Microsoft Teams User Side Guide

Creating and managing a Microsoft Teams hub:

To collaborate in Teams, you first need to be either a member of a Teams hub or the creator of one. To create a Team:

1. Click Teams from the App bar.

2. Click the Join or Create a Team link that appears at the bottom of the App bar.

3. Click the Create a Team card.

4. Enter the name and description of the Team.

5. Choose the privacy settings for your Team (Private or Public).

A Private Team means only team owners can add members, while a Public Team means anyone in your organization can join the Team.

1. Click Next.

2. Add members to your team by adding either a name, email address, a distribution list, or a mail-enabled security group in the Add box.

3. A Team can have a maximum of 2,500 members from either your organization or external users through secure guest access.

4. Optionally, you can choose the role of the Team member (Owner or Member) by clicking the drop-down arrow next to Member. If you forget to do this, you can update the membership type later.

5. Click Close.

Team management features are accessed by clicking the ellipses next to your Team name in the App bar. The following management options are available:

o Manage Team launches the Members tab where you can add or remove members, change the role of a member, or search for a member.

o Add a channel launches a dialog box where you can enter a channel name and the description for the channel.

o Add members launches a dialog box where you can enter the names of people, distribution lists, or mail-enabled security groups to add to your Team.

o Leave the team launches a validation window that asks you to confirm your intent to leave the Team.

o Edit team launches a dialog box where you can change the Team name, the team description, and privacy settings.

o Get link to team launches a dialog box where you can copy the URL for the Team to share with others.

o Delete the team launches a validation window that asks you to confirm your intent to delete the Team.

Managing members of the Team.

Chatting in Microsoft Teams:

When a new member is added to a Team, that member automatically gets access to all previous conversations, files, and other types of information shared in the Team’s hub. This is especially helpful for onboarding a new team member to a project. There is no need to think about what files to forward to get the new member up to speed, since he or she can self-serve from the content available in the hub or simply ask for help from others through chat.

To start a chat, click on the Compose Box and start typing your message while in either the Activity, Chat, or Teams sections. When you’re done, click the Send icon to post your message. Depending on the culture of your team, you can spice up your chats with emojis, Giphys, or stickers. You’ll find a variety of options when you click these icons below the Compose Box.

Note: Sometimes conversations in a Team can become noisy when there are many members talking about different topics. To help with that, take advantage of the threaded messages feature in Teams by replying directly to a specific message so the reply in in context with the original message.

Sharing files in Microsoft Teams:

To share a file in Teams:

1. Select Teams from the App bar.

2. Compose a message in the Compose box from a channel.

3. Click the Attach icon (it looks like a paperclip) below the Compose box and select the source for the attachment you want to share.

4. Select the file from the source and upload it.

5. The file you uploaded will now be embedded in the message.

6. Click the Send icon (it looks like an airplane) to post your message. The file you shared will also show up in the Files tab.

Alternatively, you can go directly to the Files tab and click the Upload button to upload a file. Once the file is uploaded, click the name of the file to open it. Once opened, you can start a conversation with others regarding the document.

Meeting and conferencing the Microsoft Teams way:

Chats and conversations in Teams are fun ways to communicate with others. Sometimes, however, it’s more efficient to get on a quick call with team members to resolve an issue versus going back and forth in a chat. Fortunately, Teams provides a complete meeting solution with support for audio and video conferencing. Because calling capabilities are built into Teams, you don’t need to log out of Teams and start a separate application to start an ad-hoc meeting.

Setting up an impromptu Microsoft Teams meeting

Let’s say for example you are chatting with three members of your team about an issue. After a lengthy back and forth and waiting times in between, you decided it’s much faster to just get on a call and talk about the issue. To start an impromptu meeting:

1. Reply to the conversation thread and click the Video icon that appears at the bottom of the Compose box.

2. From the video window that pops up, enter a subject for your call.

3. Toggle the video camera on or off to choose between sharing your video or just audio.

4. Click Meet Now to start the conference.

A conference window will open with a pane on the right where you can invite others to join the meeting.

When you’re done with the meeting, click the red phone icon to end the call and leave the meeting.

Note: After the meeting, notes and conversations are posted to the channel so others who couldn’t make it to the meeting can quickly catch up on what they’ve missed.

Scheduling a Microsoft Teams meeting:

You can set up a formal meeting ahead of time and give the invited participants enough notice about a meeting. Like Outlook, formal meeting requests in Teams include a Meeting Title (the equivalent of Subject in Outlook), Location, Start and End Date or Time, Details, and a list of participants. In Teams, you can select a channel to meet in. When a channel is selected, artifacts from the meeting are posted in the channel.

To schedule a Teams meeting:

1. Click Meetings from the Apps bar.

2. Click the Schedule a Meeting button that appears at the bottom of the left pane.