Tools & Tips for Hybrid Work
Microsoft Teams
Stay up-to-date with your projects and with your team using a shared workspace that puts collaboration, chat, calls, and meetings together in one central hub.
- Microsoft’s Guide: 10 Tips to Collaborate for Remote and On Site Work
- A Guide for Effective Hybrid & Remote Meetings
- From the Microsoft Worklab: Solving the Hybrid Work Paradox
Chat
You can start one-on-one and group chats easily within Teams. Teams saves the whole chat history, all the way back to the first message. See more info.
Meetings
Meetings in Teams include audio, video, and screen sharing. They’re one of the key ways to collaborate in Teams. See more info.
Team Sites/Calendars
Departments/groups can request a Teams site for collaboration. Team sites are made up of channels, which are topic specific sections of your site that serve as a way to organize and group your conversations, meetings, files, and apps. One of the apps that many departments use is the calendar app.
Add the calendar app to a channel by clicking the + sign in the navigation and selecting the Channel Calendar app. Any team member can create calendar events or meetings in the channel calendar, and it will automatically show up for other team members in their personal Outlook calendars (as well as when they view the calendar in Teams).
Update your Status
You can set your status message to include details you want others to see in Teams. This gives people more information about what you’re up to. For example, you can set a status message that says “Working On Premise Today.” See more info.
- More info on Teams is at https://www.law.upenn.edu/its/docs/office/office-365-teams.php
- If you would like training for your department, please visit our training page.
Zoom
Zoom is another great option for video conferencing. Zoom allows you to share your screen, record the session and host high quality video meetings.
More info at https://www.law.upenn.edu/its/docs/zoom/
Microsoft Bookings
Bookings is an easy way to allow students (and others) to make appointments with you or your department/team.
- Booking availability can be based on your calendar’s availability.
- Scheduled bookings will automatically appear on your Outlook calendar.
- Option for Teams Meeting link to be automatically created when a booking is scheduled.
- More info at https://www.law.upenn.edu/its/docs/office/bookings/
Video Conferencing Cart
ITS is piloting a new video conferencing cart that is ideal for small hybrid meetings where six to eight people are on premise. In addition to a large monitor, the cart includes the Logitech Rally bar, an all-in-one camera/microphone/speaker unit. During calls, the camera automatically zooms and pans to capture the closest shot that it can. The cart is currently located in the T155 Conference Room. Please contact itshelp@law.upenn.edu for more info.
PennFlex Phones
Penn is currently migrating to a new next generation phone system. This new system includes a mobile application that allows you to make and receive calls from your laptop or smartphone. When you call from this app, you don’t need to reveal your personal cell phone number, callers will see your Penn phone number, even when you are not on campus. We are currently scheduling migrations now. Please fill out this form if you would like early access or to request a migration for your whole department. See more info.
More Tips
- Spend some time talking with your department/team about what is working and what is not. Reach out to ITS if you would like to brainstorm any tech related issues.
- If you don’t have them already, request a set of headphones from ITS.
- Many of us stopped printing while working fully remote and found other ways to share data. Continue those habits and work towards reducing printing. Share data through OneDrive, SharePoint, Teams, Box, etc.
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Trouble with audio/video on calls? Try the following:
