MS Teams: Introducing Microsoft Teams

Summary

This article describes some of the basic features and functionality of Microsoft Teams including chatting with and calling Team member. It has the following contents:

1. Familiarize Yourself With the Features and Basic Functionally of Teams
2. Familiarize Yourself with the Chat Feature
3. Starting a Chat
4. Familiarize Yourself with the Call Feature

Content

I. Familiarize Yourself With the Features and Basic Functionally of Teams

Microsoft Teams is a chat-based workspace in Office 365 that makes it easy to have conversations, host meetings, share files, collaborate on documents, and get work done with groups across the organization. Microsoft Teams lets you work in a natural, conversational way -- with everything you need in one place -- available anytime, on any device.

With Microsoft Teams on your PC, Mac, or mobile device, you can:

• Bring your team together as a group
• Use interactive, persistent chat instead of email
• Securely edit files at the same time
• See likes, @mentions, and replies with just a single tap
• Customize chats by adding notes, web sites, .gifs and apps
• In the cloud so everyone can work together no matter where they are, Teams are made up of channels, which are the conversations you have with your team mates. Each channel is dedicated to a specific topic, department, or project.

A team is a group of people gathered to collaborate within an organization.

Channels are where the work actually gets done--where text, audio, and video conversations open to the whole team happen, where files are shared, and where apps are added.

While channel conversations are public, chats are just between two individuals (or a group of people). Think of them like instant messages in other messaging apps.

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II. Familiarize Yourself with the Chat Feature

Chats are private one-on-one or group conversations that are not in the public team channel. And with calls, you can make calls or check your history or voice mail.

• To view a chat, select Chat from the left side and choose a person or group from the chat list.
• To make video and audio calls from a chat, select Video call or Audio call to call someone directly from a chat.

• To view recent conversations or set your favorite conversations, select Pinned (Favorites) or Recent on the left side of the Chat function.

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III. Starting a Chat

Instructions

Step 1 - Select the New chat icon in the top bar (square with a pencil in it).

Step 2 - Type the name of the person or people you want to contact in the To: field

Step 3 - Select the down arrow to add a Group name to a chat group.  Select the up arrow to close the Group name: box again.

Outcome

You started a chat in your Teams

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IV. Familiarize Yourself with the Call Feature

• To find the Calls section if it's not visible, click the three dots and search for "calls", then choose to pin it and it should appear on the left navigation bar in Teams.

• To view call history, select Calls > History.  To call an individual, type a person's name on the left.  To call a contact group, search in the Contact groups section on the right.

• To see any missed calls and voice mail, select Activity from the left navigation bar in Teams.

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Further Readings

Sign in to Microsoft Teams in your web browser 

Microsoft Teams Help & Learning - Microsoft Support 

Teams: Chat

Teams: Managing Chat Sessions

Teams Quick Start Guide - Video 

How to use Teams - Video 

Microsoft Teams Video Training 

LinkedIn Learning - Microsoft Teams 

Need additional help?

For additional Training please visit the Teaching & Learning Technologies Training site. 

To submit a support request, please fill out the Microsoft 365 Support webform with as much detail as possible, or contact the ET&S Help Desk team on your local campus. For password issues you must call or visit the Help Desk in person.