Microsoft Teams Features and Future Roadmap

Microsoft Teams is a proprietary business communication platform developed by Microsoft, as part of the Microsoft 365 family of products in 2017. Teams primarily compete with similar service Slack, offering workspace chat and videoconferencing, file storage, and application integration. Microsoft Teams replaced Microsoft-operated business messaging and collaboration platforms, including Skype for Business and Microsoft Classroom. Very recently Microsoft announced a lot of new features that are now generally available to improve your experience with meetings and calling, chat and collaboration, as well as several new updates to Microsoft Teams devices. Microsoft Teams crossed 115 million daily active users (DAU)—plus, a new daily collaboration minutes metric for Microsoft 365. During an earnings call with investors today, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella revealed Microsoft Teams now has 115 million daily active users (DAU). That’s a more than 50 percent rise from the 75 million that Microsoft reported almost six months ago.

Salient Feature of Microsoft Teams

Chats:   Teams allows users to communicate through Chats. Chats in Teams are persistent. So, users have no need to check Conversation History unlike Skype for Business. Teams allow users to format text, use emojis, during chats. Users can mark the message as Important also.
Group Chat :  It supports one-on-one as well as group chats. Users can have call
File – Sharing : It allows file sharing through chats.
Teams : Microsoft Teams allow communities, groups, or teams to join through a specific URL or invitation sent by a team administrator or owner. Teams for Education allows admins and teachers to set up specific teams for classes, professional learning communities (PLCs), staff members, and everyone. 
Channels : Within a team, members can set up channels. Channels are topics of conversation that allow team members to communicate without the use of email or group SMS (texting). Users can reply to posts with text as well as images, GIFs and custom-made memes.Direct messages allow users to send private messages to a specific user rather than a group of people.Connectors are third party services that can submit information to the channel. Connectors include MailChimp, Facebook Pages, Twitter, PowerBI and Bing News
Calling : Calling is provided by instant messaging, Voice over IP (VoIP), and video conferencing inside the client software. Teams also support public switched telephone network (PSTN) conferencing allowing users to call phone numbers from the client.
Meeting : Meetings can be scheduled or created ad hoc and users visiting the channel will be able to see that a meeting is currently in progress. Teams also have a plugin for Microsoft Outlook to nvite others into a Teams meeting. This supports thousands of users that can connect via a meeting link.
Teams Live Events : Teams Live Events replaces Skype Meeting Broadcast with the ability for users to broadcast to 10,000 participants on Teams, Yammer or Microsoft Stream
Education : Microsoft Teams allow teachers to distribute, provide feedback, and grade student assignments turned-in via Teams using the Assignments tab, available to Office 365 for Education subscribers. Quizzes can also be assigned to students through integration with Office Forms.
Protocols : Microsoft Teams is based on several Microsoft-specific protocols. Video conferences are realized over the protocol MNP24, known from the Skype consumer version. The protocol MS-SIP from Skype for Business is not used anymore to connect Teams clients. VoIP and video conference clients based on SIP and H.323 need special gateways to connect to Microsoft Teams servers. With the help of Interactive Connectivity Establishment (ICE), clients behind Network address translation routers and restrictive firewalls are also able to connect if peer to peer is not possible.
 Microsoft Dynamics 365 business central is a cloud business application product where Microsoft Teams is an integral part which is supported through a network of partners like SIROCo. At SIROCo, we have over 10 years’ experience serving small to medium-size businesses. We specialize in a wide variety of industries including, hospitality professional services, manufacturing, distribution and logistics, financial services, and pharmaceuticals/medical technology to name a few. Furthermore, we understand that each business has unique needs and we have the expertise to help you customize Microsoft Dynamics 365 business central- business management solution to fit your specific needs.