Chapter 17

IN THIS CHAPTER

Looking at Teams in education

Leveraging Teams for shift-based work

Using Teams in healthcare and government agencies

The coronavirus pandemic in 2020 forced many industries to examine their work-from-home policies. If they didn’t have any when the pandemic caused many businesses to switch to a work-from-home model, the businesses quickly adapted. While there are still many jobs that cannot be done from home, what this time has shown us is that it is possible for more jobs to be done from home than perhaps we originally thought.

Different industries have different needs when it comes to software and communication systems, regardless of whether an industry’s employees are able to work from home or mostly work in person in an office or other setting. The way a hospital or physician’s office uses Microsoft Teams will be radically different than the way a manufacturing business or government agency uses Teams.

In this chapter, you learn how to get the most out of Teams in different industries. For example, you learn how Teams can be used in education, healthcare, and government. And you gain an understanding of how you can adapt Teams for the needs of your own industry.

Getting the Most from Teams for Education

In March 2020, the world went into lockdown. Students around the globe suddenly found themselves having to continue their learning online. It did not matter whether the schools and teachers were ready to go from all in-person classes to everything taught remotely. To paraphrase a popular saying, everyone was learning to fly the airplane as it was being built.

Although Microsoft Teams was first primarily created for companies, it did not take long before schools adopted it. Microsoft Teams allows teachers and students to keep conversations and interactions focused and work organized. The features and functionality of Microsoft Teams for Education are similar to Microsoft Teams for Work. Instead of a team, however, think about a class. Instead of managers and coworkers, think of administrators, teachers, and students.

Microsoft offers special Microsoft 365 subscriptions for education — through its Microsoft 365 Education suite of products — that are specifically designed for use in school settings. Within these subscriptions are special templates for Teams that are specifically designed for teachers and students. In Chapter 1, you learn how to sign up for a new subscription. If you are an educator, you can sign up for a subscription that is specifically designed for education. You can find out more information about Microsoft 365 Education at www.microsoft.com/en-us/education.

Creating a team from a class list

With a Microsoft 365 Education subscription, you can create a class team. (I cover creating a new team in Chapter 3.) The class team is a type of team you can select when you first create a new team, and it is only available as an option within the Microsoft 365 Education subscription. A class team is designed for a teacher to interact with students in a class. A teacher creates the team and then adds students and any co-teachers. The teachers can guide students to collaborate and work in channels, share files, and turn in assignments.

Follow these steps to create a team from a class list:

1. Click the Teams icon in the left navigation pane.

2. Select Suggested classes to reveal a list of your suggested classes.

The Suggested classes link appears either next to the Join or create team button in the top-right corner of the Teams window, or at the bottom of the teams list.

3. Select Join or create team and select your class from the pre-populated list.

You can select more than one class.

4. Select Create and click to open the team tile when it appears.

Your students will be added to the team automatically.

5. When you are ready to activate your team, select the Activate banner to make the team visible to the students.

You do not have to activate the team you just created right away. You can take this step after you have the time to organize, add your content, and other tasks you need to do before you have your student join. When you are ready, select the Activate banner to make the team visible to your students.

For more help, Microsoft provides an interactive video that walks teachers through how to use Teams with their classes. The video includes examples of a biology teacher managing a class of students and collaborating with the class as the students work on their assignments. You can check out the video at https://info.microsoft.com/ww-landing-Contact-Microsoft-Education-Request-a-Demo.html.

Microsoft Teams is just one aspect of the Microsoft 365 Education subscriptions. You will also get the standard Office client applications such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and Outlook. In my opinion, Teams is one of the most important parts of the subscription because it provides a tool for teachers and students to communicate and collaborate. However, other helpful aspects of the subscription include class and staff notebooks, digital storytelling, professional learning community groups, and using Microsoft Forms to grade quizzes.

Using Insights to assess student engagement

Teachers are often left to guess the engagement level of their students. Microsoft’s Insights feature provides useful at-a-glance information on student participation in class conversations and trends in student activity. Insights provides a dashboard for teachers to see important metrics that can help in lesson planning, providing feedback, and assessing where additional help might be needed. Although Insights is not a substitute for the expertise of the teacher, it is there to give the teacher some help.

Here’s how to enable Microsoft Insights for a class team:

1. Select the Team to which you want to add Insights from the left navigation pane.

2. Select + to add a new tab.

3. Select Insights from the list.

Use the search function if it is not readily visible.

4. Select Add.

5. Uncheck the option Post to Channel about the tab and then select Save.

Only teachers have access to Insights.

Using FlipGrid

FlipGrid is a social learning platform designed for classrooms spanning pre-kindergarten all the way through doctoral programs. FlipGrid can be found at https://flipgrid.com. FlipGrid provides a platform for educators to create online meeting places, called Grids, and then add topics to those Grids. Students then meet and discuss topics and learn with the educator. Microsoft was so impressed with FlipGrid that it purchased the company and has begun integrating it with the rest of the Microsoft services.

The FlipGrid app is integrated nicely with Teams, enabling you to use FlipGrid without leaving the Teams environment. (I cover adding apps to Teams in Chapter 5.) You can find the FlipGrid app in the Education category, as shown in Figure 17-1.

FIGURE 17-1: Adding the FlipGrid app to a team in Teams.

Note that this app is one that uses the permissions set in the Teams Permissions screen. (You access the Permissions screen by selecting Settings from your profile drop-down menu.) FlipGrid will ask for permission when the app needs to access a resource on your computer such as your microphone or video camera so you can record from within Teams. You can always go back to the settings and remove the access or limit the access at any time for your device. (See Chapter 5 for more about setting app permission for external devices.)

