Teams, the business messaging app from Microsoft, reminds us a lot of IKEA's self-service section.
It's an insider's space.
If you work there and know how the system is arranged, like how the aisles and bins are numbered, you probably navigate it with ease.
If you're a customer coming down from the showroom, however, it could take a while to find the right aisle, bin, and shelf where you'll finally find a nondescript box that hopefully contains what you need.
Everything is in its place, so long as you know how to find it.
The same goes for Teams, which is a powerful tool for staying in touch once you've become familiar with it.
Teams and other remote-work collaboration tools are especially important to master now that many people are working from home and connecting with colleagues remotely.
Whether its structure agrees with you may set the tone for your relationship with Teams.
If it clicks, you'll love this chat app for everything else it has to offer, from its long list of integration options to its ability to work seamlessly with nearly any other Microsoft 365 app.
For added attraction, Microsoft has done significant work outfitting teams with video conferencing and voice over IP (VoIP) telephony features.
Given its potential, Teams is a top collaboration choice, but typically only for groups already using Microsoft products.
That same tight integration that makes it attractive to Microsoft customers also means it's not for everyone, notably shops that aren't Microsoft-centric.
Also, like a lot of Microsoft products that are highly customized before rolling out to an entire organization, how well it works depends a lot on your own unique specifications and how well you can address them within the app.
Like the IKEA warehouse, Teams is orderly, but also hyper compartmentalized.
You may have to dive four layers deep (Teams Team Channel tab) to find a conversation.
Every time you create a new Team within Teams, the number of places you might have to go to find information or answer a question increases many times over.
If you can't get over this arrangement, the rest of the app will never make a good impression on you.
That first hurdle is just too high.
With Teams, there's a real love-it-or-leave-it sensibility.
Those in the leave-it camp might look to Slack, the Editors' Choice in the team messaging category.
Its design makes communication faster, more open, perhaps messier, but also more fun.
What's New in Microsoft Teams?
Since we last reviewed Microsoft Teams, the product has seen a few upgrades.
One that saves people time and hassle is the ability to use templates to create new Teams.
These templates come with premade channels, user settings, and installed apps for specific use cases, such as event management, crisis response, and so forth.
Microsoft supplies templates that you can use out of the box or customize, and there's an option to build your own templates, too.
One thing missing is the ability to create private channels in the templates.
You've long been able to set a personal status to let other people know when you're available, busy, or temporarily away from your workstation.
Now there's an option to appear offline even when you're logged in.
That way, you can access information in your Teams account without telling anyone you're online.
Another recent update for multilingual folks is language-aware proofing.
Teams figures out which language you're using when you type and applies spellcheck for that language.
It's available in the desktop app only at this time.
There's also a simplified global notification setting, the ability to muffle background noises, and read receipts, which are enabled by default in group chats of up to 20 people.
Admins can disable it.
Finally, Teams has also beefed up its integrated video calling service, Meetings, which this article addresses in its own section.
Microsoft Teams Pricing and Plans
There are two ways to get a Microsoft Teams account.
One is to sign up for a free account, which requires an overall Microsoft account, and the other is to have a Microsoft 365 Business or Enterprise account, where the app is included.
The free Teams account requires a Microsoft account or ID of any kind, such as a login for Outlook.com.
With this account, you can invite up to 299 more people to join you, although everyone must also have a Microsoft account to use the app.
You get all the primary features and only miss out on unique integration with business Office apps, such as scheduled meetings, Microsoft SharePoint access, and things of that nature.
You also don't get a full roster of support or security and compliance tools for administrators.
Due to demand during the COVID-19 pandemic, Microsoft allows free users to have video calls on Teams that last up to 24 hours.
That limit will revert to 60 minutes on July 1, 2021.
Up to 100 participants can join a virtual meeting, and you get all the standard features such as screen sharing and custom backgrounds.
The paid version of Teams that comes with Microsoft 365 adds all the tight integrations with Microsoft Office apps, plus 24/7 support and business-grade tools for administration, security, and compliance.
You can have up to 300 team members, unless you have the enterprise edition, which is good for as many people as you need.
There are three versions of Microsoft 365 that include Teams; all require an annual commitment:
Microsoft 365 Business Basic: $5 per person per month
Microsoft 365 Business Standard: $12.50 per person per month
Microsoft 365 Business Premium (enterprise): $20 per person per month
Comparative Pricing
Comparing these prices to the cost of other business messaging apps isn't an apples-to-apples affair.
The prices above are for bundles of software, not just Teams.
In any event, to get a sense of the market, the average price hovers around $5 to $6 per person per month.
That's roughly what Flock and Glip by RingCentral cost.
Twist by Doist is free, with upgraded paid accounts running $5 per person per month.
Zoho Cliq is the budget pick in this category, charging around $1 to $3 per person per month, depending on the total team size.
Slack costs more than just about any team messaging app we've reviewed, charging $8 to $15 per person per month, with discounts offered if you pay for a year upfront.
Teams and Slack have other differences besides price, of course.
The Microsoft Teams Interface
Microsoft Teams is easiest to use as a Windows 10 desktop app or web app.
There are mobile versions for Apple iOS and Google Android devices that work fine when you're on the go, but the desktop and web apps are easier to navigate.
In the desktop or web app, you see a far-left rail with primary navigation, a secondary left rail with additional navigation, and a large center window for interactions.
The first layer is Activity, Chat, Teams, Meetings, Calls, Files, and any apps you've installed.
There could be more or fewer options depending on your organization's configuration, and you can customize the sidebar a little more by pinning your favorite apps and chats to the top.
Activity shows a summary of activity in your account.
Chat is for direct messaging.
Teams is where you access the interactive space for messages.
