Microsoft today announced the new communities feature in Microsoft Teams that will allow people to come together, connect, share, and collaborate. Microsoft is trying to compete with Facebook Groups and Discord with this new feature.
Communities in Teams will allow you to:
- Easily post messages to everyone in the group.
- Organize events and add them to the community calendar for everyone to see.
- Share and store documents dedicated to group activity.
- Filter content to quickly access photos, videos, events, and links.
Communities is currently rolling out in the free version of Microsoft Teams on iOS and Android. Microsoft will bring support to Teams desktop app in the future. Anyone with a Microsoft Account can sign up for Teams to enjoy this new communities feature. Once you create a community, you can invite group members through their email address or phone number, or by sharing a link or QR code so they can join directly.
Communities in Teams comes with a new events experience. With this, you can add new events or meetings to your community calendar, invite guests, track attendance, and follow up with attendees through direct private chats.
Hybrid and virtual guests can join events from any device through audio or video. And features such as adding an event cover image, together mode, and screen sharing can help you foster a sense of unity and engagement during meetings—no matter where everyone’s located.
Like other communities apps, community owners can manage settings, set community guidelines, and moderate content by adding or removing participants and posts as needed.
Next year, you will be able to access SignUpGenius within Teams to recruit volunteers, coordinate events, and manage a variety of sign ups.
