Accessing Microsoft Teams | Navigating MS Teams | Chat | Teams | Additional Information |

Getting Started with Microsoft Teams (MS Teams)

Accessing Microsoft teams

To learn more about eligibility and accessing MS Teams via the app, web browser, or mobile devices visit Microsoft Teams (MS Teams).

Top Navigation Bar: here you will find the search bar and your profile icon where you can set your icon image, location, status, and status message. Use the ellipses “...” to access your MS Teams settings and adjust notifications.

Left Navigation Bar: This area is customizable and ITS-approved apps can be pinned or unpinned along with the built-in features.

  • Activity: latest posts, reactions, etc. from chats or channels you participate in
  • Chat: one-to-one or group chat conversations that persist across platforms and devices
  • Teams: the groups to which you belong, including their channels and related content
  • Calendar: an embedded view of your Microsoft 365 apps for enterprise calendar to help when scheduling team meetings
  • Files: quick access to recent Teams files from a single location or access to your OneDrive for Business files

@Mentions

@Mention can be used in group chats or Team posts to notify users when they are mentioned. This is a quick way to alert a group or specific people.

MS Teams-Chat

Chat provides private conversations between individuals and groups. The Chat tool may be used to:

  • Chat (text) with co-workers or yourself
  • Launch audio or video calls within the system (Note: for those with MS teams loaded on a mobile device, these will ring like phone calls.)
  • Share your desktop for collaboration
  • Share documents and files

Tip: It is recommended to share files via the file link so you are not creating duplicates and using more storage space.

MS Teams-Teams

Overview

Teams consist of groups of users working together around a particular topic. Teams must be created using MyHub, the university’s MS Teams governance tool. Teams can be created for a department, group, committee, project, or shared interest. Each team consists of the following user roles:

  • Owners: those with permission to configure team settings and manage membership
  • Members: those who have access to the team
  • MyHub Contact: those responsible for the renewal and maintenance of the workspace in the MyHub governance tool

Channels

Channels represent the sub-topics within a team. Team channels may be open to all members or a subset of a team. Channels can be created as standard or private. Teams can have a maximum of 1,000 standard channels and are limited to 30 private channels per team, and no more than 250 people in a private channel. See Microsoft’s article Limits and Specifications for Microsoft Teams for more information.

Each channel has a set of associated tabs customizable by the Team’s owners.

  • Posts: the conversation area within a channel; Similar to chat, this is an area to converse and share
  • Files: shared file space for the channel. Share and collaborate on documents in the browser without emailing them back and forth. Version history is also tracked.
  • Team Notebook: OneNote notebook for the channel (available for Staff Teams)
  • Other Tab Options: Customize the channel by adding additional tabs utilizing ITS-approved applications. Applications that are not available would need to go through the ASRB review process.

Additional Information

Join the Collaboration Collective

The Collaboration Collective is a team for Mason's collaboration technology users to communicate with their peers and discuss new features, best practices, and other topics of interest pertaining to the following ITS-supported collaboration tools: Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and Class Collaborate (formerly Blackboard Collaborate Ultra). This is not intended to replace submitting an issue via the ITS Support Center. The Collaboration Collective is moderated by members of the Mason community and members of ITS.

Submit an ITS support request if:

  • It is something that requires an urgent/timely ITS response
  • You are requesting information or troubleshooting assistance

Post in one of the channels if:

  • You would like to share a use case or feature you’ve found helpful
  • You would like to test out a new feature with your peers
  • You would like to know how your peers are using the tools

To become a member of the Collaboration Collective, log in to MS Teams, click Join or create a Team, and then search for Collaboration Collective or use Join a team with a code (code: pifyqb4).

Last modified: March 27, 2024