In the months since we first wrote about some key features that were missing before Teams would truly achieve parity with Skype for Business, significant progress has been made.
None of our posts on this subject have been intended to demean the functionality of Skype-like functions within Teams. It’s a great tool, and we’ve helped a number of our clients implement it. However, at the time Microsoft announced that Teams had achieved parity with Skype for Business, we were working with folks who were struggling with some of the then-unresolved issues. We’re pleased to see Teams becoming an increasingly robust communications and collaborations platform.
Microsoft is continuously adding new features and improving existing ones, as it does all across the Office 365 platform. That’s one of Office 365’s greatest strengths, even though it can be frustrating when an update moves or renames features. That always seems to happen right after we’ve gotten comfortable with the previous setup. But new elements are being constantly added, as we noted in our post on the Teams roadmap.
We previously posted about the lack of ability to direct message someone in their own tenant if they were also a guest in your tenant. We’re pleased to see that Microsoft has addressed this issue and there are now options to resolve it. If you IM someone who is a guest in your tenant you will be prompted to choose between guest or external access. Is someone at Microsoft reading our blog?
At the time of our previous post there were only two compatibility modes available; now there are five! The most important of these is the “Teams only” mode. This mode essentially disables Skype for Business within your organization and routes all of those communications into Teams.
Teams is a fantastic platform that takes the capabilities includes in Skype for Business to a whole new level. While there are a couple of issues that need to be resolved, most notably around messaging security. We think Teams is the collaboration and communication platform of the future for many businesses.