Tag Archives: Microsoft

Microsoft Planner

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Reach for big goals this year with Microsoft Planner. Microsoft 365 has some amazing productivity and collaborative tools already built in. Did you know that within Teams there’s a useful project planning tool?

Watch our short video for the lowdown

How Microsoft Planner works

Microsoft Planner is a great lightweight planning tool that’s included in most Office 365 packages. Its basic purpose is to provide easy, visual task management for a group of users. This includes when, how and by whom these tasks are assigned as well as their current status.

Planner is also based upon Office 365 Groups. This means creating a new Planner plan will also create a group behind the scenes. This makes it easy to govern membership and add additional workloads onto the group in question.

Will it make a difference?

Creating tasks and assigning it to team members is a continuous process inside all organisations and businesses. How many of you are doing it in a systematic and organized manner? You can change this anytime with Microsoft Planner. The biggest difference Microsoft Planner brings to an organisation when compared to other to-do apps is that it is team focused. This different approach helps you to achieve more productivity and control on your team, especially when you are processing a complex task with a specialised team. How to use Microsoft Planner effectively? The easiest and effective way to use Planner now is from Microsoft Teams. You do not need to switch applications to manage your tasks in Planner now. Let us see what you can do with Planner in Microsoft Teams.

What are the things you can do with Microsoft Planner?

To start creating tasks, assigning it to your team members, and keep checking progress from Microsoft Teams, you need to create a team first. You can also go with an already existing team if you wish. After creating the team, you need to add members to it and add the Planner app as a tab to the team.

What are the benefits?

Microsoft PlannerThrough Microsoft Planner and Microsoft Teams, team leaders will easily be able to review the current workload of employees, assign new tasks, and follow up on tasks that are important or may be falling behind. Employees can understand their workload better and follow through independently, without having to take additional steps to figure out which tasks they should best be prioritising. 

One of the major advantages to Microsoft Teams is its ability to integrate with software solutions such as the Microsoft Team Planner. If your team hasn’t switched to Microsoft Teams yet, it may be time. Contact the LIS Help Desk if you need to migrate to Microsoft Teams.

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Team Meetings Are Simple

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Working from home (WFH) with Microsoft Teams. If you are already a user of what has become Microsoft’s fastest-growing app in history, you’ll realise that team meetings are simple and quick. Although not always convenient if you’re in a home setting that’s verging on disorganised.

So, before you start a Teams meeting, use the blur background function to put you in focus, rather than what’s behind you. Be that a child home-schooling at the kitchen table, a stack of laundry ready for ironing or an interesting choice of reading material on your bookcase.

Team meetings are simple when working from home

It’s clear that WFH isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Standard Life Aberdeen has informed 4,900 of its UK employees working from home not to expect a return to the office this year. While Health Secretary Matt Hancock has indicated his hope that employers offer home working as a choice going forward.

A record of 2.7 billion minutes of Microsoft Teams meetings took place in a single day in April. It has become a feature of daily working life for many, team meetings are simple and are here to stay. Microsoft Teams will replace Skype for Business Online which is being retired on 31 July 2021.

Team Meeting Are Simple

The hub for teamwork in Microsoft 365. Invite everyone you work with to chat, meet, call and collaborate all in one place. Discover a new way to work together.

All capabilities of Skype for Business are available in Microsoft Teams – like blurring out your background during a video call – but Teams expands on capabilities for communication and collaboration. Microsoft Teams brings together files, chats, and apps in an integrated app, with functionality that enables organizations to move faster and collaborate more efficiently.

All Office 365 customers are encouraged to use Teams, whether independently or alongside with Skype for Business. However, customers will need to move to Teams before the Skype for Business Online retirement date. Here’s some advice on how to make Microsoft Teams technology at your fingertips your new best friend.

Don’t leave them hanging

Teams allows you to test your functionality before a video call. This lets you adjust the camera angle, test the audio, sort out any lighting issues or blur the background before you get going.

Cut the inbox clutter

Drowning in emails could become a thing of the past. If a colleague wants you to send a file, or answer a quick query, chats is the answer.

It’s good to share

Using the chat window is an easy way to have a quick conversation with a colleague. Need to share a file? Attach it in the chat, then call or video call your colleague to discuss the file straight from the window. Meetings can be scheduled without leaving the chat. There’s no need to switch between apps during a conversion as chat is integration with other Microsoft products like Office.

Collaboration and communication

Syncing with Office 365, you can create a Word, Excel or PowerPoint document in Teams, immediately share it with colleagues and then co-write. It cuts out confusion around the very latest version of documents, spreadsheets or power points.

Any time, any place

Teams is a fully cloud-based solution, meaning you can access information from anywhere on any device. Using the Teams phone app gives immediate access to all your apps and documents. You can easily respond to chat and conversations, join meetings with one click and continue to collaborate. So even on the move, you stay in the loop.

Overcoming isolation

Working from home can be a lonely experience but using the Teams internal communications keeps the workforce engaged and motivated and conscious they are working towards the same goal, even when physically apart. It provides scope to check in, not check-up.

Privacy and security

Microsoft Teams comes with security and privacy controls designed to prevent vulnerabilities to hacking, protection which includes:

  • Multi-factor authentication (MFA) – Users supply added forms of verification to prove their identity, helping protect their accounts from attacks through weak or stolen passwords.
  • Microsoft Endpoint Manager – To manage devices and apps and enforce conditional access on any device.
  • Secure Guest Access – Allows users to collaborate with individuals outside their organisation while controlling access to their own data.

How can we be part of your team?

We are working in unusual times that no one has experienced. Take the pressure of worrying about you IT system. Wouldn’t it be nice to focus working on your business rather than for the business? No more organised meetings in the board room. Team meetings are simple with Microsoft Teams. Allow yourself to spend extra time playing golf, going down the gym or your favourite activity.

Find out more about how LIS can support your team working from home. Contact the LIS Help Desk for the latest IT Support Advice,  Security, Cloud Back Up Solutions and Telecoms. Like the famous TV advert said, “It’s good to talk.”

LIS – SECURING YOUR DIGITAL WORLD

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