Using Teams in Government Agencies

The United States government has used Microsoft products for years and is embracing and adopting Teams in order to stay current. Government workers use Teams to communicate and collaborate. Governments in general have specific considerations for any software, and Microsoft has been very accommodating with the Microsoft 365 Government Cloud Computing (GCC) offering.

The Microsoft 365 GCC subscription is designed for the specific needs of federal, state, local, and tribal governments.

Teams features specific to the GCC offering include the following:

· Customer content is stored in the country of origin. For example, the United States government cloud is stored strictly within the United States. There are also offerings for other countries that follow the same design such as China and Germany.

· Government content is segregated from commercial customer content.

· Only screened Microsoft employees can access government content for needs such as support and troubleshooting.

· All features are compliant with the unique certifications and accreditations required by the relevant government.

If you are using Teams as part of a government offering, the good news is that everything I cover in this book also directly relates to you. The primary difference with Teams in government is in how you sign up for your initial Microsoft 365 subscription. Once you have Teams available to you, you can use all the features I walk you through in this book.

Microsoft made big news in 2019 when it was announced that the United States Department of Defense chose the Microsoft cloud. The contract was a Pentagon contract known as Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI), and it was valued at $10,000,000,000.00. Yes, that is 10 billion dollars!

Leveraging Teams for Consulting and Service-Based Companies

I cover using Teams with small and medium-size organizations in Chapter 15, and the information in that chapter applies to consulting and service-based companies, too. I have noticed that consulting and service-based firms use the guest access and conferencing capabilities of Teams extensively. If you find yourself on a lot of conference calls, check out Chapter 9 on conducting meetings in Teams and Chapter 11 on setting up conferencing services. I also recommend checking out Chapter 7 for more information on working with guest users.

Empowering Healthcare Providers

Hospitals and healthcare providers have industry-specific needs around patient privacy and data handling in accordance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Microsoft has worked with governmental regulators in order to make sure Teams is compliant in these scenarios. Using Teams, healthcare providers can securely message patients, coordinate and collaborate procedures, provide remote health care (telehealth), and manage patient records using the electronic health record (EHR) standard format.

Microsoft is developing a Teams app that is designed specifically for the healthcare industry. The app is called Patients, and it is designed to use the standard EHR patient record format and let providers manage patient records from within a Teams channel. The app can be installed on mobile phones for mobile healthcare workers or used from the desktop and web versions of Teams.

Microsoft has put together a video that shows how Teams can be used in the healthcare industry. If you are in this industry, it is worth checking out. You can find it at https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/microsoft-teams/healthcare-solutions.

Modernizing Retail Stores

Microsoft offers two Teams templates designed for modern retail stores: a store template and a manager collaboration template. When you create a team with one of these templates, your team will automatically include channels, apps, and the settings required that Microsoft designed for the template.

The store template automatically creates two channels for the team. The channels are named Shifts Handoff and Learning, and both are automatically set as a favorite for everyone in the team. The template also configures the team with settings designed for retail stores. For example, the team is set to public, so it is viewable by all members of the organization. In addition, permissions are locked down so that members are not allowed to create or manage channels, add or remove apps or connectors, or add or update tabs. (See Chapter 4 for more about how channels work.)

Using Teams templates is something that needs to be done by a developer. Templates are designed for organizations that need to create many teams with the same settings and configuration. Template capabilities use the underlying Microsoft Graph application programming interface (API). The interface uses a web technology known as Representational State Transfer (REST). A sample request and response is shown in Figure 17-2.

FIGURE 17-2: Using the Microsoft Graph API to create a team based on a template.

Tapping into Teams for Firstline Workers

Firstline workers are a part of almost every industry. A firstline worker is someone who interacts directly with the customers of the organization. For example, firstline workers include hotel agents, flight crews, hospital staff, salespeople, waiters, retail associates, and field crews. Firstline workers don’t usually sit at a desk with a computer; they are generally mobile and interact face to face with customers. Teams includes several features specifically for the special needs of firstline workers.

The Shifts app in Teams is designed for shift workers such as firstline workers. Shift workers have unique needs such as signing up for shifts, clocking in and out, reviewing schedules, requesting time off, and swapping shifts with others.

You can find the Shifts app in the left navigation pane of Teams. If you don’t see it, you can click More Apps and find it in the apps store. I cover Teams apps in detail in Chapter 5.

When you first open the Shifts app, you are provided with the option to create a schedule for each team, as shown in Figure 17-3. Teams first needs to know the time zone of the closest city, as shown in Figure 17-4. Once you confirm the time zone, Teams will set up the Shifts app and provide you with a tour.

FIGURE 17-3: The Shifts app in Teams.

FIGURE 17-4: Setting up the time zone for a team in the Shifts app.

You will see a list of schedules and shifts, as shown in Figure 17-5. You can add new groups and shifts much like you would in your calendar. You can manage requests by clicking the Requests tab at the top of the screen. You can then make a new request for time off, for a schedule swap, or to offer a shift you have already signed up for to someone else, as shown in Figure 17-6.

FIGURE 17-5: View schedules and shifts in the Teams Shifts app.

FIGURE 17-6: Making a shift request in the Shifts app in Teams.

The Shifts app includes several settings you can configure. Select the Settings tab from the main Shifts screen to open the settings screen. There you will find settings for schedules, shifts, requests, and the time clock, as shown in Figure 17-7.

The Shifts app was created after a stand-alone service called StaffHub was pulled into Teams. Microsoft is on a path to make Teams a central app for most of its other services, and the Shifts app showcases the direction other scenarios will take as well.

FIGURE 17-7: Configuring the settings of the Shifts app.