Microsoft Teams is one of the most used business chat systems online today, with over 75 million active users each day. It is crucial to the productivity of many firms and is used by teams all around the world to make communication simpler and more productive.
However, there are many less obvious ways Microsoft Teams may boost your team’s productivity even further. Here, we’ve compiled a list of eleven of our favorite hacks and ideas. We have gathered the best advice from experienced Microsoft Teams users to increase the productivity of your experience.
Editing in rich text format
Rich Text Editing Microsoft Teams Tips and Tricks
You may format your messages in Microsoft Teams’ rich text formatting editor to make them stand out and draw attention to crucial information.
You may italicize, bold, underline, and highlight your text when composing a message by clicking the Format symbol at the bottom of the message. You can also adjust the font size and make lists. Even better, you may add other items like files and emojis under More Formatting Options.
Making use of /Commands
Microsoft Teams Tips & Tricks – /Commands /Commands are Microsoft Teams shortcuts that can help you increase productivity and streamline your workflow. /Commands can save you a ton of time and make using Teams much simpler if you know how to utilize them.
Our favorite /Commands include the following:
- /activity (to see someone’s activity)
- /dnd (to set your status to Do Not Disturb)
- /goto (to go right into a specific team or channel)
- /keys (to see keyboard shortcuts)
- /testcall (to check the quality of a call or meeting)
Team meetings with guests should be planned.
Meetings with Guests: Microsoft Teams Hints and Tips
You may arrange team meetings in Microsoft Teams channels. Simply choose + New Meeting from the Meetings option on the left-hand sidebar, arrange your meeting time, and invite attendees.
When you schedule a meeting, email invitations with a link to join the call are automatically issued to everyone attending. With this invitation, you may invite attendees, visitors, or managers from outside your Microsoft team to join meetings online by sending a join link to any email address.
Even though you can’t share your camera or screen, this capability still gives the platform some good utility.
To quickly message someone in search, @Mention them
Tips & Tricks for Microsoft Teams: @mention in searches
It can be annoying to go to another window and return if you’re in the middle of numerous chats with a lot of mentions. Thankfully, Microsoft Teams offers a simple solution to do this without switching discussions and losing your spot.
You may send a brief message to someone without leaving your current window if you just @mention them in the search box at the top of your page.
The Immersive Reader from Microsoft
Immersive Reader: Microsoft Teams Tips and Tricks
Although it was often only used for Microsoft Education products, the Immersive Reader has been around for a while in Microsoft. Now that this functionality is offered on Microsoft Teams as well, you can do more work.
The choices available with the Immersive Reader are astounding. You can, among other things:
- Read the material aloud at different rates.
- Depending on the word type, display text in different font sizes and colors.
- Label the messages.
Simply pick Immersive Reader from the three dots in the bottom right corner of a message to utilize it.
Message translation in real time
Tips & Tricks for Microsoft Teams: Inline Message Translation
A new feature for Microsoft Teams allows you to translate specific messages into the language of your team (inline message translation). Simply pick Translate by clicking the three dots in the chat message’s bottom right corner.
When finished, you may repeat the procedure to translate the message back to its original language.
Background fuzziness for video conferences
Backdrop Blur was added to Microsoft Teams meetings in 2018 as a feature to help hide the background that is seen during video conversations. Microsoft Teams Tips & Tricks If you have private or sensitive material displayed behind you, or even if you just work in a crowded workplace and don’t want to disturb the meeting, it can be extremely useful.
Select Blur My Background from the call menu’s three dots to turn on Background Blur. You’ll need to manually verify if Background Blur is available on your device first because it isn’t currently supported by all devices.
A Who Bot
The Who Bot: Microsoft Teams Tips and Tricks
Who is the native personal assistant software from Microsoft, and it allows you to look for particular employees inside your organization by name or subject. You can enquire about Who in several ways, including:
- Who is an expert on this subject?
- Who is [person’s] manager?
- About what have I emailed someone?
- Who attended the [subject] meeting?
He also makes dynamic organizational charts so you can see your company’s structure and gives you a calendar of forthcoming meetings.
Who can be found under the More applications section of the left sidebar.
To demonstrate your appreciation for your staff, use praise.
Praise Feature in Microsoft Teams: Tips and Tricks
With the praise tool in Microsoft Teams, managers may encourage staff members and give them badges for their efforts. Managers just need to click Praise after selecting the three dots at the bottom of the message box. Once you’ve decided on the badge and message you want to send to your employee, you’re ready to go.
To let the employee know they are being praised, Microsoft Teams will automatically mention them, and the badge will appear next to their name in channels that are open to the public.
The Shifts app lets you control scheduling.
Shift Scheduling: Microsoft Teams Tips & Tricks
You can efficiently manage scheduling and time tracking inside Teams with the Shifts app. Mobile devices may be used by both employees and supervisors to manage their calendars and communicate about absences and vacations.
The Shifts app allows you to:
- Create and control team shift schedules (managers only)
- Check out the forthcoming shifts, look at your teammates’ schedules, and exchange or volunteer shifts.
- Employees should request time off or authorize absences (managers)
- Utilize the new time clock function to clock in and out for shifts and breaks.
Forward email messages into a channel
Forward emails into a channel Today, email communication is essential to the operation of many businesses. The good news is that Microsoft Teams provides the ability for users to forward emails from Outlook directly to a Microsoft Teams channel for sharing with other Teams users.
By selecting “Get email address” when you click the ellipsis next to the channel name, you may forward an email into that channel. You may copy and paste the generated email address into the Outlook address bar to access the Teams channel. You may now forward almost anything you want to the channel, including messages, Word documents, and more.
Use Microsoft Planner to Simplify Task Management by integrating it
Microsoft Planner is a fantastic tool for managing all of your chores in one location and keeping track of them. One fantastic feature of Microsoft Teams is how effortlessly different Microsoft applications can be linked with one another. For example, you can utilize Microsoft Planner from inside of Microsoft Teams!
As a result, you may access the recorded tasks using the Planner without using any other task managers. Additionally, Teams allows you to “pin” the Microsoft Planner app to a particular channel for one-click accessibility. The Planner will then appear as a tab at the top of the channel as a result.
Utilize keyboard shortcuts to save time.
The best technique to command more and more quickly is by using shortcuts. Whatever it is you’re looking for in Microsoft Teams, there is a shortcut for it. For instance, use the keyboard shortcut R to swiftly respond in a chat. Press Option-A on a Mac or Alt-A in Windows to add a file as an attachment to a message.
Here are some more, more typical abbreviations:
- Ctrl + Shift + M – This shortcut puts yourself on mute or unmute yourself during a meeting
- Ctrl + Shift + O – This shortcut key your camera on or off while on a call
- Ctrl + O – Select a file to attach and share with the chat group
- Ctrl + N – Start a new chat
- Ctrl + E – Open a search bar at the top of the window to search for files, conversations, and more
- Ctrl + / – See all available shortcuts to access needed content, navigate to various destinations, and change your current status
- ^ – Edit the last message you sent
- Ctrl + … – Use the combination of Ctrl + number to navigate through the left navigation rail
- Ctrl + 1 – Open the Activity Feed in the left navigation rail
- Ctrl + 2 – Open the Chat in the left navigation rail
- …and so on
- :word – Use “:” before a word of your choice to see emojis associated with this word and use them (for example :cat)
Windows Alt-/ shows all keyboard shortcuts.
