Microsoft Teams 101

One of the things I've been asked about most this week has been how to use Teams for meetings. Teams is basically Microsoft's replacement for Skype which is being retired at some point this year. Teams is much more than an instant messaging app though. It can host meetings and link through with Office, SharePoint and OneDrive. Chances are if your organisation uses Office 365, you will also have Teams. I don't claim to be an expert on Microsoft or Teams but here is a quick guide to using it for virtual meetings (for the purposes of this I'm assuming that you're on a Windows environment, other operating systems are available).

Start Teams by clicking on the Start button and typing Microsoft Teams. The application looks like this:

When you open it for the first time, Teams will look something like this:

If you are invited to a Teams session you will be sent a link to follow or dial in details to call into. Teams invitations typically look like the following:

To join a meeting, click on the link and follow the on-screen instructions. The welcome screen will look something like this:

Once you have joined the meeting, you will have the following options on the bottom of your screen:

The buttons work as follows:

• The camera button allows you to enable and disable your webcam
• The mic button allows you to mute and unmute your mic
• The screen button allows you to share your screen
• The dot button allows you to change your mic and phone settings
• The chat icon allows you to instant message the meeting participants
• The people icon allows you to see who else is on the call
• The leave button allows you to exit the meeting

To start a meeting in Teams click on the Calendar tab:

You can select the Meet Now option or Create Meeting button as below and give your meeting a title, add your attendees and set the date and time. Click Save and the meeting invitation will be sent to your colleagues.

And that's it! You are now an official Teams user! A couple of quick points:

(1) Before joining a meeting make sure the room you're working from is free of all children and pets where possible. There is nothing like a rogue child to really challenge you when you're trying to juggle 100 different things at once.

(2) Mute your mic and stop your camera if you're not actively using them. This will save bandwidth and improve the call quality.

(3) The blur background button in settings is nothing short of genius. Light sabres and disney princess stuff everywhere? Teams has your back. Click More Settings ... Blur Background and everything will become nice and blurry so your colleagues are focusing on you and not the absolute chaos your beloved children have made of your house (or whatever it is you'd rather not have in sharp focus).

That's all folks.

Service Desk 101: How to hold it together in a crisis (Part 2)

Thanks for staying with me - let’s do this!

Move on to the remaining big hitters - OK so we’ve dealt with the vulnerable and the absolute essential stuff now is the time to start using that priority matrix again. If an incident is a priority one or two typically that means the potential for a major incident so try and fix them as soon as possible. Check on automated alerts too. That server that’s getting a bit twitchy? Try and get a maintenance reboot in out of hours so at least you’re not adding to your woes.

Look at what’s left - the chances are your incident queue is absolutely ridiculous at the moment (I know ours certainly is). Reduce the pressure on the Service Desk by posting self help content on your IT portal or intranet. The more we can empower our colleagues the more time we have to fix everything else. This is one of my favourite things I’ve seen in the last few days - simple but really effective:

https://twitter.com/srpnor/status/1242426104096460801/photo/1

H/T: Steve Patterson @srpnor

Get creative - I haven’t been a techie since 2003 but guess what - if you ask me to sort your VPN issue I work for the IT department and I’m all in. Luckily my AD and OS skills still work (just) and I’m loving that command line prompts are still very much a thing in 2020. So far today I’ve used Teamviewer, Quick Assist and Zo Ho Assist when I was in a pinch and the previous 2 weren't cooperating - you can check it out here if you’re interested: https://www.zoho.com/assist/  So channel your inner Tony Stark and channel your inner geek.

Training - try and make sure everyone in the team has the same basic level of understanding, particularly if you’ve had to do things differently. I’ve taken to posting quick notes in a shared IT Notebook on our team OneDrive. It’s not fancy, but it’s quick, accurate and everyone can access it.

Try & keep a sense of normalcy - I’ve set up daily check ins with my team and have moved our weekly service health check online. I think it’s very easy for people to feel scared and isolated at the moment so try and keep things as normal as possible. I’ve also taken to sending my team little care packages - nothing fancy - one colleague loves her diet coke so I’ve sent her some - another loves biscuits. Basically Amazon Prime is your friend. I’ve done this at the same time as equipment orders to keep the load down on deliveries though.

