Author Topic: Microsoft Teams - is it ****?  (Read 8319 times)

barakta

  • Bastard lovechild of Yomiko Readman and Johnny 5
Re: Microsoft Teams - is it ****?
« Reply #25 on: 04 February, 2021, 07:35:04 pm »
I reckon its shit.  Just spent 10 minutes trying to install it because a stupid training session I'm booked for uses it (I've already got Zoom and GoTo Meeting, don't really want another one, especially anything by Microsoft) and of course it insists I have a Microsoft account, which I don't, then asks me what I want to use it for, then tries to direct me to skype instead, then asks me to download the desktop app (I've already downloaded it you cretins, we're in the middle of installing it right now!) and then I try to start it, and a blank white box appears.  I've now got a purple circle of "maybe I'm thinking of doing something, maybe I'm not" running, but that's all. Nothing actually happening.

Maybe it'll actually do something before my training session next Wednesday, but I'm not banking on it.  Its not as it my PC is that tardy, its a decent i7, with 32GB of RAM, SSDs, and kept devoid of excess crap (apart from MS Teams, of course).

I was sufficiently grumpy about the training as it was.  Its for a charity I'm a trustee of, I have to pay £18 for it, then it turns out its only 1.5 hrs, and its scheduled from 1100 to 1230.  Could they possibly have found a less convenient timeslot if they'd really, really tried?  It will effectively prevent me doing my usual work at that charity that day, as its 7.5 miles from home, and I'm not driving back and forth twice, and still missing half the working day.

I found it wouldn't let me install without an invite while pretending it would send me a download link.

PM me if it would be helpful for someone to send you a teams link which you can then use to force it to download the app which is how I ended up getting my personal desktop copy before having a job with a "proper" teams setup.

rogerzilla

  • When n+1 gets out of hand
Re: Microsoft Teams - is it ****?
« Reply #26 on: 04 February, 2021, 07:39:55 pm »
Teams is shit.

It chews bandwidth. Running in the background, no meeting, it uses over 0.5Mb of my download.

Conveniently integrates with Outlook. Messages left in meeting chats are 'persistent', so you can reference them later.

Those are the only good points.
Not so good when the message is "OMFG everybody Gordon's hair looks so gay today!"
Hard work sometimes pays off in the end, but laziness ALWAYS pays off NOW.

Jaded

  • The Codfather
  • Formerly known as Jaded
Re: Microsoft Teams - is it ****?
« Reply #27 on: 04 February, 2021, 08:19:18 pm »
Teams is shit.

It chews bandwidth. Running in the background, no meeting, it uses over 0.5Mb of my download.

Conveniently integrates with Outlook. Messages left in meeting chats are 'persistent', so you can reference them later.

Those are the only good points.
Not so good when the message is "OMFG everybody Gordon's hair looks so gay today!"

Ha! They can't even get your name right!  :P
It is simpler than it looks.

vorsprung

  • Opposites Attract
    • Audaxing
Re: Microsoft Teams - is it ****?
« Reply #28 on: 06 February, 2021, 05:49:26 pm »
I hate to say it, but it's vastly less awful than Webex.

two tin cans and some string is better than Webex

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: Microsoft Teams - is it ****?
« Reply #29 on: 06 February, 2021, 05:58:15 pm »
I hate to say it, but it's vastly less awful than Webex.

two tin cans and some string is better than Webex

Okay, that'll be a stretch goal for my "run TCP/IP over a cans-and-string acoustic link" extreme boredom project.

Regulator

  • That's Councillor Regulator to you...
Re: Microsoft Teams - is it ****?
« Reply #30 on: 06 February, 2021, 06:06:51 pm »
Teams us the default for the NHS.  It is shite. 

We use Zoom Professional- so much better. 
Quote from: clarion
I completely agree with Reg.

Green Party Councillor

barakta

  • Bastard lovechild of Yomiko Readman and Johnny 5
Re: Microsoft Teams - is it ****?
« Reply #31 on: 06 February, 2021, 07:53:56 pm »
Zoom is much better than teams, more accessible too.

Sadly some orgs including universities/NHS are inflexible and insist on Teams. I'm waiting for the first lot to get sued for it tbh, cos Teams is horrible if you're blind or using an interpreter while watching a presentation on screenshare...

FifeingEejit

  • Not Small
Re: Microsoft Teams - is it ****?
« Reply #32 on: 06 February, 2021, 09:36:28 pm »
It works ok for meetings but the file sharing part, which I think is underpinned by SharePoint, is awful.  SharePoint is among the worst pieces of Friday afternoon software ever to have escaped into production.

Oh god tthis ^

We are a dispersed team and use Teams heavily along with storing documents for projects on it. No one can ever find the file they want, the Teams file browser is truly awful.

For meetings if your all in the same company it works surprisingly well most of the time though why it has to fire up a bowser window and ask you to choose either the we based version or the app when you click on the meeting in Outlook rather than just launch the Teams desktop app is beyond me.

