Microsoft India has offered Indian Railways a six-month free trial of its “Microsoft Teams” platform powered by Office 365 to connect 15,000 employees across the network.
Approving the free trial offer from June 15-December 14, 2020, the Railway Board said “Microsoft Teams” would support various railway establishments to ensure physical distancing, avoid travelling and facilitate work-from-home in the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak scenario through its Information Technology applications for collaboration and communication.
In a note, the Railway Board said the key features of the application would be to organise discussions, sharing files in groups, audio/video conferencing, working online together on documents (Word, Excel & PowerPoint) etc.
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Collaborative working
Users of the entire Indian Railways would be in a unified domain and further divided into sub-domains as per the Zonal Railways, Production Units etc. to facilitate collaborative working and seamless communication across the whole organisation. Unique use identities were being created and Microsoft was formulating a quick start guide for the railway employees.
According to a railway official, among other features of “Microsoft Teams” were unlimited chat and search, video calling, team and personal file storage, and real-time collaboration with the office. Besides following the safety protocol guidelines of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the Ministry of Railways had taken a few other steps to prevent officers/staff from getting infected with coronavirus.
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One stop solution
The Railway Board advised its officers to use e-files to the extent possible and avoid physical receipt/issue of documents to avoid infection through touching of papers which have passed through multiple hands. It was also advised to gold all meetings/discussions. “Microsoft Teams” will be a one stop solution to implement these advisories, the official said.