Subject: Microsoft Teams is a very comprehensive and at times, complex system. As with other "agile" software in production today, aftentime documentation cannot keep up with what's actually in the system. This serie of articles explores some of the least known, less visible capabilities to help you become more productive.

Some features are clearly stated while the rest are less use or hidden in Microsoft Teams. However, every function has their unique meaning and to masteries it, we should know every corner about Microsoft Teams to improve our daily work and spare more time for more important tasks, else it is a time waste when manage our works daily. The following features that I want to discuss on might be very helpful for you in experience the Microsoft Teams, these features might not be the focus, but it is very effective to use once you know their existence.

Switching accounts on the Microsoft Teams desktop app.

As Microsoft Teams is still evolving rapidly and the number of users increasing every day because of its collaborative features. So, an MS Teams user may have more than one account to access to many tenants including their company's account and guest account from other organization. Each of accounts is granted on different level of access and permission which allow user can view and interact with the organization's data. Currently, Teams only allow user to access to one tenant at a time for each log-in, this means someone has accounts on multiple tenants need to switch accounts every time they want to access into an organization as needed. Understand the situation and the Microsoft has responded with an official Microsoft response from Alex O. states:

Thank you for your continued feedback, and patience. We are listening and hear loud and clear that you want support for multiple work accounts in the Teams desktop apps. We are continuing our work to support this, including updating our current application architecture to ensure solid performance and functionality. Given the complexity of this work, we are targeting the second half of calendar year 2022 to be able to support this. We will update you when we have a better sense of dates. Thank you.

From Windows Central post on 5th of Nov 2021.

For the current Version 1.5.00.4689 of Teams desktop app, user can switch on multiple accounts when you sign out of Teams, this feature required user must sign out first and then pick a logged-in account before to access. The process will take a lot of time as Teams have to load features for the account every time it logging-in. But it is different in Teams mobile app where it has already support quick switching between accounts and organizations. In the Teams mobile app, there are many options switching to tenants for each account (if you have multiple accounts on multiple tenants). Clearly this is what we hope to see soon on Teams desktop app because it will reduce a lot of time waste on waiting for the app to load features. The wait is worth, and we hope to see this enhanced feature in the future shortly.

Out of Office.

Another hidden useful feature of Teams that I want to mention is the Out of office status. Perhaps when you sent a message to someone and received the auto replies from them to inform you that they were out of office at the moment, or they are up to something more important and cannot contact you back. It because they have setup an Out of office status and auto reply message.

Why do you have to setup Out of office status?

It is because when someone wants to reach you for something, they really expect to receive your response. And you could imagine if you sent out a message and did not receive any reply from the one you expect, it will be the absolute disappointment. By setting up Out of office status, you can alert them that you were out at the moment, and they should contact some other people instead. This will show how professional you are and respect to other people as well.

How to setup Out of office status?

Firstly, access to your status message by clicking on top-right menu (your avatar), and then select Set status message. Then select Schedule out of office, and toggle on the Turn on automatic replies, type in your desired message and finish the steps. Refer to the Microsoft guide for more detail - Schedule an out of office status in Teams.

Keyboard shortcuts for Teams.

The last feature that I want to discuss on is the Keyboard shortcuts for Teams app. This feature could be used more frequently by IT people than businesspeople as the behavior is alike. But don't judge it so quickly because the potential of its usefulness is really high in reducing time for interaction of user. Why should I use keyboard shortcuts for Teams? The reason is simple, to reduce waste time for you and everyone else. Imagine you are in a middle of meeting, and you need to open Calendar to view, instead of clicking out of meeting, you can just press Ctrl + 4 to open it quick and clean. It might be hard to learn at first, but when you use it every day, and once you get muscle memory for it and you will love it. Explore more commands on Microsoft Guide - Keyboard shortcuts for Microsoft Teams.