Microsoft Teams is a digital hub that brings chat, video calls, files, and apps together in one place – all from a single experience in Microsoft 365.
Any College user can create a Team. Visit our Teams Types post to compare features in the various Team types available..
Further support
- Visit the Teams Basics click-through guide for a tour.
- See our Resources below for guides, videos, and support pages.
Class Teams
- A Class Team has been automatically created for every College course section.
- A Class Team includes unique features for faculty and students such as assignments and a OneNote Class Notebook.
- See our post on Class Teams or Teams for education on Microsoft Learn for more details.
Teams Meetings – Video Calls
- Visit our Microsoft Teams Meetings post for details on using live calls for meetings including video, chat, screen sharing, and file sharing.
- Users do not need to be a member of an official Team in order to schedule, create, or join a call.
Team features
| Feature | Possible Solutions |
|---|---|
| Accessing Teams | See Accessing Teams below or page 7 of our documentation |
| Creating a Team | See Microsoft’s support to create a Team, customize your Team’s settings, and add or remove members. |
| Managing your Team | Team members cannot delete a Team, but they can hide an unused Team. Team owners can change the Team name, icon, etc. Faculty cannot delete unwanted Class Teams created from courses, but the Team name/description can be changed to communicate. |
| Using Channels | See Microsoft’s support for creating channels, showing/hiding channels, and working in a channel and details on standard or private channels (You cannot schedule a meeting or record a meeting in a private channel. You cannot ‘switch’ a channel from private to public or vice versa). See this handout on hiding/showing channels. |
| Sharing files | See Microsoft’s support for sharing a file in a chat or to the Files section of a channel. Easily revisit files in the Files tab of Teams and manage files in the Team’s SharePoint site. You can move or copy files from one Team to another. |
| Chat messages | One-on-one or group chats happen in the Chats tab. Chats can also happen in the Posts tab of any Team channel. See Microsoft’s support for more details on Chat. See this handout on managing chat permissions in a Team. Learn about managing your notifications. Use the mobile app to send voice recordings to chat. |
| Calls | Start a 1:1 or group chat and make a call to talk. See Microsoft’s support for starting a chat and making a call and page 21 of our documentation. |
| Meetings | Visit our Microsoft Teams Meetings post for details on using live video calls for meetings. |
| Create Breakout Rooms | See How to Create Virtual Breakout Groups in Teams. |
| Live Events | See our Microsoft Teams Live Events post for details on enabling producers and presenters to broadcast video and meeting content to a large online audience of attendees. |
Accessing Teams
- We recommend users download the Team’s desktop client application.
- Teams is available in Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome web browsers.
- *Teams is not supported in Safari or Firefox browsers.*
- See directions for installing Microsoft Teams for Windows, Mac, iOS, or Android.
- The Teams installer can be found at https://teams.microsoft.com/downloads.
Resources
- Teams Documentation (document)
- Best Practices for Teams (document)
- Best Practices for Teams (website post)
- Recording from our Livestreaming your Lessons workshop (3/17/2020)
- Recording from our Microsoft Teams for Collaboration: Teams, Channels, and Tabs 1-hour Microsoft Trainer session (12/9/20)
- Microsoft Teams Official video training
- Microsoft Teams support
- Microsoft Remote Learning Teams Quick Tips (YouTube playlist)
- Overview of Teams types and Team features on the Microsoft Educator Community with new videos, feature updates & more! (Structured as one-hour course, but you can easily navigate to topics of your choice.)