- Hi, I'm Arthur.
- I'm Candace.
- And I'm Vivian.
- And welcome to What's New with Microsoft 365 in April.
- And as you can tell, we're working from home
and doing the episode remotely.
- And with so many people also working from home now,
we wanna share some information to help your business
transition to remote work.
- [Arthur] Like a step-by-step process
on how to roll out Microsoft Teams
as well as training resources to help you
and your users leverage teams to stay connected
and productive, even from home.
- [Candace] We'll also cover Microsoft 365 Business Voice,
a new plan for small and medium sized businesses
that lets you make phone calls to any form factor
and all from Teams.
- So, let's get started.
(upbeat music)
- If you need to roll out Teams to your business
to support an increasing demand for remote work,
we have some tips on how to get started.
- So, create your first teams and channels.
First thing's first, create the very first teams
and channels in Teams.
A team is a group of people who wanna get something big done
like marketing, or finance.
- While a team is made up of channels
where you and your users have conversations
on things like a specific topic or a project.
- And when you're just getting started,
you can create two or three teams and channels
for a special group of early adopters.
- Onboard early adopters.
Then, you can send a welcome email
to your early adopters with the teams you created
and invite them to start and join conversations in Teams.
- If you want to use a welcome email template,
check out the description later for a few examples
that you can customize for your own needs.
- When you work on the email,
make sure to include helpful tips
like how and where to download the Microsoft desktop
and mobile apps, or links to Teams training videos,
or help documentation.
- Monitor usage and feedback.
In the Teams admin center,
there are usage reports available to give you insight
on your users use Teams.
You can use these reports to view usage,
user activity, and device usage across your business.
- If it's your first set of teams,
consider reviewing usage reports twice a week
just to see if there's any emerging trends.
- You can then take these insights
and decide how to prioritize training and communication
with your users based on your own productivity goals.
- Get resources to plan your organization-wide roll out.
And once you've successfully set up your first few teams,
and onboarded initial users,
it's time to move forward on deploying Teams
with the rest of your business.
- To learn more on how to pick the right path
to roll out Teams,
check out the How To Roll Out Teams article
in the description below.
- This next feature isn't new in the Teams admin center,
but we wanted to cover it since we know it's
an important feature when you first set up a team.
- If you want a deeper collaboration experience
with external guests like providing access to chat
or sharing files with freelancers or clients you work with,
you'll need to turn on guest access.
- Since guest access is turned off by default,
as the admin, you must turn it on
before anyone can add guests to a team.
- [Arthur] First, sign into the Teams admin center.
Select Org wide settings, guest access,
and then toggle the switch on for allow guest access
in Microsoft Teams.
It'll take two to 24 hours for this change to take effect.
- [Candace] While you're there,
you can also toggle other features on or off.
For calling, meeting, and messaging needs
depending on what you want to allow for guest users.
- [Vivian] And when you're done,
select save to make sure your changes get saved.
- For more information on how to turn on guest access,
and which features you can toggle on for your business,
check out the docs.com link in the description.
- Once your company is up and running with Teams,
there are additional resources on how to help your business
transition to remote work.
- [Vivian] Like this page on support.office.com
which covers that exact topic as well as
how to connect with employees and customers virtually
or how to manage and secure your business to run remotely.
- [Arthur] And what if you wanna share some tips
and resources for your employees specifically?
Then have them check out
these bite-sized team training videos
that are also available on support.office.com.
- [Candace] These videos cover basics for your users
like how to start a chat and make calls
both internally and externally,
to tips for managing online meetings.
- And if you're looking
for more scenario-based video walkthroughs,
we've got you covered there too.
Check out our small business training pages
for how to get started working remotely
and collaborating with employees and customers right away.
- We've put links to all of these support pages
in the descriptions below,
so if you're using these resources to either roll out Teams
or to get your company started with remote work,
let us know your thoughts about these help pages
and training videos in the comments.
- For small and medium businesses,
ranging in size from one to 300 users,
the new Microsoft 365 Business Voice plan is now available.
- [Vivian] Business Voice adds a cloud-based phone system
in Teams and creates an all in one communication solution
that brings together calling,
chat, meetings, and collaboration.
- [Arthur] This means you can use Business Voice
to make a phone call to any form factor
and all from Teams.
- It also simplifies the setup and management process.
These functions are available in the same admin console
as the rest of the Microsoft 365 services.
- [Vivian] Additionally, the initial setup
has been streamlined with a simplified get started wizard
to help you set up with new phone numbers in minutes.
- Business Voice can be added
to any Microsoft 365 subscription that includes Teams.
To learn more and to try a free one month trial,
go to aka.ms/Microsoft365BusinessVoice.
(mellow music)
- And that's a wrap for today's show.
- If you have questions or comments
about the content we covered, let us know.
We're open to ideas and we'd love to hear your thoughts.
- And in the meantime, please like and subscribe
to our channel if you haven't already.
And of course, stay safe and healthy
and we'll see you next month.
- Bye!
(upbeat music)