Meetings opens a space where you can either start a video meeting or schedule one for later (there are several other ways to start a meeting).
Calls opens yet another space to make calls, whether video or audio.
And Files is where you find files that you and others have uploaded.
Let's focus on Teams, since it's the heart of communication for a team messaging app.
When you click Teams, you see a list of teams, or different groups of people.
This setup is unlike Slack, where Channels are in the primary navigation bar.
Microsoft Teams instead has you first compartmentalize people into Teams.
You might have a companywide team, a Sales team, human resources (HR) team, and so forth.
You can create any teams you want, but fair warning: the more teams you create, the harder it becomes to navigate the app, so it pays to plan your team structure out in some detail and restrict the number of users who can create new teams.
Within each team you have channels.
You might assume that the channel is where people on the same team communicate via text chat synchronously or asynchronously, but you'd be wrong.
A channel is merely the next layer of organization.
Each channel has tabs, which you can customize, too. A tab called Posts is likely where most team communication happens, but you can also have tabs for wikis, Microsoft Word documents, OneNote notes, and more.
To understand the extent of Team's compartmentalized nature, we must dive yet one layer deeper.
When you write something in Posts, it shows up in a feed.
Anyone who reads your post will see a little Reply link at the bottom of it.
Using the Reply function to a post creates a thread, whereby all additional comments to that post become contained below it.
Visually, it's quite different from Slack's threads, which shoot off to the right, or even Twist's set up, which packages conversations into an email-like view.
In any event, Teams collapses long threads to minimize the amount of space they use.
You can toggle open a thread any time, but they collapse by default at a certain point.
The result is a highly organized interface, but one that feels like it has a lot of rules.
By contrast, Slack often feels like a place where people are less inhibited to speak up (not that everyone uses that lack of inhibition wisely).
Teams doesn't have that vibe.
Instead, because of its structure, it feels like there are rules to follow.
Customizing Team Spaces
Any time you create a new channel, you get three default tabs: Posts, Files, and Wiki.
You can keep all three, delete some, or add new tabs.
The number and type of tabs you can add is tremendous.
In addition to those already mentioned, there are tabs for Microsoft Excel, PDFs, YouTube, Evernote, Trello, Zoho CRM, and many more.
The list of options looks plentiful, but some of them, such as educational apps JogNog and Quizlet, seem unusual among all the business apps.
You can customize these spaces to a fine level, creating a space to store all the knowledge, raw information, and insight your team collectively keeps.
Let's say for example an ad-sales team has a Posts tab for ongoing discussions, a Wiki filled with talking points for selling clients, an embedded Excel sheet showing rates for ads, and one more tab that points to a web page showing real-time news related to the business.
That could all be in one channel.
The ad-sales team could in fact have multiple channels within their team, like another one for brainstorming and a third for watercooler conversations.
The downside of this arrangement is a risk that people may not see all the conversations that are relevant to them because they have to check several tabs within each channel to make sure they aren't missing anything.
The new global notifications helps with this a little, but there's always a fine balance between allowing all notifications and simply being able to keep one eye on an ongoing conversation.
No matter how you view it, the fact of the matter is that Microsoft Teams gives you tight control and the power to organize team interactions, which is in stark contrast to the free-wheeling group stream-of-consciousness you're likely to find in a Slack channel.
Is that good or bad? It depends how your team members communicate best.
Important Features
As a team messaging app, Teams has many features you'd expect to see, plus a few that are unique.
Among the ones you'd expect are things like being able to turn any word into a searchable tag by adding a # to it.
Additionally, after you write and post a message, you have an option to edit it, which most messaging apps let you do, too, though that wasn't always the case.
Adding a pin (some other apps use a star instead) to any post saves it to the top of a sidebar, letting you keep important details in view.
If you want to keep a channel private, it's easy enough to leave it as invite-only.
Those features are all fairly standard.
One of Teams' more unusual features is the ability to write one message and then post it to multiple channels.
For people working in internal communications, it helps to broadcast important information quickly to those who need to see it.
Another nice feature is calendar integration because here in Teams, it's complete enough that you can actually schedule appointments from the view in Teams, whereas in some other apps, you get a read-only view.
Video Conferencing, Audio Calls, and Screen Sharing
Most team messaging apps now offer video calling, audio calling, and screen sharing, either natively or through third-party add-ons.
Microsoft Teams does, too.
It works on the desktop, web, and mobile device clients, though on mobile devices, you must install the Teams app to join a call.
You can't do it from a mobile browser.
You can make one-on-one calls or group calls with audio only or video, with screen sharing and group whiteboard options, too.
In Teams, you can start a call anytime you see a video camera or phone icon.
Click someone's name and there it is.
If you call someone and they don't answer, you can leave a voicemail.
When viewing Posts, there's a camera icon in the upper right corner to start a call and invite everyone in that Channel to join you.
When you see a video camera icon next to a conversation, it means there's a video call in progress that you can join.
No one has to dial you in, so to speak.
Just click or tap and go.
Video calls in Teams are different from Skype conversations, so you don't have to worry about the back-end server implications of your Skype or Skype for Business accounts.
For scheduling calls, Teams has some nice tools and integrations with Outlook not found in most other team chat apps.
You can schedule a call in advance, for example, and get an alert before it begins.
You can schedule recurring calls, too.
With the appropriate permissions, you can view someone's Outlook calendar to find a good time for a meeting.
There are also options to designate an organizer or host prior to group calls.
While participating in a video meeting, you can choose whose video feed you want to see and pin it in your view.
It works for multiple speakers at a time.
So if you join a large group meeting and you want to watch your manager's reactions, you can.
Teams has several features that are less common in team messaging...
