Many of our clients have inquired about various collaboration tools to keep their new remote workforce connected. Both Slack and Microsoft Teams are excellent solutions to keep your distributed staff on the same page and engaged. We suspect we will continue to see an increase in the use of collaboration tools even when things return to “normal.”
If you are currently exploring such a solution, both Slack and Teams are good options. At MIS, we like to eat our own dog food, so to speak, and Slack is the tool we’ve used for several years for chat communication. If you are already using Office 365, then Teams is a good option for you.
Like Teams, Slack uses customized channels, which are groupings of people defined by things such as departments, work functions, location or projects for example. It also has the functionality to chat privately with others or in groups.
The free version of Slack is what our team uses and it works effectively to keep our employees connected. There is a drawback to using the free version and that is that organizations are only able to access the 10,000 most recent messages. Depending on the size of your organization, this could present a problem with important chats disappearing quickly. As long as you are mindful of this, the free version of Slack is an excellent chat tool.
Slack’s paid plan also has a video conferencing feature, however, we recommend Zoom for online video calls. Microsoft Teams has a free version that includes 1:1 and group online audio and video calls. There are some things you need to know about Teams if this is the avenue you choose to take.
- You must use the web version of MS Teams if on a cloud platform
- Do not install the application to the cloud desktop as it will cause severe performance issues
- Do not use video in the cloud – you will need to toggle to your local desktop to use video and video conferencing.
We can help you with set up and connectivity with whichever platform you choose. Please call your dedicated support number, email us at help@mis-solutions.com or log in to our client support portal at https://www.mis-solutions.com/client-support to get started.
For more resources on MS Teams visit https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/enduser-training