrastructure consultants are available to assist your business to plan and configure a robust network topology for Microsoft Teams, and Progent's certified network security experts can assist your organization to plan enterprise-wide communications security policies based on leading. Progent's specialists can troubleshoot stubborn IT road blocks or provide end-to-end project management or co-management services to ensure that your Microsoft Teams installation is carried out on time and on budget.
Major Capabilities of Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams combines real-time chat messaging, conferencing, IP calling, document collaboration, app sharing, and cloud storage into a unified client experience. Microsoft Teams is regularly updated and has achieved or surpassed feature parity with Microsoft Skype for Business in all essential capabilities. Microsoft Teams also offers substantial improvements in scale, messaging, integration with Microsoft 365, and other aspects of collaboration. Also, Microsoft Teams introduces the concepts of Teams and Channels to make it easier to collaborate on initiatives, have group discussions, share documents and applications, and conduct conferences.
Teams and Channels
Teams and channels are defining structures in Microsoft Teams for promoting collaboration and sharing information. A team is a group of users from within and outside your company who can interact with one another in a positive manner via conferencing and by exchanging messages, documents, and applications. Teams can reflect departments, offices, company initiatives, mutual enthusiasms, or anything else that can benefit from a modern collaboration platform. Whenever you define a team you start a Office/Microsoft 365 group, a SharePoint Online web site and document library, an Exchange Online group mailbox and calendar, a OneNote notebook, and a persistent chat workspace. If you make a team from a current Office/Microsoft 365 group, that group's participants, SharePoint Online web site, mailbox, and OneNote team notebook are all added to Microsoft Teams. A team can be open or private and can have up to 10,000 participants.
Channels are chat-based workspaces within a team. Each channel other than the default General channel is dedicated to a theme you define. All conversations, document sharing, and conferences for a given topic take place within the appropriate channel. Channels can be available to all team participants or limited to a portion of the team. Permitted team members can enhance a channel by inserting apps that be tabs, connectors, and bots. Files shared within a channel via the Files tab are located on a SharePoint Online document collection. Managers can define policies to permit or block apps and services for a channel. Meetings occurring in a channel can feature digital whiteboards, notes, and chat. Integration with Microsoft Stream allows meetings to be recorded, saved, and played back.
Integration with Office/Microsoft 365
The Microsoft Teams client interface works in conjunction with Microsoft 365 apps to deliver a modern collaboration solution. In addition, Teams connectors make it possible for your organization to integrate Microsoft Teams with third-party apps including Twitter (X), Facebook, YouTube, Google Analytics, Jira, and UPS Bot.
Samples of the integration of Microsoft Teams with Office/Microsoft 365 include:
Ways Progent Can Assist Your Business to Upgrade to Microsoft Teams from Skype for Business or Lync
Teams takes the place of Skype for Business Online as Microsoft's flagship cloud platform for unified communications and collaboration. Companies currently relying on Skype for Business or Lync Server should prepare for the transition to Teams.
Progent can provide as-needed expertise in the broad range of technologies needed to maximize the ROI of your Teams deployment. Progent can provide the support of Skype for Business Online consulting experts and Lync specialists to assist your organization to stage your legacy collaboration environment for upgrading to Microsoft Teams. Progent's Exchange specialists, SharePoint Online consulting experts, and Microsoft 365 experts can assist your organization to combine Microsoft Teams with familiar productivity applications. Progent's telephony integration consulting experts can help your business to integrate your phone system to Teams.
Progent offers remote or on-premises expertise to help you to overcome stubborn technical issues or Progent can deliver comprehensive project management outsourcing services to you to plan and implement your upgrade to Microsoft Teams
Progent's consulting support for assisting your business to migrate to Teams include:
Call or Email Progent for Teams Consulting Services
To learn more about Progent's upgrade services for Teams, call