Foundation Level Microsoft Teams www.excellence-it-training.co.

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Quick
Reference
Guide

Back/Fwd User Account

Activity Teams
Chat Menu bar
Teams
Meetings Conversations
Files
Add an App Reply
Channels

What is Microsoft Teams? Use the Office 365 Tile menu to open Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams is a chat-based Office 365 Web App that gives members the ability to communicate with
teams of people whilst utilising many Office 365 web apps and features at the same time. It’s a more
focused way of working with groups of people than the traditional emailing large distribution groups.
Jargon Buster
• Team – A group of people working towards a common goal (Note: Members can join multiple teams)
• Channel – A place to discuss a single topic such as part of a business plan. The scope of a channel can
be as broad or narrow as needed. Examples of Channels include general office chat, organizing a
complex delivery, planning an event or working out a strategy. The general rule is this – “Define your
topic and stick to it” i.e. all conversations within a channel should only be related to its key topic.
• Conversation – Messages between members of a team. Messages can include Emojis and Gifs too
• Bot – A piece of software you communicate with via chat. T-Bot is the built-in help system for teams.
• Chat – All team members can view all conversations. Chat gives us the ability to have private
conversations with any selected team members. Chats are also the default method of talking to bot
• Meetings – Either the management of meetings in person, or the management of online meetings.
• Connector – A Channel option that allows information to be published to that channel via an external
service.
• Wiki – A general purpose information page. The Wiki page is divided into re-arrangeable sections.
It’s useful for links and as a group notebook (though not to be confused with OneNote)
• Search – Use the Search facility to find either messages, people or files using keywords to find them
Team Privacy
Teams can be either Public or Private.
• Public Teams can be accessed by anyone in the company/organisation
• Private Teams can only be accessed by those people who have been added as members

View all of your (or a team’s) recent activity Schedule or view an Outlook / Skype meeting

Click for a Private chat with any members View all your 365 files e.g. OneDrive/Teams/ Recent

View all of your Teams, Channels and Chat View other 365 Apps e.g. Planner / OneNote

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 Quick Reference Microsoft Teams www.excellence-it-training.co.uk

Creating a Team
Example1 – We’ll create a private team to organize an event e.g. A product launch
Getting Started Select Teams from the Office 365 App Launcher | or open the Desktop App
Add a new Team Click Teams on the Navigation pane then + Add Team
Create Team You’ll be taken to the team creation page. Click the Create Team button
Name the Team Give the team an appropriate name e.g. “Product Launch”
Description Describe the purpose and objectives of the team
Privacy Set privacy: Private (only invited members) or Public (anyone in your organisation)
Tip: During team creation you will see an option “Create a team from an existing Office 365 group”. This will
allow you to pick an existing group to create a team from, enabling existing groups to be easily moved into Teams.
Next This will create the team. After which you will be prompted to add members.
Tip: You can add/manage members at any time > click - - - Next to the Team Name > Manage Team

Creating a Channel
Example 2 – Now that we have created our Product Launch team, we need to assign some Channels
(Topics). All teams get a default channel called General. We’ll now look at adding a new one of our own.
Select the team Click Teams on the Navigation bar then point to the team name i.e Product Launch
Add channel Click on the three dots - - - more menu then click Add channel
Channel name Give the channel a name (or topic). In this example we’ll use ‘Press Releases’
Description Give the channel an appropriate description e.g. ‘Development of Press Releases’
Add Click the Add button. Your new channel is created underneath your Team name
Note: Channels are not private. All members of a team can see a channel and its conversations
Tip: If a channel is important to you, click - - - Follow this channel or click the Star to make it a favourite

Using Conversations
Once you have created a channel, you can talk to other members of your team about the channel topic
in a conversation. Simply click the required channel and the “Start a new conversation” screen appears
Start conversation Click into the Start a new conversation box > Type your text > Enter key or Send
Reply to chat To reply to any message > Click Reply > Type your text > Enter key or Send
When composing your message, there are some useful buttons to add extra info and use Team features
More options Edit or Delete message| Mark as unread Add a file attachment to message
Save message Save a message for quick reference Adds an Emoji to a message
Like message Let people know you like of the message Add a funny GIF to the message
Expand box Expands box and adds format options Adds a Sticker to the message
Meeting Turn chat into a Skype meeting now Add more e.g. News - Weather
Note: To View More Save and like options, simply hover over the required message
Note: To view all your saved messages > Click your User Account icon then Saved (Messages are listed)

Using @Mentions
Using the @ symbol has special meaning in Microsoft Teams when composing conversations. It is a
mechanism that notifies one or more people that you are writing something that they should be aware
of. These should be used to ensure that key information is seen by individuals, teams and channel users
@person’s name The person mentioned is notified that you have used their name
@channel name Everyone who has made the mentioned channel a favourite receives a notification
@Team name All members of the team are notified of the mention.

Disclaimer: Every effort has been made to ensure that this guide is correct at the time of print, however,
as Office 365 is a live changing environment, details sometimes become out of date over a period of time

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