MS Teams is one of the top meeting apps, rivaling the likes of Zoom and Google Meet. If you use it often, you’re likely familiar with the basics, but there’s much more to Teams than meets the eye, with a whole bunch of nifty features hidden away in its menus.
Here’s a look at some of the best hidden features in Microsoft Teams.
1. Keyboard Shortcuts
All Microsoft apps come with keyboard shortcuts, but it takes time to learn them, and even experienced users often don’t know all of the commands that could save them time. You can view a full list of all MS Teams shortcuts here or by clicking the three little dots in Teams in the top left corner, next to your profile picture, and selecting “Keyboard shortcuts.”
There are many shortcuts in Teams, and some can make your life a lot easier. Like “Alt,” “Shift,” and “N” to schedule a meeting or “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “M” to quickly mute your mic, when needed.
2. Slash Commands
MS Teams has many slash shortcuts, too, that you can access and execute at any time within the Chat. You only have to type “/” to see a full list of them appear and then scroll down to pick the one you want to use. It’s a good idea to do this before a meeting to remind yourself of the many functions available. This way you’ll know exactly what to type if you need to adjust your status or access the settings menu on the fly.
3. Delivery Options
Sometimes, you might send a message to someone in Teams that’s urgent and needs a quick response. However, if you send it as usual, the recipient might not notice the notification among all the other messages and notifications on their device.
That’s where the “Delivery Options” feature comes in. With this feature, you can give messages “Important” or “Urgent” status, so they show up more prominently on the other end. With the “Urgent” setting, your recipient will keep getting notifications every couple of minutes until they respond – a surefire way of getting a speedy reply. Find the “Set delivery options” menu by pressing the “+” icon in chat.
4. Together Mode
Together Mode is only an aesthetic feature, but it can make a real difference to how your meetings feel and the results you get from them. It works by taking everyone’s camera feeds and making it look like all the meeting members are in one shared space, like an actual meeting room, with a unified shared background.
To use it, enable “New Meeting Experience” in your Teams settings. Then, in a meeting, press the three little dots in the top-right and then select “Together Mode.”
5. Praise
“Praise” is a neat feature you can use to praise or award colleagues or team members with little colorful badges, almost like stickers for students at school. There are a bunch of different Praise badges available to recognize when someone has been optimistic, creative, a good leader, or a team player. Clever use of praise may prove effective for raising workplace morale.
6. Message Saving
This is a small feature, but it can prove useful and easily goes unnoticed. You can save important messages in the chat to revisit and reread in the future. All you have to do is click the three dots next to a message then select “Save this message.” You can then click your profile picture at any time and select “Saved” to see all your saved messages from past meetings and discussions.
7. Approvals
Lastly, there’s the “Approvals” feature – another big time-saver. This one allows people in positions of authority, like managers and supervisors, to quickly and easily approve work, documents, and other submissions from the team. You need to install the Approvals add-on app to Teams to do this. Then, workers will be able to create approvals, send them out to relevant parties, and managers can approve/reject with a single click.
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