This post has been republished via RSS; it originally appeared at: Microsoft Teams Blog articles.
The workplace is experiencing a major shift: In our increasingly complex world, the value of an employee is largely found in his or her ability to understand and share the ideas, information, and processes that help a company innovate.
To solve complex problems, think more critically, and convey information quickly, today’s workforce needs software that will help them communicate in the way that comes most naturally.
The new Lucidchart integration with Teams can help you convey complex ideas and break down communication barriers, visually. Lucidchart is a cloud-based platform that allows users to easily create and collaborate on flowcharts, ERDs, BMPN diagrams, wireframes, mockups, network diagrams, org charts, etc. in real time. It has helped teams innovate 38% faster and eliminate 2.5 meetings per week.
With the integration, you can now add or create a new Lucidchart document as a tab in your Team channel so anyone in the channel can edit or comment on the visual without leaving Microsoft Teams. You can also access your Lucidchart documents from a personal tab.
Here are some common scenarios we see Lucidchart customers using every day to maximize their productivity:
Clearly convey complex ideas
Because people can more easily interpret information from visuals, you can give your team members the information they need to move on your ideas or follow optimized processes.
When you use Lucidchart in Microsoft Teams, you can create the visuals, from simple flowcharts to complex technical diagrams, that simplify the complex and help your company innovate faster.
You can even use the Lucidchart app to place your data in context. From Teams, link data to your diagrams and add conditional formatting to show others how your processes and systems are performing. Import database schemas, AWS infrastructure, and CSVs to lay out your systems visually for greater understanding.
Work together from any location
As the workforce becomes more dispersed—both from the increased number of remote workers grows and the number of organizations expanding their global footprint—you can’t count on your co-workers to be in the same location as you.
The Lucidchart and Microsoft Teams integration can help bring together your dispersed workforce, allowing teams to collaborate in real time without having to meet or pass diagrams back and forth. Once you add a Lucidchart document to your Team channel, anyone in the channel can view or start working on the diagram.
Collaborators can also use in-editor commenting, notes, and @mention notifications in Teams to leave their feedback on specific parts on the diagram so you can make necessary changes, get approval faster, and start moving on your ideas quickly.
Example use cases
Additionally, here are some department-specific use cases that the Lucidchart and Microsoft Teams integration will solve for customers:
- Product development: Create user flow diagrams, mockups, and product roadmaps to ensure that everyone is on the same page as far as what they are building and how they should build it.
- Software engineering: Document code, communicate your vision to non-technical audiences, and determine the best way to build powerful applications.
- IT: Map out your physical network and IT process to troubleshoot issues faster, simplify onboarding, and keep track of inventory.
- DevOps: Build development and deployment processes, visualize the current state of your infrastructure, and plan out your future state to optimize performance.
- Project management: Define your project process, delineate roles and responsibilities, and track your progress with data linking and conditional formatting.
- Marketing: Use visuals to outline campaigns, email flows, website structure, etc. and see how all of your marketing efforts fit together.
- HR: Share recruiting processes, onboarding processes, and org charts to help you bring on the best people as your company scales.
How to get started
Install Lucidchart from the Microsoft App Store. After you connect to your Lucidchart account, you can start adding Lucidchart to your apps.
And remember that Lucidchart doesn’t just integrate with Microsoft Teams. Once you have created visuals directly in Lucidchart or in Microsoft Teams, you can share them within other popular applications, including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Make your documents, spreadsheets, and presentations more clear and engaging with visuals.
Start working visually with Lucidchart