What Microsoft Teams is

Mary, Senior Commissioning Officer, tells us how Microsoft Teams has helped her to save time and work more efficiently.

Teams is an app which is part of Microsoft Office 365. It creates a shared workspace where teams can work together on files with other built-in Office 365 apps like:

  • Word
  • Excel
  • PowerPoint

It is also a great communication tool where you are able to video conference.  

What needed to be transformed and why

We needed to set up an effective monitoring process for the Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) Better Together Consortium. 

We needed to make the monitoring process more cost effective in terms of my time and in line with GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation). 

Who was involved in the transformation project

I went to the Digital Café and discussed Microsoft Teams.

After using Microsoft Teams, I looked into the option of using Teams with external organisations as well as to update documents. 

It was the best solution to use within the VCS Better Together Consortium monitoring.

What has happened

The contract was made up of five different external service areas (called Lots) who formed the consortium. 

The aim of the consortium was to work together, sharing a set of outcome-based KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). These KPIs were moved onto a shared dashboard in Microsoft Teams.

All five Lots then had to input and update their data area. Microsoft Teams enabled us to pull through all of the monitoring data from each of the Lot areas onto the overall spreadsheet. This worked out all of the provider outcomes within the service and broke it down by area. 

Time efficient

Microsoft Teams has helped us create a more time efficient monitoring system. It also ensures that sending information and data is secure between myself and the providers. We can now see a complete overview of the monitoring data and KPI outcomes.

Around half of partners understood what to do and the other half did not. However, they had support throughout the first monitoring. 

All partners felt that the information was easy to put together and understand. 

What effects the changes have had on employees

The benefits to employees were:

  • saves time
  • consistent way of monitoring
  • partnership working
  • increased productivity over time