Microsoft Teams is a chat-based workspace in Office 365 that allows teams to work together. Within one window, users can call upon a variety of essential Office 365 apps and tools, including:
- Calendars and meetings from Outlook
- Create, share, edit, and find content in SharePoint and OneNote
- Call and video chat with team members
- Chat and instant messaging
This article will cover the following topics on participating in a Microsoft Team.
Teams and Channels
Teams are made up of Channels, which are conversations you have with your teammates. Each Team has subsections, which are called Channels, and a General Channel will automatically be created. You can have multiple Channels within a Team; for example, you could have a 'Marketing' Team and then Channels such as 'Social Media', 'Product Launch', 'Blogs' etc. Channels can be created to reflect the different working groups within a department. The Channel will become bold whenever there is a new notification or activity.
Channel Tabs
Each Channel all have their own tabs along the top. Conversation (group chat), Files (shared documents), and Notes (shared OneNote) are automatically created, and you can then add your own tabs.
Posts
A new Post or response to a conversation thread will make the Channel display bold in the left-hand column.
Learn more about Posts in Microsoft Teams.
Activity
Activity shows you a summary of everything that's happened in your Channels. Select the Filter icon in the top right corner of the feed to show specific types of messages such as unread messages, @mentions, replies, and likes.
When a red circle appears next to Activity, you have a notification such as an @mention or a reply in your feed.
Explore the Activity feed in Teams
@mentions
The use of @mentions allows you to tag participants or even whole teams to notify others. Users who look at Conversations will easily see where they have been mentioned through the red @ symbol to highlight areas of importance to them. On top of this, your desktop app will notify you through an alert. As well as tagging, users can 'like' content and share emoticons or GIFs.
Learn more about using @mentions to get someone's attention in Microsoft Teams.
Chat
Chat is one of the key features of Teams, allowing each Team to have a centralized discussion that is saved and easily searchable. Chat is the central component where all teamwork is done - from file sharing to video calls.
Learn more about Chat in Microsoft Teams.