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We use Office 365. We were using Skype and mostly liked it for what we used it for. Then we got forced into a product we do not like, MS Teams. I do not like what it does to my groups and that there are no admin options to lock people out of areas or pictures. Lately its become a resource hog and crashes on several systems. So i am out looking for a Teams alternative. Things we need from user standpoint: Chat between single or groups of people. File and Desktop sharing. Things we need from admin standpoint: user administration, create and lock users as needed. easy creation and install.

Please share your thoughts.

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Slack​?

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We use Cisco Jabber here, and seems to be good!

Has options for chat rooms, mobile functionality, stored conversations…

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Um — Slack?

And what’s wrong with Skype (and I do NOT mean Skype for Business)??

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There are admin options. They just hide them deep. We like it and use it extensively

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Can you restrict who created Teams groups, as our Azure groups list has gone bezerk since we gave users team (Fairly certian we wouldn’t have created one called “the 3 amigos”)

I actually like teams, and am getting used to the massively oversized chat window, particularly like the chat history doesn’t disappear when you close the window, but it does need a fair bit of work still, particularly on the group (team) creation / deletion permissions

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Yes, giving the users the abilty to create there own groups was a bonehead decision on Microsoft part. I am still cleaning up groups from this. I think i finally have it disabled but that was not easy to figure out or well documented. It seems like MS is gearing for small business with no real IT and not ones that have staff or regulations to follow. I still cant find where to disable the ability to put pics up.

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Thanks for the Cisco shoutout, Jeff!

OP, if you’d like to learn more about Cisco Jabber, you can check out more details here -It can handle instant messaging, voice and video calls, voice messaging, desktop sharing, and conferencing and can be used from any device! I’m happy to answer any questions you have as well, feel free to PM me if you’d like :slight_smile:

Good luck!

@Cisco

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The ability to restrict or prevent user Team group (or Unified Group) creation is available, but not activated by default, which was a bit annoying.

What we’ve found is that we ultimately have the ability to control almost anything we want in Teams. The challenge in doing so is understanding the convoluted system of what makes up the Teams infrastructure. Teams is essentially just an interactive front-end that weaves together a set of back-end tools: SharePoint, OneDrive, Exchange, etc… While these tools are typically disjointed and used individually, Teams clobbers them together and creates a single solution in an awkward way.

2020-02-18_09_12_25-Microsoft_Teams_Compliance___Everything_You_Need_to_Know___RecordPoint.png

Src: https://www.recordpoint.com/microsoft-teams-compliance-features/

Managing Teams is less about managing 'Teams" as much as it is managing the underlying tech. If you want to disable posting Pictures, for instance, I’d look into Compliance and Retention options for Exchange Unified Groups and potentially SharePoint.

As far as alternatives, I know that Teams is modeled heavily on Slack, so that may be an apples to apples comparison worth checking out. I’d warn, however, that if you’re a Microsoft shop that uses Outlook or any MS Cloud application, simply adapting your procedures to work with Teams may be less problematic than trying to replace everything that it does. It is easier to change a process than it is to change a tool.

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From the above article:

"When a user shares a file or image in a channel conversation, then Team stores the file SharePoint. This location is where we manage Microsoft Teams compliance. The SharePoint site has a library called Documents, with a folder for each Teams channel. The files tab in each channel shows documents that are in the corresponding channel folder. "

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I know a number of people are mentioning Slack (which is a very popular alternative). I have used it a lot and like it. How about taking a look at Mattermost; I have used it in a non-profit that I belong to and it seems to check a lot of the boxes.

You can view more information here: https://mattermost.com/

CK

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We use Teams on a daily basis here and while it has it’s lumps, it is good for 1:1 and 1:Many communication. The integration with O365 Groups and Sharepoint Documents is very confusing to our users and requires me to host recurring training sessions.

Preferably, we would use Slack instead for all team communications, which has a more intuitive admin and granular controls on access to channels. Slack integrates well with outside cloud storage (so does Teams, actually) but is behind Teams on document collaboration.

Obviously, there is a cost consideration if you choose Slack. We’ve decided to not go that route (yet) and attempt to go deeper into what we’ve already pay for.

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We use Slack, it does everything you require.

There are probably some in house choices you can run too if you’d be prepared to run a server yourself.

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Skype is a tool for personal communication with no capability for oversight/admin options.

We are stuck with it as a “business tool” because of one of our industries. In order to satisfy the management requirements for “owning” the accounts, we have to maintain a list of the Skype names and passwords. Which I like not at all.

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I’ve used Slack, Teams, and Skype.
Slack has been the overall winner, being the most fun, and having the “giphy” plug in. Make sure to set it to NSFW/PG searches though…
Teams was second, just pretty basic, simple to use, had gifs and emotes which was cool.
Then there was skype… We tried to get rid of it… but it just… wouldn’t die…
If I could, I would go back to AIM… :GODMODE:
:slight_smile:

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Yep! If you go into the Teams admin area in your portal, you can lock it down where only admins can create groups.

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+1 to Slack. Integration, automation, and collaboration features are just incredible. I like the product.

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Seems like everybody using Slack. I think it is the best option on daily basis comparing to other products.

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Teams will not store data in On-Premise mailboxes. If you have hybrid Exchange forget about saving conversation history.

Even if you have cloud mailboxes the folder is hidden by default. You need to unhide the folder in order to see it in Outlook:

So many things Teams cannot do. Just read some of the basic feature requests which have been unresolved for years: https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com . One of my personal favorites is the inability to merge 2 active calls (we have the phone system license). You can place a 2nd call and merge that but you cannot merge 2 incoming calls. Also disconnecting one of the 2 calls often disconnects both. So many more basic phone system features are poorly implemented. VM emails are not routed based on MX records which is a nightmare if you are using a 3rd party SPAM service - and it is not documented. Another area of frustration is cross-tenant team membership. It is now possible but so many of the features are not available. Guests have a very limited set of permissions making it virtually useless for cross-tenant teams. Another great one is the lack of caller ID information in the desktop app but it shows up in the mobile app. Very poor contact management - unreliable sync with Outlook, difficult interface for saving contacts… Display name is the same for all phone numbers in a contact. No way to know which number they called from in the history if you have a contact saved for the number. Phone numbers in the chat are not hyperlinked (nor are they hyperlinked in Outlook). It really does go on and on. Screen real estate is poorly utilized. When the window resizes below 60% width the entire left menu disappears making the interface more awkward. I need to stop now. Too early to get this worked up.

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We use Teams and I’m a huge fan of it. Yes, there are some learning curves, but after that, it does what you’re wanting it to do.

Food for thought…what if Exchange goes away and is replaced by Teams?