Microsoft Update: Testing the Waters with Teams

For years, Microsoft Skype for Business has been changing the way that people communicate, both in the business and consumer worlds. Now, the technology giants that they'll be able to have the same transformative effect on the collaboration space, with their "Teams'" client.

Following the official announcement that Teams will eventually be absorbing Skype for Business, Microsoft has been scrambling to prove to their audience that this collaborative tool can stand up as a true alternative to standard PBX platforms. Despite their significant position in the marketplace, Microsoft has been developing at top-speed lately, just to offer feature parity with more mainstream UC solutions - and the truth is that they're struggling to keep up.

While Microsoft clearly has big plans for Teams as their central communications tool for Office 365, we're still waiting to see how the brand will blow its competitors out of the water. Even with all the features that have been released lately, there's some concern over whether "Teams" can really be a replacement for the phone system.

With Cisco's acquisition of BroadSoft now complete, IT professionals are left to wonder which horse they should be backing - Spark, or Teams.

Branching Into the "Call Communications" Space

The first thing that Microsoft needed to do to convince their customers of Teams' potential as a UC app, was introduce the right calling features. They did this in December of 2017, pushing out "HD audio and video call" solutions for iOS and Android apps. The system already allowed companies to make audio and video calls to team members who already had the app installed, but now you can call external numbers too.

The only catch is that you'll need to have an Enterprise Voice License alongside your Office 365 subscription to tap into the call features. This provides a "calls" button at the bottom bar of the application which opens a dial pad for you to call your chosen phone number.

Alongside the option for external calls, Microsoft also rolled out a new "Assignment" tab, with an option to hide or add chat conversations for iOS and Android.

Previewing Call Analytics

While opportunities for voice and video calls is obviously a step in the right direction for Microsoft's journey into unified communications, it's hardly on par with the rich feature sets you can get from other mainstream UC vendors. Fortunately, Microsoft is aware of this fact, and they've begun to deliver a "preview" into features like "Call Analytics" for the Teams feature.

The analytics tool gives users the option to track the quality of their meetings and calls when they're using Teams. This capability is designed for help desk professionals, but it's only in the preview stage, to begin with, even though it shows up as "Available Today" on the Microsoft roadmap document.

Teams and Interacting with Apps

While better call features might still be in the pipeline, Microsoft has been making a more immediate effort with their Teams integrations. In January 2018, the communications brand launched the biggest update for the Teams tool since it launched, according to Microsoft. The upgrade makes it easier to interact with third-party applications and find new services with an "app directory".

According to Microsoft, the launch of the new Teams app store feature will make it easier for users to discover new services and apps for their day-to-day collaborative needs. What's more, a personal app view also allows customers to see their most commonly-accessed apps in a simple user interface, highlighting items that have been assigned to them, whether they're Microsoft Tools like Planner or third-party solutions.