How Does MS Project Work with Teams?

In the last couple of years, we all have experienced a dramatic turn of events particularly in the working sector, that has led to a vast work-from-home setup and virtual meeting culture. 

Both task management and user management are being conducted just as much virtually as physically, emphasizing on the greater need of integration and collaboration, among teams and projects, now more than ever. As such, project management software systems are continually growing in popularity as companies seek tools for virtual collaboration, project planning, and goal achievement. Project management software is a centralized system for project planning, organization, and timeline and budget tracking. 

There is a greater pressure on project teams to drive change, solve difficult problems, and sustainably use material resources. However, with project teams working across several channels with rigid deadlines, monitoring resource levels and tracking performance can be tricky. MS Project working with Teams is a solution designed to make team collaboration easier. MS Project offers more tools than Excel for tracking project goals and timelines.

Users can now benefit from speedy and easy control projects. With its redesigned, intuitive user experience, Teams allows users to quickly set up tasks and add new members, both in private channels and team in channels.

As both Project and Teams are part of the Microsoft 365 family, project teams can benefit greatly from Teams integration and easily switch between Teams channels, custom dashboards, grids, professional Gantt charts and task lists.

This integration capability, however, is designed to support collaboration and enable ease for task owners in terms of team meetings, file sharing, chats, meeting recordings and resource management, etc.  

Project Online has an automated scheduling engine that is based on resource capacity, effort and time duration and it enables teams to accomplish goals while complying with the constraints of time and resource costs.

Teams meeting participants can greatly benefit from the add-on Project Online Essentials in terms of visibility in project management and team progress. With its Roadmap feature, project professionals can create and utilize custom dashboards and interactive project visuals.

Its integration with other apps and the capability to create custom reports and custom tables, Project Online add-on meets the unique needs of Teams meeting participants. However, one important thing to note is that both internal users and external users are subject to the license requirements for benefitting from the features of Project Online.

Many companies use MS Planner and MS Project together to create a suite of project tools for the main elements of project management needed in their business. Dedicated project management software like Asana and Basecamp are widely used for various project types and sizes and Primavera is another project management tool to consider as well.

You can now benefit from the integration of Project for the web app with Teams and keep a track on your projects and tasks. This app enables users to add projects and roadmaps in Teams as relevant channel tabs, and users with access to that Teams channel can also access these tabs.

Read on to learn how to use MS Project with Teams:

• Start with adding a Project tab to a Teams channel and you can either add an existing project to it or create a new one. For this you will need to select ‘Add a tab +’ dialog box, in your Teams channel.
• In this dialog box, choose ‘Project’ use Search to locate the project you want to add in Teams. If you need to to create a new project, choose ‘Create New Project’ and type a name for your project and if you need to add an existing project, then choose it from the list.
• If you don't see an existing project in the list, then it might not be shared with your team. In that case, you will need to find it on project.microsoft.com and in the upper right corner of your project, select ‘Group members’ to share it with your team.
• Repeat these steps to add as many projects as you want for your Teams channel. However, one thing to note is that guest users of your team can't add a Project tab to your Teams channel.
• An optional step is to consider using multi-factor authentication for your Microsoft accounts for greater security.

Microsoft’s own statistics claim that 99.9% phishing attacks can be reduced this way.

Microsoft Teams offers you advanced features from video conferencing to a consolidated calendar for scheduled meetings and task management, making it a great project management tool. MS Teams enables project managers to assign tasks, track the performance of team members, keep the team in a loop, and ensure timely completion of a project.

Within a single user interface, Teams offers various communication options ranging from chats functionality to file uploads and video conferencing for business collaboration.

Teams is available both as a desktop and mobile app as well as for your web browser window, allowing teams to access it whatever way suits their needs. Teams offers both a free version and paid pricing plans. However, the free version has limitations on file upload per user as well as meeting duration time. Teams allows secure meetings by setting up private channels and encourages users to set up MFA.

According to Microsoft insider reports within just the last year, 53 percent of organizations have experienced an insider attack. 

• Catering to the Virtual Meeting Culture. Teams has made it possible for tons of users around the globe to continue to collaborate productively as they work remote, by offering key features such as video conferencing, screen sharing and voice recording. These virtual meetings are enabling work to continue just as it was before the pandemic.
• Calendar View of Meetings. Aggressive deadlines, packed schedules and multiple workstreams can make it easier to forget commitments, but Teams allows a Calendar View of your scheduled meetings ensuring you don’t miss out. You can click on any scheduled meeting in the Calendar tab to view its details.
• Private Channels and Group Channels: Microsoft Teams allows two different chat options. Project managers can create virtual Teams, generate a code/link, and invite members to join a private channel, and approve of members before enabling them to join a meeting. In case of public messages or greater audience, groups can be created and anyone with the Team link can join the meeting. Team members can upload files, engage in ongoing group chats discussions, and upload documents, and comment on shared files too.
• Uploading and Sharing Files: Both project managers and team members can upload and access files in Microsoft Teams for real time collaboration.

Microsoft Teams is undoubtedly a great choice of a collaboration tool for business needs with a range of capabilities available for project management.

While Google doesn't have a designated project management app, it does have some apps in Google Workspace that many companies use for projects. Google Sheets is a sharable version of Excel that can be used for simple project tracking and budgeting. Google Tasks is comparable to MS Planner for task management and work lists as well. 

As Teams can flex to meet your unique business needs, you may opt for it to enable your project managers and their teams with easier, virtual collaboration.