Interesting, ours seems to hook up seamlessly with Office365
What is shit about it is you can't present a PPT that's in the files, only upload to present, which then results in it telling you that your file is already in the files section  :facepalm:

Of course no one uses that and just uses the slide show mode of powerpoint nativley... except for notepad colleague.

The planner however is utter bollocks, though we're using it for recording leave because we're not allowed shared calendars anymore and that's just bollocks policy from above (well actually the side but anyway).

AS software systems go it's pretty meh, but that's about as good as it gets from me.

Re: Microsoft Teams - is it ****?
« Reply #33 on: 06 February, 2021, 09:43:05 pm »
Is Notepad colleague still using DOS?

Mr Larrington

  • A bit ov a lyv wyr by slof standirds
  • Custard Wallah
    • Mr Larrington's Automatic Diary
Re: Microsoft Teams - is it ****?
« Reply #34 on: 06 February, 2021, 10:25:10 pm »
This Unit makes a lot of use of the Windows command line…
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

Jaded

  • The Codfather
  • Formerly known as Jaded
Re: Microsoft Teams - is it ****?
« Reply #35 on: 08 February, 2021, 01:57:13 pm »
So, I tried it in Windows. Well, that was not fun. Hide and seek settings. Auto full screen, didn't like my camera. I was working through the problems when I decided to have one more go on the Mac. Fixed it by logging in as another user, but actually using the same login as I was already stuck with...

All set up for tomorrow's meeting ....
It is simpler than it looks.

Re: Microsoft Teams - is it ****?
« Reply #36 on: 08 February, 2021, 02:36:36 pm »
All set up for tomorrow's meeting ....

READ THE STANDING ORDERS! READ THEM AND UNDERSTAND THEM!!

Jaded

  • The Codfather
  • Formerly known as Jaded
Re: Microsoft Teams - is it ****?
« Reply #37 on: 08 February, 2021, 02:57:59 pm »
Nah - we use Zoom for those meetings.

This is a shortlisting one for something else.
It is simpler than it looks.

Wombat

  • Is it supposed to hurt this much?
Re: Microsoft Teams - is it ****?
« Reply #38 on: 11 February, 2021, 07:50:05 pm »
Well I eventually got it to install, and then found it really didn't want to shut down, ever, and it then popped up like a particularly tasteless purple thingy whenever I started the PC.  I think I've excised that behaviour, but we'll see. The training was so-so, and I'll have a think about whether I want to excise it completely, shortly.

Just had a message from our friends in France, bemoaning not having seen us for age, so did we want to meet by Skype....  Aaaargh!  I'll suggest Zoom, it seems to work for the frequent meetings I have on it.

In other news, I have a broken shoulder blade.  My GP likes me, as she's never seen one before.  I have the impression she's collecting odd misfortunes, and has the x ray on the surgery wall for a laugh.  I fell off a wobbly stepladder (send message to self - "twat").
Wombat

Re: Microsoft Teams - is it ****?
« Reply #39 on: 11 February, 2021, 07:53:37 pm »
I have to say - I work for Dell and we havw switched to using Teams extensively.
I really do get on with it - internal discussion boards, and you can create new ones for a project.ith Android phones
The web chats are good, and integrate well with android phones.

For months the shared files appeared so slow for me. I then figured out you cn sync Teams folders to One Drive on your laptop which has changed things completely for me.

Jaded

  • The Codfather
  • Formerly known as Jaded
Re: Microsoft Teams - is it ****?
« Reply #40 on: 11 February, 2021, 08:22:42 pm »
Having Teams decide how it wanted to show participants was sub-optimal. I had one forehead and one chin, and a full face, and my own video was down in a bar at the bottom. No opportunity to change the background in the meeting, and I only found that option once when not in a call. Very odd.
It is simpler than it looks.

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Re: Microsoft Teams - is it ****?
« Reply #41 on: 11 February, 2021, 09:52:21 pm »
I've been trying to get to grips with Teams lately in my capacity as team lead on a work project. We had to give our presentation this afternoon, so I convened everyone on Teams this morning for a dress rehearsal.

Unfortunately, when I clicked to share the slides, it just went into spinny circle of going nowhere mode. One of my colleagues was able to share it instead, but since she wasn't familiar with the correct place to move to the next slide, it ended up being not much of a dress rehearsal.

The presentation itself was on Zoom, and it went fine - except that one of my team got locked out so I had to dive in and cover him. I think I got away with it, but FFS, it's really not a great way of working.