Other resources - here are some useful links to more content:

https://itsm.tools/ for free ITSM blogs, articles and best practice guidance 

https://coronavirustechhandbook.com/home
- a crowd sourced tech handbook for helping people provide IT services during the Coronavirus pandemic:

https://itsm.zone
- offering discounted training to anyone affected by the pandemic - more info here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/itsm-zone-calling-can-we-help-claire-agutter/

https://pinkelephant.co.uk/online-itsm-training/
- lots of training and best practice info

https://www.facebook.com/groups/back2itsm/
- Facebook group for ITSM chat and industry gossip.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/thisisanitsupportgroup/
- Facebook group for all things tech related.

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/
- UK health advice

https://www2.hse.ie/coronavirus/
- Irish health advice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XO6FW1aJkTw&feature=youtu.be
- because it’s brilliant; Simon Pegg and Nick Frost need to make a sequel to Shaun Of The Dead immediately.


I know it’s scary and it sounds a bit counter intuitive given that we’re all socially distancing but this only gets fixed when we all act together. Be safe, stay indoors and look out for each other and remember you’re not alone. For every polished professional who’s rocking it on every front going there’s the person who had to talk a colleague through VPN whilst her middle child loudly announced that he’s just had a really good wee. OK fine - I’m the person with the rogue child but moving on - if you want to talk ping me, I’m @vawns on Twitter, you can find me on Facebook and my personal email is vawns.murphy@gmail.com. We’ve got this.

Service Desk 101: How to hold it together in a crisis (Part 1)

So here’s the thing -  we’re in the midst of global pandemic. Coronavirus, COVID-19 whatever you call it, I think we can all agree that things are a bit tough at the moment. At the time of writing this, most countries are on lockdown. I'm Irish and things at home have been shut down for weeks. Shops aren’t open (apart from the essentials) people are mostly confined to their homes and children are being home-schooled. I live in the UK and it’s Day 3 of the serious stuff, I’m working from home whilst trying to maintain a sense of normality for my kids and my co-workers. I’ve already had to resort to bribery for the kids (chocolate muffins) and I’ve appeared on many, many Skype calls looking a bit dishevelled. But we are where we are so let’s have a look at some tips to keep your Service Desk and IT Department going until things start getting better.

Look after your people - you can have the strongest processes and the fanciest tech but at the end of the day it’s your people that are your everything. Keep  them safe, make sure they’ve got the equipment they need and remind them to take regular breaks.

Start with the most in need - we all know about ITIL and ITSM best practice where we talk about prioritising Service Desk calls on impact and urgency. In normal times that's absolutely the right thing to do but.at the moment I don’t think we’re dealing with any approximation of normal so look at what’s best for your organisation. I work for a small housing association in England and I’ve told my team to prioritize anyone dealing with front line services so people looking after the elderly, the vulnerable or staff managing our independent living schemes. We can sort everything else out in time but these are the people we need to look after, first and foremost.

Next deal with connectivity - make sure that people can work from home. This might look different to how it normally does so be flexible. I’ve had colleagues who’ve left their laptops in the office and getting hold of equipment is a bit challenging at the moment so look at what you can work with. If you have a colleague that has their own laptop or tablet there’s Office 365  other office suites available). Also get people to install Skype, GoTo Meeting etc on their phones so that it’s easy for them to stay in touch.

Check equipment levels - there’ll always be someone who’s lost a cable or has forgotten to bring home their laptop charger or who needs a replacement mouse. Talk them through using alternatives for example a home device if they’ve not got their laptop or ordering equipment directly to their door.

Give good comms - keep people updated. I’ve written to all our key stakeholders to let them know who we’re prioritising and why. Let people know that you will get to them - nothing is going to be lost, ignored or forgotten about, it’s just a really, really tough time at the moment and we’re doing everything we can.

I’ll be back soon with more ideas. What do you think so far? What are you doing to keep the show on the road at your work? How are you all coping? Please tweet me @vawns or let me know in the comments.