Microsoft Teams Essentials: a new version for small businesses

The last two years have indeed been challenging for businesses. But in particular, small businesses have had to navigate the new way of working by adapting to all aspects of how they operate and work with customers, sometimes without the necessary tools and technologies.

With that in mind, Microsoft have introduced Teams Essentials, a new standalone offering of Microsoft Teams designed for small businesses.

Host professional meetings

Without the right communication tools, it’s extremely challenging to work effectively with customers and partners. That’s why Team Essentials loops in Teams capabilities with features that are designed for small businesses.

Extended meeting times and large meeting capacity

Whether your employees are meeting one-on-one or in a group for a critical project, there’s no need to dwell on if the meeting will over run. Teams Essentials Meetings can last up to a whole 30 hours and even host up to 300 people at once.

Calendar integration

Teams already has the ability to integrate with the Outlook Calendar, but soon the Google Calendar integration will allow users to use their existing calendaring tool to manage meetings.

Simple invitations

Users simply only need to use the recipients email address to send an invitation which will automatically generate a meeting invitation with a link. Those that don’t have Teams can join from their browser without having to sign up or install.

Interactive meetings

Your employees will be able to host more engaging meetings by using professional tools like meeting lobby, backgrounds, together mode and live reactions.

Connect existing tools and store content in one place

Teams Essentials is a simplified communication tools for small businesses where they can chat and keep meetings and conversations in context. It also comes equipped with Office web apps, file sharing, group chats and task management.

Added cloud storage

Teams Essentials is equipped with 10 GN of file storage, twice the amount that’s available in the free version of Teams! This means your business wont have to worry about running out of storage, or losing documents. All users can easily collaborate, view, edit and store Office 365 files.

Small business group chat template

Soon via desktop and app, users will be able to start a group project, host meetings with anyone, assign tasks and create polls to gain feedback.

Chat, meet, and collaborate with anyone

Users can work with anyone from in our outside the organisation, and the great thing is that chat and collaboration experiences are all kept in the same place. This way users don’t need to switch between ap experiences when working on projects with outside companies.

If you’re looking for more information on Teams Essentials, contact our Microsoft gold-certified team today.