I’ve gotten my first real request for a post from a friend whose company are shutting down Skype for Business soon. I’ve been drifting away with all the new exciting things you can do with Microsoft Teams that I forgot to write a simple “How to do normal Skype for Business things in Microsoft Teams” post.
To be honest I can’t remember the last time I used Skype for Business, but back then these were the things I used daily; chat, organizing contacts by grouping people, make a call, join a meeting and check someone’s status and setting your status.
Chat
As chatting is a big part of Microsoft Teams, I’ve already addressed this in for example these two post: So, we implemented Microsoft Teams – what should we do now? and Should I use a Team or a group chat?
I wouldn’t say there’s any big difference in features except that Microsoft Teams is persistent – which is something I can repeat constantly since it’s maybe my favorite part of Microsoft Teams. Remember when you had to double check if a colleague is online before you send a message? Or the mess switching between mobile and desktop. All is gone with the persistent chat, also perfect for looking at the history of a conversation!
Organizing contacts by grouping people
A common way of organizing your contacts in Skype for Business is to group them.
To find your contacts and groups in Microsoft Teams you open the chat tab in the left side navigation, Recent will probably be open and this is where you can find your recent conversations. But to make it more familiar to Skype for Business – open Contacts.
In Microsoft Teams you will as in Skype for Business also have Favorites added as a default and by clicking “Creating a new contact group” you can create all the groups you need.
Something missing in Microsoft Teams is the ability to drag-and-drop contacts between different groups, my friend said she really misses this from when project buddies go to normal work buddies. One thing I like about Microsoft is the fact that they care about their users, I know that they look in the UserVoice forums for feedback. So let’s all do my friend a big favor and vote the idea for Drag and drop Contacts from one group to another.
When we’re already in voting let’s vote on Remember expand/collapse contact groups, deciding if you want to have your groups expanded or not is a user choice available in Skype for Business that we should keep! To give the users their own choice on how they should organize their work is important for catering for different kinds of work styles 😊.
Make a call
To make a call in Microsoft Teams I would say it follows the same steps as in Skype for Business. Open the chat/team you want to make the call in (from where I come from, we ask before we call, but I know some people just call).
In a chat you click the phone or camera (dependent if you want to add cam or not) located in the right corner. There you also have the option to share your screen.
In a team it looks a little bit different, you open the channel you want to call. Where you write new messages there is an icon in the shape of a camera, click this to call the channel. As the channel usually has more members then a chat you will get the option to give your call a subject and also to schedule a meeting instead. I love a call with cam, but you can turn off the camera as well.
Join a meeting
I want to show you how to join a meeting directly from Microsoft Teams – but as Microsoft is rolling out a new meeting feature soon, I want to try that instead. Hopefully during May!
Right now, you can see all your meeting in Microsoft Teams – independent of if the meeting is live, in Skype for Business or in Microsoft Teams. Of course, you can join Skype for Business meeting from Microsoft Teams (well it opens in Skype for Business but almost).
Check someone’s status and setting you status
I’ve saved the best for last! When I was a Skype for Business user, I used the check people’s statuses well ALL the time. To be honest I’ve stopped caring about this now that we have the persistent chat in Microsoft Teams. I count on people answering when they have time😊.
For those of you that like to write to people when you know they are free, you will see their status in front of their name. If you hoover their name, you can also see if they added any message and when they latest where online.
If a person is busy/offline you can follow a person’s status and get notified when they appear Available or Offline – easiest it to click … on the person you’re interested in and click Notify when availible.
Your status will follow the status from your calendar, but if you want to update your status manually you click your portrait in the top right corner. There you can change your status and also set a status message if you want to like the What's happening today? from Skype for Business.
//Denna vecka skriver jag om hur du gör några av vanligaste sakerna från Skype för företag i Microsoft Teams. Jag skriver om chatta, organisera dina kontakter, ringa ett samtal, ansluta till ett möte samt kollar en persons status och ändra din egen status.