How to use Microsoft Teams

Created by Andrew Robinson, Modified on Thu, 18 Jul at 4:47 PM by Andrew Robinson

What is Teams for?

Teams is for internal communication and collaboration. For external communication, use email. Don't mix using email and Teams for internal work as this can get very confusing.

Internal could mean only the people in your team, department, business unit etc. who are using Teams. There may be other parts of the organisation that, for the purpose of Teams, are considered 'external'.

What are the channels for?

Channels are for distinct projects (or sub-projects), work streams, topics etc. which happen in parallel. For example, if the team has two sub-projects on the go at the same time, it makes sense to have a channel for each one.

Every channel has at least a conversation tab, where communication takes place around the topic of the channel, and a Files tab, where all the documents related to the channel are stored. Files stored in Teams can be worked on collaboratively. You can add more tabs as you need them.

General - this channel is for announcements, general admin and things which don't fit in other channels. It could also be the place to talk about how the team wants to use Teams.
Other channels - are for specific projects, work streams or projects.

Only create channels you're sure you need

It's really easy to create channels and the temptation is to create lots. If you have too many channels it can confusing and it's difficult to know where to post things, as well as where to find things later.

By the way, try to avoid renaming channels. It's easy to do but can cause problems with files and folders in the channel later.

The difference between 'Start a new conversation' and 'Reply'

This is a really important difference. Make sure you only start a new conversation when you really want to start a new conversation about a new topic.

Teams keeps conversations together. Make sure you reply if you want to add something to that conversation. If you mean to reply but instead start a new conversation, then the conversation is broken and difficult to find.

How to use reactions

There are a few different reactions in Teams:

Use the 'Like' (thumbs up) to say "I agree", "I've read this", "I accept the task" etc., don't use it to say you like something. This means you don't have to reply with a message to say these things.

Use the other reactions (love, laugh, surprise, sad, angry) to show how you feel about a post.

What should I read?

One of the great things about Teams is that it allows you not to read some messages. With email, you need to read every message to know if you need to read it.

In Teams, the messages you must read are the ones where you are mentioned.

How do I get people to read my posts?

If you want to make sure someone reads a message, mention them. There are a couple of different ways to mention people:

@ mention a name to address an individual.
@ mention a channel name to address everyone who has chosen to get notifications from the channel.
@ mention a team to address everyone in the Team.

When you mention someone, it shows in their Activity Feed and, depending on their settings, they receive a notification.

BUT, don't overdo it - think carefully before mentioning a channel or team.

Notifications

Make sure you set up your notifications in a way that works for you. You have a lot of options and controls - take a few minutes to set what you think you need and revise it if it's not working for you.

There are two places where you can set up notifications. In the Settings, you set overall, general rules for notifications:

For every channel, you can also set how you want to receive notifications about activity in the channel:

What if a message is really important?

To highlight a message even more, you can flag a message as important or urgent:

As with @ mentions though, use with care, especially the 'urgent' setting.

Give new conversations a subject heading

This is the same as adding a subject on an email, it gives people an idea what the conversation is about and it makes it easier to find.

To add a subject, click the format button:

Sometimes you may receive an email you want to share or discuss with your team. Don't forward it to them as this starts an email conversation.

Instead, forward it to Teams. Every channel has an email address, and you can email to the channel and then discuss the contents of the email in Teams.

When should I use chat?

Chat is like using any other instant messaging service - it's a private conversation between you and the other person. Generally it's for high priority questions or for communicating as friends.

Avoid using chat for business decisions and discussions. Use the right channel in the right team for business conversations.

How many people can there be in a chat?

You can add lots of people, but if the group starts to get too large, it's probably better to create a team. Chat can't be threaded in the same way as conversations in a channel so if there are too many people or too many topics, the chat gets very confusing. Better to use threaded conversations in a channel.

When you share a file in a channel, it's uploaded to the Team and can be found in the Files tab in the team.

When you share a file in a chat, it's uploaded to your personal OneDrive. The other people in the chat don't receive a copy of the file, they are given the rights to read and edit the file in your OneDrive.

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