Organisations as diverse as Amicus, Blackmores, Objective Corporation, Readify and RSL Queensland are some of the first Australian users of Microsoft’s new chat-based workspace in Office 365, Teams.

In preview mode since November 2016, Microsoft says Teams is now available to now available to all Office 365 business

ASX-listed software developer Objective Corporation has been using Microsoft Teams as a secure platform for one of its design teams. Led by senior product manager Angus McDonald, the group brings together business analysts and usability experts to map out innovations for Objective’s enterprise content management (ECM) system.

Through Planner, Teams gives the group access to a Kanban board to steer its discussion, and persistent chat provides all the content needed to support and streamline the design process.

Australia’s leading natural health company, Blackmores, has rolled out Office 365 to six countries in Asia so that its 1,000-strong workforce is now on one cloud platform.

It’s IT team is also using Microsoft Teams to manage work across multiple projects, supporting the technology transformation initiative being led by CIO Brett Winn. 

Andrew Grech, head of IT operations for Blackmores, says the tight integration of Office 365 and Microsoft Teams means that when a group is working on a project, everyone is assured that the most current artefacts and content are available immediately.

“The benefit we’re seeing from the collaboration on Office 365 is huge,” Grech says. “We’re able to work as one team in real time, helping us reach decisions quicker and drive engagement and connection within the business.”

Additional features of Microsoft Teams now available include:

• an enhanced meeting experience, with scheduling capabilities
• mobile audio calling, with video calling now available on Android and coming soon to iOS and Windows Phone
• email integration
• new security and compliance capabilities.

For more details on the new features, go to the Office Blog.