Summary

Microsoft Teams is a corporate communication and collaboration platform that combines workplace chat, video meetings, file storage and file sharing in one application. This document provides a basic guide highlighting how to use Microsoft Teams, including how to set-up new Teams, turn on notification alerts, how the file editing and sharing files works as well as tips & tricks.

Chat

The Chat tab enables you to private message colleagues:

·         Search for their name in the search bar, then select the people tab to show the search results.

·         Once you have sent your message it will appear in the Chat tab under recent.

·         You can pin colleagues that you message frequently to the top of the chat inventory by right clicking on the user and selecting Pin. The Pinned list can also be reordered by clicking and dragging.

·         Under the Chat tab, you can create small private group chats for collaboration, or to have video or audio meetings. 

Teams

The Teams tab is intended for groups of people providing a facility for messaging and collaboration. Teams can be set up by yourself or your line manager.

How to create Teams and Channels

A Team can be created for a department, project or anything else that requires collaboration and communication. Teams are made up of Channels. Channels are used to highlight an area of work or a topic. An example of some effective channel is shown in the screenshot below. Channels are not limited to Teams but can become hard to manage when too many are created.

The below is a guide on how to create a Team and how to add Channel’s to your Team.

 1.       From the Teams tab, select Join or create a Team on the bottom left hand side of the screen.

2.       Select Create a Team:

3.       Select Build a Team from scratch.

4.       Give your Team a name. You may also provide a description of the Team. Select Create to proceed.

5.       We recommend that you select Private. Only those with an invitation can then join the Team. A public Team allows anyone within the organisation to join and participate.

6.       Add the colleagues you require in the Team. Team membership can be edited at any time.

7.       Once your Team has been created you can start adding channels. This can be done by right clicking on the Team name and selecting Add channel.

8.       Give the channel a name and select Add.

Notifications
It is recommended channel notifications are turned on - they are not turned on by default. You can do this by:

1.       Right click on the channel

2.       Select Channel notifications

3.       Select Banner and feed from the drop-down boxes

4.       Tick the Include all replies box and select  Save.

 File Sharing and Editing

Teams allows the editing and sharing of files with multiple contacts simultaneously. This means when someone edits a document, another person can see the changes being made in real time. File Sharing and editing can be done in private chats as well as in your Teams. These can be uploaded via the files tab in your Team, or via the new message bar at the bottom of your chat. We would recommend keeping important documents centralised within a Team rather than on chats. The file sharing infrastructure within Teams is hosted on SharePoint, each Team creates its own unique SharePoint site which can also be synced to your device.

Below, is an example of a Team with a folder hierarchy. As you can see, this Team has folders and documents within it. These can be created from new, or you can upload existing folders and documents to this Team. 

From here, anyone within the Team can access these folders and documents. These documents can be edited by multiple users simultaneously. A highlighted dialogue box with initials indicate who is collaborating on the file.

If you would rather edit documents online rather than via Teams or locally on your device select Open in SharePoint. Your Teams folder hierarchy will then open within a SharePoint site on your default browser:

It’s important to note that even if you are editing files or folders within Teams, locally, or via a web-browser it will still sync across all platforms and work normally.

In-app (Office 365 users only):

To schedule a meeting from Teams, select the Calendar on the left pane, then select New Meeting found in the top right-hand corner of Teams. You will then be able to setup your meeting. Select Save from the top right-hand corner of Teams once completed.

Priority Access:
Configuring priority access allows notifications from colleagues regardless of your status. To configure priority access, navigate to the top right corner of Teams and select your profile picture icon, select Settings, select the Privacy tab, and under Do Not Disturb select Manage priority access where you can add users into the priority access group.

 Read Receipts:

Read receipts within Teams tells you when users have read your message and vice versa. To turn this off, navigate to the top right corner of Teams, select your profile picture icon, select Settings, select the Privacy tab. You will then have the option to toggle Read receipts on and off.