You might have an Android phone you habitually use for business purposes — whether that’s because your employer originally handed you that device or you obtained it for personal use and have decided that the handset could double effectively as a corporate one as well.
Anyway, whatever your reasons for having an Android-powered work phone, one app you should seriously consider installing on it is Microsoft Teams. This software has been built for fostering corporate collaboration and teamwork.
Worldwide, over 330,000 companies use Microsoft Teams, the app’s Redmond-based purveyor has revealed. However, aside from this social proof, what reasons could you have for wanting to not only install this app but also encourage co-workers to do likewise?
Microsoft Teams is far from just a chat application
Sure, Teams comes with a chat window which you can switch to for having quick conversations with other employees of your organization. However, in this window, you can do a lot more than type and submit short, text-based messages.
For example, the app’s integration with Microsoft productivity tools like Office and OneNote allows you to seamlessly share files within the chat window; you don’t need to switch between apps in a potentially cumbersome fashion.
If any file you share in Teams sparks a flurry of questions from a work colleague, you can even make a call — like a video call or just a standard phone call — to them within Teams, enabling you to vocally discuss the matter in depth.
If you anticipate wanting to tap into this particular functionality of Teams, you could benefit from partnering with a specialist provider of corporate telephony services. One example of such a firm is Gamma, which offers add-ons for enabling Microsoft Teams-based voice and video collaboration (https://www.gamma.co.uk/products/microsoft-teams-telephony/).
Furthermore, as Teams is available across a wide range of platforms, you can take comfort that, once you have familiarized yourself with the Teams interface on Android, you should be able to adapt to a desktop version of Teams with relatively little hassle.
Why should you be particularly drawn to the Teams mobile app?
Microsoft marketer Marissa Salazar has conceded: “We at Microsoft know that work is not limited to sitting at a desk with a computer. We are constantly on the go, getting work done from coffee shops, the airport, the couch, and while commuting.”
She added that, in certain fields, like retail and healthcare, a phone could even be the primary or sole device used by a worker for productivity.
Fortunately, the Teams mobile app alone can provide you with a wealth of exciting functions literally at your fingertips. For example, if you are part of a team scattered across the world, you can specify ‘Quiet Hours’ and ‘Quiet Days’ on the app, making it easier for you to enjoy some downtime when you are due it.
If you start participating in a Teams conference call but subsequently realize that you will need to leave the office before that call ends, you could even smoothly transfer it from your laptop to your Android phone.