Before the COVID-19 pandemic began, many of us had never imagined what working from home might look like.
And then, all at once, it happened. In March 2020, Carleton staff, students, and faculty were asked to stay home and to continue to work as best they could. Faculty and professional services staff from across the university rushed to procure laptops, screens, keyboards, desks, chairs, and more. But one critical element had already been put in place in 2019 by ITS: Microsoft Teams.
“In 2019, IT Services began piloting MS Teams,” said Ben Schmidt, Manager, IT Strategic Initiatives. “At the time, we targeted the collaboration experience. With anywhere/anyone file sharing and text messaging, Teams was a compelling addition to our existing tools: email and the W-drive.”
“Before the pandemic, the video conferencing feature of MS Teams was more of a curiosity than a selling point. Desktops at Carleton were seldom equipped with a webcam and microphone. And while office laptops had those built-in, they were often covered when the laptop was docked.”
This changed rapidly. As the shift to a remote-working environment began the week of March 13, 2020, the video and audio conferencing features of Teams became a major asset to the university.
That week, ITS staff got busy creating a checklist on working from home to help guide the Carleton community through the process of transitioning their workplaces to their homes. Teams featured heavily in the guide. Google Analytics tells us this guide was viewed more than 7,000 times in 2020, and views are still climbing to this day. This is how many faculty and staff members learned to set up and join meetings, share their desktop, and more.
Collaborative tools make online work possible
At a recent online consultation session, staff members had great things to say about how Teams has helped them continue to be productive while working from home. “Teams has allowed me to work effectively,” said one staff member.
Online meetings are quick and easy to set up through Teams. Says one staffer: “I don’t have to be concerned about the availability of meeting rooms thanks to Teams.” And they can do substantially more during these meetings. “Sharing my screen during a meeting is immensely helpful,” said one staff member. “I used to have to track down a projector if I wanted to show people something on my screen, but now I can do it with the click of a button.”
Teams facilitates much more than meetings and messaging. Dedicated cloud storage, collaborative file editing, and innovative work tools such as lists, forms, polls, and more make it easy to work together as a team. “My team’s efficiency has gone up working from home thanks to Microsoft Teams,” said another staff member during a recent consultation session.
Explosive usage growth
Carleton’s Teams usage has seen explosive growth since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. One metric where this is obvious is Teams site growth, as seen below:
- November 2019: 160 sites
- March 2020: 240 sites*
- November 2021: 1,520 sites
- May 2022: 1,713 sites
*COVID-19 shutdown occurs
By 2022, an average of 30,000 Teams messages are sent at Carleton each day, and 750 audio or video conference meetings take place daily. This results in an average of 2,000 hours spent in audio conversations every day.
Regardless of what our working future looks like, it seems like Microsoft Teams may be here to stay. It may have changed our way of working forever, and ITS is proud to have been ahead of the curve in bringing it to Carleton well before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This story is a part of ITS’s Year in Review for 2021/22. Read more at our Year in Review homepage, or follow along on Twitter using the hashtag #ITSYearinReview. Thanks for reading!