There are aspects of Teams I like the look of but there's a steep learning curve before I can make full use of its potential. Aside from the sharing issue (which my IT colleague reckons might be down to privacy settings on my computer) it all seems to work mostly fine for me.
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

Oscar's dad

  • aka Septimus Fitzwilliam Beauregard Partridge
Re: Microsoft Teams - is it ****?
« Reply #42 on: 12 February, 2021, 06:27:56 am »
I use Teams extensively, and my job involves selling a range of cloud PBX products which connect Teams to the PSTN.  I like it, it works well on my laptop and the mobile app is good too.  I've also had it connected to a desk phone and that's cute too.

ian

Re: Microsoft Teams - is it ****?
« Reply #43 on: 12 February, 2021, 10:15:37 am »
Teams does that Microsoft thing of breaking apart all the settings and distributing them randomly through the application rather than, say, putting them all in a single place and naming it, well I don't know, preferences or options. And maybe making things accessible from the menus and icons like every other Mac app that doesn't come from Microsoft, because really my little friends from Redmond, you have not discovered a fantastic new improved user experience paradigm.

quixoticgeek

  • Mostly Harmless
Re: Microsoft Teams - is it ****?
« Reply #44 on: 13 February, 2021, 12:13:33 pm »
I hate to say it, but it's vastly less awful than Webex.

There's a natural hierarchy to these things.

Webex < Teams < FaceTime < Zoom < IRC

You missed Jitsi

J
--
Beer, bikes, and backpacking
http://b.42q.eu/

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: Microsoft Teams - is it ****?
« Reply #45 on: 13 February, 2021, 12:14:01 pm »
I hate to say it, but it's vastly less awful than Webex.

There's a natural hierarchy to these things.

Webex < Teams < FaceTime < Zoom < IRC

You missed Jitsi

So did everyone else.

quixoticgeek

  • Mostly Harmless
Re: Microsoft Teams - is it ****?
« Reply #46 on: 13 February, 2021, 12:21:58 pm »

You missed Jitsi

So did everyone else.

Well played.

Cos most of my friends are geeks, nerds, or hackers, we use Jitsi a lot. I regularly run 6 hour long DnD sessions over Jitsi and a bit of roll20.

We use teams at work. Everyone is using mac, apart from a couple of people who use either Linux or Windows.

I'm actually really impressed that it works on Linux. Painlessly.

You can make life easier for everyone by turning off sharepoint. And OneDrive.

J
--
Beer, bikes, and backpacking
http://b.42q.eu/

barakta

  • Bastard lovechild of Yomiko Readman and Johnny 5
Re: Microsoft Teams - is it ****?
« Reply #47 on: 13 February, 2021, 12:27:58 pm »
What I hate about Teams is that it does weird cropping shit to people's videos so if there's 2 ppl in call it's fine, then 3 joins and they're a long then slice, and then 4 is fine maybe then 5 becomes a thin wide window missing their mouth off. It doesn't seem to understand good distribution and keeping people's FACES in frame so I can fucking lipread.

Have got round some of it by multi-pinning but only works for 4 people.

Also the screenshare is AWFUL. Zoom lets me have speaker AND share and I choose the sizings. Teams only lets me have screenshare + tiny speaker/participants OR speaker and tiny screenshare/participants - a major fail for a lipreader. For that alone I'd bin the fucking thing.

Also I hate how chat integrates cos you can't find stuff and if you have a boss like mine who likes to 1:1 IM mid meeting about the same bad joke it takes ages to dig out my main teams IM interface (which is also terrible unless you let it have half of my limited screen space at a size I can read)... Zoom lets me detach the chat and put it where I want it without taking up half my screen estate.

quixoticgeek

  • Mostly Harmless
Re: Microsoft Teams - is it ****?
« Reply #48 on: 13 February, 2021, 12:30:12 pm »
What I hate about Teams is that it does weird cropping shit to people's videos so if there's 2 ppl in call it's fine, then 3 joins and they're a long then slice, and then 4 is fine maybe then 5 becomes a thin wide window missing their mouth off. It doesn't seem to understand good distribution and keeping people's FACES in frame so I can fucking lipread.

Have got round some of it by multi-pinning but only works for 4 people.

Also the screenshare is AWFUL. Zoom lets me have speaker AND share and I choose the sizings. Teams only lets me have screenshare + tiny speaker/participants OR speaker and tiny screenshare/participants - a major fail for a lipreader. For that alone I'd bin the fucking thing.

Also I hate how chat integrates cos you can't find stuff and if you have a boss like mine who likes to 1:1 IM mid meeting about the same bad joke it takes ages to dig out my main teams IM interface (which is also terrible unless you let it have half of my limited screen space at a size I can read)... Zoom lets me detach the chat and put it where I want it without taking up half my screen estate.

Can't disagree with any of that. Working for a tech company nearly all of us turn off our cameras, mostly cos bandwidth reasons. Which is an accessibility nightmare.

J
--
Beer, bikes, and backpacking
http://b.42q.eu/

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: Microsoft Teams - is it ****?
« Reply #49 on: 13 February, 2021, 12:30:48 pm »
Jitsi seems excellent within its limited functionality.  It's what Signal's video calling ought to be [The right aspect ratio - Ed], and works admirably well for one-to-one calls.  Zoom seems to have the edge when you've got lots of people and need to worry about keeping the interpreter on screen, or screen share or whatever.  The lack of a proper desktop app is irksome.

ETA: Jitsi appears to have developed a screen sharing feature since I last looked.  Will have to investigate that...