Microsoft Teams 4+

Praise: Internal integration of various technologies (Skype, Sharepoint, Outlook Calendar, etc.) and external connectivity with Office 365 constituents is seamless and functional. In particular, remote meetings capabilities, including chat, desktop share, audio, all work well within our corporate network. Also, client-based app and web-based app have essentially the same functionality and look-and-feel, which is definitely preferred. iPhone-based mobile app works well so far. Very good compliment to the main Teams usage on my corporate Microsoft Surface Pro.

Criticism: I was never a fan of the Sharepoint-based file presentation and interface. Windows Explorer in details mode using libraries, shortcuts, etc. is preferred for file management. Maybe Sharepoint file presentation is needed for tablet devices. I’m a longtime laptop point-click user.

Also, in meetings, it was not obvious how to re-display the control bar (enable mute, for example) once the control bar disappeared automatically. I learned how eventually, but guidance on such important items should be more prominent. I had to hunt for a solution.

At work they have transitioned from an email service to Teams. So I’m using it weather I want to or not. I like teams for collaborative work on documents, we don’t have to each edit our own copies and then try to merge all the copies together somehow, we can all work on the original document together.
The chat function is fine except you cannot delete chats, you can only hide and mute them. So every chat group I have ever been in is still there just muted and hidden. There is no way to clear chats or teams. Whatever has been written will stay there forever unless everyone in the chat/team/channel deletes each and every post or comment they made. The same goes for activity. I have thousands of notifications in the activity tab that cannot be deleted.
It makes the app feel very cluttered all the time. WhatsApp is way better in my opinion for chatting but of course the company wants better privacy than WhatsApp so now all our communication must go through Teams.
Another problem I have encountered is using the calendar in teams, it doesn’t link up with outlook calendars very well, sometimes at all. So when we need to schedule a team call, I have to exit teams, check outlook calendars and then go back to teams.
Anyway, there are some good things about teams but it could be so much better if they made some functionality improvements. I don’t have much hope that much will change however, making the user experience better isn’t a cornerstone of Microsoft.

Ok, so I broke down and downloaded the app to my iPhone sometime during the summer of 2021 because I supervise a lot of people and babysit the rest of the office so I was constantly being hounded by every method possible (texts, calls to my cell and desk, emails, and Teams). Every time I stepped away from my desk for even five minutes there was a crisis I had to handle immediately so I wasn’t able to see or respond to missed Teams messages until I got back to my computer. I would’ve given it a full five stars BUT, several months ago the emojis just vanished from my phone app. I’ve tried uninstalling and reinstalling and logging out and back in, but alas, there’s just empty black space where the emojis should be. I’ve discovered that if I tap on a random place in the blank space, it DOES throw an emoji up for me but I have no way to know which one I’m accidentally choosing! I’ve seen other people post that they have the same issue but that glitch has been there for months and Microsoft hasn’t fixed it yet. For an industry giant like Microsoft, that’s unacceptable. A lot of people may think it’s no biggie but I use emojis a lot to soften what I’m saying when I have to inform one of my staff that they screwed up. People appreciate that more gentle approach. So yeah. I’m done with my rant now.