10 Microsoft Teams Features Your Nonprofit Should Know

Microsoft Teams is readily available to eligible nonprofit organisations through the M365 Cloud and below are our top 10 features you should know about before adopting Teams as your video calling and hybrid / remote working tool. On 29 September 2021, we hosted a virtual session through TechSoup Connect Southern Africa to discuss 10 Microsoft Teams features every nonprofit should know about and below is a recap of the session.

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Working on Files Together

Microsoft Teams has more than just chatting and video calling features. Your nonprofit can create dedicated Teams channels and once in a channel, you can click on “Files” on the top bar and edit files in real-time with your team! Whether it’s Word, Excel, or PowerPoint, collaborating on a document is so easy. You can create or upload a file and converse with your team while editing.

Saving Messages with Bookmarking

In any conversation on Microsoft Teams, click on the 3 dots on a message and click “Save this message.” In order to find all of your saved messages, click on your profile picture, and click “Saved.” This is useful when you have a busy day and want to keep track of important messages that might get lost in the conversations, especially when working on funding proposals or development programmes with your team!

Create Unique And Specific Polls

Teams has a plugin called Polly. It’s an easy way to create and send polls to your coworkers without interrupting your workflow. Some advantages of using Polly include scheduling polls to be sent in the future, using anonymity, and setting the duration for how long the poll lasts. To send out a poll, click the 3 dots under the new message chatbox.

Uploading your own Virtual Background

Teams offers a few default backgrounds, but you can create your own and upload them. Whether it’s your organisation logo or images from your recent programme outreach activity, all you have to do is upload it in “background effects.”

Using Slash Commands

In Teams, using the top search bar, you can type a forward slash “/” and an entire list of commands will show up. These are very helpful shortcuts to make Teams even easier for you! Slash commands allow you to do a variety of things such as: change your status quickly, chat, or call someone without searching for and opening the conversation, or even see all of your unread messages.

Call Your Team From Your PC or Mac

Teams allows for voice and video calls straight from your PC or Mac to people in your organization – this feature has been particularly helpful for nonprofit Board Members that are often based far apart from each other when needing to have board meetings.

Real-time Screen Sharing

Teams allows you to share your screen in real-time to showcase projects or documents you’re working on with your colleagues.

An App Is Available!

Most of us working in nonprofits use multiple devices to complete tasks and Microsoft Teams has a mobile app! You can use the app to chat; schedule meetings; make video and voice calls or send messages on the go!

Integration

Teams integrates easily with other apps like: Adobe Creative Cloud, Workforce, Survey Monkey and more! Click on the app button and all the integrated apps will come up to use!

It’s Free For Eligible Nonprofits!

Through the 10 Free M365 Business Premium Seats donation, eligible nonprofits can access Teams.

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