To better understand Microsoft Team Analytics, you must be aware that there are two schools of thought when researching this topic.  Much of the research materials for this subject dealt with two main factors. Especially when you add the term “usage” in the mix. It would be best to tackle these matters head-on to avoid any further confusion as we advance.   

How the word “usage” is utilised throughout this material can mean the same thing, but for two different purposes. But after reading this, you will gain some insights into Microsoft Teams and learn its intricacy. 

Much of the mix-up is how Microsoft Teams is presented. First, as an application where its features and usage are highlighted. Second, is the way it is compared to its competitor in the tech world. Matching it against Slack, Zoom and others (that will be discussed below). If you look these up for yourself, this material will save you precious time and prevent any misunderstanding in the process. 

To avoid any confusion, the topic will be dissected.  There are two ways of looking at this topic.   

First, there is the micro-level, which pertains to the assessment of how a particular company utilises Microsoft Teams in their own unique way. Then, there is the macro-level, which shows Microsoft Teams’ overall performance as a business.   

The Micro-Level

As an application, it is a free add-on for Microsoft Office 365 users, which is the appeal of Microsoft Teams. It already has MS Word, MS Excel and MS PowerPoint, the most frequently used application for home, school and business.   More than that, much of its contents are geared towards businesses.   

If your business wanted to analyse how your personnel are utilising the Microsoft Teams, you would try  Microsoft Teams Analytics. Here, any member or an owner of the Microsoft Team can view the analytics data. Also, it provides insights into the activity patterns of your teams.  

Among the analytics data embedded here are the number of active users, and the total number of messages sent in each team for a given period, even the guests. As an admin, you will have access to your teams, within individual teams, and on specific channels.  

Now, do not let this confused you with the Microsoft teams analytics and reporting. This one gives the admin access to three main components: Teams usage report, Teams user activity report; and, Teams device usage report.  

Teams usage report gives an overview of user activity in Teams. This includes total active users and channels, the number of active users and channels, guests, and messages in each team.  

Teams user activity report, meanwhile, gives insight into the types of activities users engage in. This pertains to how many people communicate, whether it be through 1:1 call, channel messages, and private chat messages.  

On the other hand, the teams’ device usage report shows you how users connect to Teams and what mobile devices they are using.   

It is also worth mentioning that Microsoft Teams has advanced features like business analytics. That can help your business lie ahead of plans based on existing metrics and past and current trends.    

The Macro-Level

Now that we are deeply invested in talking about Microsoft Teams Analytics, particularly its micro-level aspect, we should look at the larger picture.  If previously, we talked about how communications exchanges can be monitored within the company. Now we can tackle Microsoft Teams and how it fares with its competitors’ business-grade communications tools.  

This gives us the perspective of the macro-level and how Microsoft Teams are doing as a business opportunity for the tech giant.  Things are looking well for Microsoft Teams in terms of overall consumer usage in general.    The Verge published an article last October 2020 entitled: “Microsoft Teams usage jumps 50 percent to 115 million daily active users.”  

According to the report, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said Microsoft Teams has 115 million daily active users. Which is more than a 50 percent rise from the 75 million Microsoft reported in May the same year.   The same report also said that counting the figure for “daily active users” has its own difficulties.  This is because it is challenging to compare Microsoft Teams’ figures to its competitors.  This is because the daily active users of its competitors are tricky. They include single users that use the app multiple times during the duration of a single day, reportedly.   

The report added Zoom, one of Microsoft Team’s competitors, has 300 million daily active participants. On the other hand, Slack claimed they reached 12.5 million users in March 2020.  Remember the clip hanger from earlier about Microsoft Teams’ other competitors? Well, they are Google, Facebook and Cisco. All of them had launched business communication tools of their own when the pandemic struck.   

The Potential

This must be because they saw the potential collaboration tools. Especially during the heights of the work from home situation we are having due to the coronavirus pandemic. Plus, the business-grade communication tool is on the upswing.   Some would argue that Microsoft Teams’ key advantage is its deep integration with Office 365. It has Word, PowerPoint, Excel and other Microsoft 365 apps that are readily available. Yes, this may be its edge over the many competitions, all right, but as we discussed, it is more than that.  

There are many collaboration tools in the market, but it would be best if it fell under the following criterion:   

Not all collaboration tools possessed these capabilities and characteristics at the same time capsized into one neat application.  Moreover, there is always an issue of compatibility and integration. There is always a consideration for having a robust collaboration tool.   The obvious choice here is Microsoft Teams since much of the world is utilising Microsoft Office 365 in homes, schools and offices and as mentioned earlier, Microsoft Teams has advanced features and has analytics for its own usage, business applications and other purposes.