Tips for getting started with Microsoft Teams

Now your teams have a shared workspace for conversations, files, and meetings—so everyone can be more engaged and effective every day. Get organized with these basic tips.

  1. Start with chat.
    Create a small group chat with colleagues you work with most closely, a great way to communicate in the moment. You can name and ‘favorite’ the chat for easy reference.
  2. Connect from anywhere.
    Download the Microsoft Teams desktop and mobile apps to enable teamwork from anywhere.
  3. Go big.
    Create larger teams with dedicated channels to specific topics, projects, disciplines—whatever you like. Better to have fewer, larger teams with more channels than many, small teams with few channels.
  4. Customize channels.
    Upload files to the appropriate channel and pin frequently used files to make it easier for everyone to find.
  5. Add apps to channels.
    Do more in one place by integrating favorite apps and services—such as Word, PowerPoint, Excel, PowerBI, Planner, SurveyMonkey, HootSuite and more—with team chats and meetings.
  6. Consolidate ‘need to know’ content.
    Use OneNote or the Wiki feature to spotlight important content—meeting follow ups, best practices, goals—separate from conversations.
  7. Spotlight resources.
    Pin key websites used to track news, performance, live site monitoring or metric tracking so everyone can access this information right within Teams.
  8. Elevate email conversations.
    Forward email to a team channel to continue the discussion in a threaded chat conversation, with attachments automatically uploaded for easy team co-authoring.
  9. Share content from other services.
    Set up connectors to push rich content into Microsoft Teams from services like Trello, GitHub, Bing News, or Twitter; and get notified of the team’s activity in that service.
  10. Help foster active channels.
    Be personally active in channels and @team to highlight posts for the whole group.
  11. Personalize your workspace.
    Click your profile picture in the top right corner of the app to change your picture and set your status. Select Settings to change your app settings (theme & language), privacy (manage priority access & read receipts), notification preferences for mentions and messages.

Learn more about our Microsoft Teams training

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