TLDR: they’re both bad, but it might be interesting to know what each one does
Security aside (because that’s my employers problem), Teams is just aweful.
The UX is all over the place, likely because of the feature creep forcing a lot of dev departments to collaborate.
It just does too much. I don’t need an all on one solution, I need a communication tool.
The chat looks like WhatsApp, not like a proper professional comms channel. Maybe there’s a setting buried somewhere.
The meetings are more miss than hit. For every working meeting I have 5 meetings where something doesn’t work. Multiple retries to join; or it picks the wrong mic, speaker and/or camera; or chat within the meeting doesn’t work for some participants so they can’t share or see links; video streams being disconnected and reconnected depending on who currently speaks (which looks extremels annoying); and probably a ton more I zoned out).
Slack on the other hand mostly just works. As a chat tool. What it is supposed to be.
The UX is all over the place, likely because of the feature creep forcing a lot of dev departments to collaborate.
“I created a spreadsheet with that info.”
“where is it?”
“It’s in my ‘recently used files’ in teams…”
“Yes but where can I share that document?”
“I think it’s in my OneDrive? I don’t see it there.”
“Let me check Sharepoint - I don’t see it there…”
“I’ll just email you a screenshot.”
Teams does too much but slack is just a chat app? That’s just not even close to true. Slack does way more than teams. Which is why I wish my company would drop teams so I don’t have two messaging apps to worry about.
I do have to say I almost never have an issue with teams calls. I’m pretty sure most IT departments just do a shit job of configuring it because if it was the app, it would happen to everyone. 99% of my teams calls work without any issues, including big meetings with dozens of people.
Google Meet is the gold standard of meeting software in terms of UI/UX in my opinion. The layout is consistent and reliable.
For extremely large meetings (a few hundred people), Zoom might still have the edge. I am always surprised how well they handle that. Even if it’s not moderated and anyone is allowed to talk at any time. They have some very good algorithms in regards to video stream routing.
Meet got a lot better in that regard too, however. Before COVID Meet wasn’t really usable for more than a dozen people (IMO). Now it can also easily handle one or two hundred.
And yes, for the quick team meeting or a short chat it’s just so convenient. Share link and go. It remembers the settings from last time and you are ready. The only thing that still confuses the shit out of me is that when more than a specific amount of participants are in the meeting, new members join muted. If I am late to meetings I tend to miss that detail and then need a few seconds to realize that no one hears me. I would probably prefer if it was consistent (you always join muted or you never join muted … or you actively have to decide or something).
The host has the ability to make all attendees attend mute.
But it isn’t a consistent feature yes. I am guessing due to different preferences for many.
I had the displeasure of managing Teams for an IT client of mine, and to say it’s a clusterfuck is putting it charitably.
It is almost impossible to change the user. A basic, rudimentary function that should be a simple matter of signing out and signing back in. Nope, doesn’t work. You have to reinstall Teams to get that working.
Oh, and reinstalling is an ordeal itself. That usually doesn’t work, either. You have to manually delete the installation directory and app data cache, and for whatever dumbshit reason, it doesn’t install to program files, it installs to some obscure directory in the user profile.
God help you if you rename a user. It retains the old user details until you sign out.
Trying to share a link to join a team never works.
These are just off the top of my head and I don’t want to continue because it’s stressing me out.
Fuck Teams.
As much as a lot of that hate it warranted, I’d say the install location isn’t so much a Teams issue as it is a Windows issue and how it handles user-level vs system-level installs. Obviously still a Microsoft problem, but important to note.
Obviously still a Microsoft problem, but important to note
You’d think Microsoft software would work optimally on a Microsoft operating system, but, quite often, it operates in the shittiest, kludgiest ways.
Yeah at some point you could just use discord wich actually works…
Does it matter in a work setting? Not like you get to choose what your company uses, and furthermore, it’s work stuff, not going to have any personal stuff on there anyway.
The relevant bit is probably just reiterating that your employer can see what you do on work related things, so continue to behave like you are at work
If you CAN influence the decision of what to use, then I guess it might be helpful to know the specifics
I agree with this. I work IT at my job and the amount of things corporate IT can see employees do on our computers and internet is quite crazy.
Right, I should’ve said that “personal stuff should not be on there”. I forgot how some people somehow don’t get the distinction between work and personal assets.
That’s how it always was and how it should be. Everything you do using corporate resources belongs to the company. If you want to send some memes to your friend, just Whatsapp them from your personal phone.
As for why it should be this way, that’s quite simple. If a person A is working on something, sends a draft over email to the client and then gets sick, someone else, person B, should pick up the work. And if person A didn’t use best practices and the only copy of the draft is in the email, then person B should have access to person A email to fetch the draft.
Slack makes it easy for employers to read your private messages, but Microsoft Teams takes employee surveillance to the next level. Teams offers employers easy access to stats about what you’re doing on the platform via its user activity reports dashboard. The dashboard shows how much time you spend messaging others, participating in calls and even how much you’re screen-sharing. Invasive!
You should be wary of both Slack and Microsoft Teams but Teams is teeming with privacy worries for the average employee. Work wisely.
Usage statistics are not surprising. It’s a business tool. What am I missing?
We use jitsi at work. Happy so far
At the enterprise level with teams you can bring your own key. If you want to remove MS’s access to your data you just remove the key and it’s effectively gone.
Does slack have something like this?
None, use zulip or matrix
