If your development team uses Microsoft Teams to collaborate, the tips and tricks in this guide can help you take your experience to the next level by saving time and increasing productivity.
Microsoft Teams is a collaboration software that allows developers to communicate with each other in real-time regardless of location.
Included at no additional cost as part of the Microsoft 365 productivity suite, Microsoft Teams simplifies developer collaboration by bringing together various collaboration tools, files, and communication, all in one place. Over 100 million users often rely on Microsoft Teams to stay connected and share ideas, thanks to features like chat, audio and video calls, screen and file sharing, and over 600 third-party app integrations. Accessible via the web, desktop, and mobile apps, Microsoft Teams promotes and facilitates online learning and remote work, especially for developers who have transitioned to working from home rather than the office.
Now that you have a general idea of what Microsoft Teams can do, here are some specific tips and tricks you can incorporate into your routine to get the most out of the collaboration software, including:
- Use slash commands for common tasks
- Mark messages as urgent
- Get meeting transcripts
- Blur background during meetings
- Turn off distracting notifications
- Use the symbol @ to direct messages to users
- Refine your searches to find messages more easily
- Customize chat titles for easier searching
- Create polls for quick feedback
- Translate messages
- Easily share files
Slash commands in Microsoft Teams can help developers save time so they have more room in their schedule for essential tasks. Better yet, you can activate commands simply by typing / in the command box at the top of the Teams window.
After typing / in the command box, a menu of commands and their corresponding actions will appear. View the command you want and press Enter to execute it. Here are some examples of slash commands in Teams that will be available to you as soon as you type / in the command box:
- /activity: displays a team member’s activity.
- /busy: sets your status to busy.
- /call: calls a Teams contact or a phone number.
- /files: displays recent files.
- /keys: lists all keyboard shortcuts.
- /mentions: shows all your @mentions.
Mark messages to not miss as urgent
Some chat messages demand more attention than others and require a quick response. For such messages, use the Urgent feature in Teams to let your colleagues know that what you’re sending is something special.
Look below the text composition field as you craft your message, as that’s where you’ll have the opportunity to flag it as Urgent or Important. Once your chat message has the Urgent tag and you send it, the recipient will be notified every two minutes for the next 20 minutes. In other words, it’ll be hard to miss.
Get Microsoft Teams meeting transcripts
Development team meetings are often packed with so much information that it’s easy for essential snippets to go unnoticed. Instead of spending precious time taking notes, you can let Microsoft Teams do all the work with transcripts.
Here’s how to download your meeting transcripts in Microsoft Teams:
- Click the ellipsis (…) once the meeting recording is ready.
- Open the meeting video in Microsoft Stream.
- Click the next visible ellipsis (…).
- Select Update video details.
- Click Video language.
- SelectAutomatically generate a subtitle file.
- ClickUpdate.
- Go to sectionMicrosoft Streamsto download the meeting transcript.
How to blur your background during Microsoft Teams calls
As more developers work remotely, more meetings occur where your home office, perhaps messy, might be put on display. To increase the privacy of your home setting and minimize distractions for your colleagues, blur your background in Teams. To do this, go to the settings screen forAudio and Videoand click the three dots (ellipsis). Click… . ClickBlurbackground and you can focus on yourself instead of your surroundings.
If blurring your background isn’t your style, Microsoft Teams offers the additional option of using a background image to camouflage your surroundings. You can find this option by going to the settings screen foraudio and videoand clicking the ellipsis. Then selectShow background effectsto choose something that fits your needs.
Avoid distractions by modifying notifications
Notifications in Microsoft Teams can ensure developers stay up-to-date. But too many notifications can distract from the task (or chat) at hand. To modify notifications to minimize distractions in Microsoft Teams, do the following:
- Click your profile picture in the top-right corner of Teams.
- Click the Notifications.
- tab and modify your notifications to your liking in terms of frequency, appearance, sound, etc.
Message direct team members with the @ symbol
Microsoft Teams is all about collaboration and one of the quickest ways to collaborate via the software is through the@ symbol. Go to the search barat the top of Teams, and type the@. Then, find the team member you are looking for in the dropdown menu and message them directly without hassle.
Refine Your Searches in Microsoft Teams Chat
As your development team’s conversations grow in Microsoft Teams, finding the specific items you are looking for will become more difficult unless you use keywords. Microsoft Teams has specific keywords that unlock advanced search capabilities to help you quickly find what you’re looking for. Include these keywords in your searches, and you’ll be able to save a lot of time searching for the information you desire:
- “Sent:” – the date you sent the message (Sent:1/7/2023)
- “From:” – sender’s name (From:John Smith)
- “Subject:” – a keyword in the subject line or message (Subject:Meeting)
- “In:” – the name of the group chat or channel (In:Developers)
For this advanced search to work, you don’t need whitespace between the keyword, colon, and search terms, just like in the examples above.
Customize Your Chat Titles for Seamless Searching
It can be frustrating to search for specific chats/information to no avail. Fortunately, Microsoft Teams makes it simple to organize your chats and make them more searchable. How? By allowing you to edit chat titles at your convenience so you can easily search for and find them in the future.
You can edit chat title names in Microsoft Teams by clicking on the pencil in the top-right corner of the chat and renaming them as you see fit.
Gathering feedback can be tricky when all team members of the development team are busy. But it can be much simpler when you conduct polls in Microsoft Teams. Under the message window, you will find the Forms icon. Click on it to create and distribute a poll to your team.
The polls feature gives you the option to ask a custom question, list different answers or options, and enable multiple answers. You also have the option to instantly share the results once the poll is complete or keep them anonymous.
Translate Your Messages
Some developers or clients you interact with might speak a foreign language. Teams has you covered, so nothing is lost in translation. To translate a message, hover over it. Then,
click on the three dots … and choose Translate.
In addition to manual translation, Microsoft Teams translates video calls as well. This feature is accessible through the Translate menu that allows developers to add captions in various languages. Video call participants can view translations by navigating to the right side of their screens and selecting the Turn on captions
option.
Share Files Easily and Securely
File sharing plays an important role in developer collaboration, and Microsoft Teams lets you leverage this essential feature through SharePoint integration. Click on the Files tab, and you can begin securely sharing files with other developers on your team via SharePoint. After sharing a file on a Teams channel, other team members can edit and collaborate on it with Microsoft Office apps like Word or Excel.
Final Thoughts
In this Microsoft Teams tutorial, we’ve learned some simple tips and tricks to help you get the most out of your collaboration software. These tips include learning how to use shortcuts for common tasks, translating text and video, adding captions to videos that need translation, how to share files, using polls for quick feedback, sending direct messages to team members with the @ symbol, marking messages as urgent, and finally, automatically transcribing meetings for future reference.
Pubblicato in Guides & Tutorials
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