Microsoft Teams Review – Details, Features, Pricing, and Benefits

Ever since the Pandemic has taken a toll on us, work from home has become the new culture. *Correct me if I am wrong, but sadly, I am not ‘Wrong’*

Well, the biggest call of work from home is a need to communicate with your fellow colleagues so that there is no communication gap between the members of the team and everyone is on the same page.

All of this calls in the need for messaging platforms, and one such business-oriented, collaborative, cloud-based approach is Microsoft Teams. Let’s learn more about MS Teams and its useful features in the upcoming review.

So, please keep reading!

Microsoft Teams Review

What is Microsoft Teams?

Microsoft Teams is a very powerful, business-purpose, and cloud-based messaging application that aims to connect teams through different methodologies like instant messaging, sharing of documents and files, and video and audio conferencing.

You can easily tag your team members of the team as well can create as many teams you want on the application.

In addition to this, the biggest challenge is to be able to effectively have a communicate when you are in a large group. Therefore, to take care of such a purpose, MS Teams has breakout rooms. This enhances brainstorming and communicating in a flexible way.

MS Teams is fully integrated with O365 for a lot of purposes; therefore, you will not even need to switch apps while you are on Teams and collaborating with Office Products, Isn’t that great. We all hate to switch tabs while working, duh!

Features of Microsoft Teams

• Teams on MS Teams are made mostly of channels that help in initiating and maintaining regular communication between team members.
  
• Team members can connect and view, also add themselves and other members in a team. In a general channel, for referring or calling out others, ‘@’ mention is required.
  
• Many collaboration features don’t have audio conferencing features. With this effective feature, it is very common for anyone to join an online meeting directly through their mobile phone. The dial-in number allows users to easily blend through and connect to a call without the need for the internet.
  
• Since the chat function is a common feature that you will find in almost every collaboration tool, it helps to easily connect team members with one another.
  
• If you use Microsoft Team, then it is quite certain that you are likely to have a site of your own on SharePoint Online. The default document library folder will help in storing all the documents that you share while making conversations. You can also customize permissions for access to these folders.
  

Benefits of Microsoft Teams

Always Lets You Stay Connected

Microsoft offers a huge privilege to all the members of a team to stay in touch with one another always. The work from home culture is definitely the tough spot professionals are in right now. Hence, there is a dire need to stay balanced.

You can have access to all the resources as well as know everything that is happening in your team even if your team is spread across the country.

Collaborations – Private + Secure

Microsoft Teams endures and ensures privacy and security by maintaining decorum. It makes sure that only those who are allowed in a meeting have the legitimate invite.

Also, multiple-layer authentication and data encryption are some of the measures that MS Teams undertakes for maintaining privacy and handling security.

Why You Need Microsoft Teams?

Since Microsoft 365 has always been around and people have been actively using it. Adapting and using MS Teams 365 has always been easier to jump on to.

In addition to these, there are additional savings on costs. Not to forget the integration with Microsoft makes it more prone to usage.

People need Microsoft Teams not only because it is a secure option but also it is easy to use.

Microsoft Teams Integrations

Microsoft Teams Pricing Plans

Microsoft Teams has a standard pricing plan for its users. However, you can also sign up for a free account for which you will need a Microsoft account or you can get one through MS 365 Business.

Here are the details on the pricing plans of Teams.

Microsoft Teams (Free)

Don’t pay anything. Just use the services and see how it works out. Allows 100 participants at once.

Microsoft 365 Business Basic

This one costs $5/month per user and allows 300 participants to be in a meeting at once. You can also try this out free for 1 month.

Microsoft 365 Business Standard

This plan costs $12.50/month for one user and 300 participants can be included in a meeting. This also allows a trial for 1 month.

Office 365 E3

For $20/month, you can conduct huge meeting by inviting more than 10,000 participants at once.

Microsoft Teams Alternatives

1. Zoom

Zoom is also a video conferencing tool/app that not only helps you make calls whenever you want but also helps you send messages instantly.

It allows hosting of more than 10,000 audiences at one setup, which is a pretty huge attendee for a meeting. Alternatively, all Zoom sessions can also be streamed on Facebook.

You can also record your important meetings to view them later and seek information that you must have missed out on while the actual meeting was in progress. Maybe you were at the gym or eating an apple?

2. Google Meet

Google Meet or as we knew it earlier, Google Hangouts is also a well-accessed video conferencing tool that will directly let you jump to meetings from one event to another either through an email invite or Gmail.

With a maximum of 100 participants, Google Meet is quite flowy for regular meetings. Also, the screen sharing functionality is a boon. Being the host, you also get the privilege to mute or remove other attendees from the meeting.

Google Meet is also compatible with iOS, Android, Edge, Firefox, Chrome, etc.

Microsoft Teams Video

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) on Microsoft Teams

Wrap up

What makes a good tool? Well, there are numerous factors. Microsoft Teams allows you to conduct video calls and makes it easy to communicate and collaborate with one another.

It is wonderfully well solution that works for business and your regular otherwise meetings. Try it out.

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