An Introduction to Microsoft Team & Creating Microsoft Team and Channel as a User – A beginners guide – Part 1

What is Microsoft Teams?

Microsoft 365 introduces a collaborative app called Microsoft Teams and it is built for hybrid work for all the users in an organization.

Users can be at any place – Office or home or moving, but they can be still connected, stay informed, and organized in their daily activities.

It is a replacement for Skype for Business application, and more features added in addition to it. So Microsoft Teams is an online communication and team collaboration tool. On July 31, 2021, Microsoft retired Skype for Business Online, latest releases of Microsoft 365 come with the Microsoft Teams app only, and there is no Skype for Business application in it.

Basically, Microsoft 365 Teams includes four tools to help users in their collaborative tasks.

• Chat – Message someone or a group to talk about work, projects, or just for fun
• Teams – Create a team and channels to gather people together and work in focused spaces with conversations and files
• Calendar – Connect with people before, during, and after a meeting so prep and follow-up are easy to find This Team’s calendar syncs with your Outlook one
• Apps – Find familiar apps and explore new ones to simplify, customize, and manage how you work

How to access Microsoft Teams?

As a user of Microsoft Office 365, you can access the Teams application either using the Desktop application or Mobile app and through any web browser.

Users can download the desktop application or mobile app from the Microsoft website:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-teams/download-app

Users can access Teams from a web browser using the below URL:
https://teams.microsoft.com/

Download Microsoft Teams for a Windows Desktop

• Click on the download link (given above) and then choose “Download for Desktop” option.
• Then, choose any one of the following based on your requirement:
  • Teams for home or small business
  • Teams for work or school

Download Microsoft Teams for a Mobile device

To download the mobile app of Microsoft Teams, enter your phone number or email address and Microsoft will send you a download link through SMS tn your mobile device

Here, we are using Windows Desktop and choosing “Teams for work or school”. This will download an exe file called TeamsSetup.exe.

• Run the exe with administrator privilege
• Microsoft Teams apps will be installed on your device
• You can log in with your Microsoft 365 credentials, and Microsoft will register your device and the Teams apps will open.

In this blog, we will be using the web browser to access Microsoft Teams.

Login to your Microsoft 365 User account and choose the Microsoft Teams icon to open in a new window.

Creating a new Team in Microsoft Teams

Any user in an Organization with a valid Microsoft 365 account can create a Team. But your organization can restrict who can create teams.

An administrator can restrict or allow a particular user to create Microsoft Teams in his login. Check with your administrator if you are not allowed to create a Microsoft Teams.

1. Choose “Teams” on the left side of the app, then select the “Join or create a team” option at the bottom of the page. (Refer to screenshot below)

2. This will open a new popup window and you can choose either “From scratch” or “From a group or team” or from a collection of templates

3. Choose the option “From scratch”. On the next screen, you’ll be asked to select the type of the team:

Teams Types:

• Private – The created team will be private to the Organization, and only users with permission can join this team
• Public – Anyone in the Organization can join the team if you know the name of the team
• Org-wide – Anyone in the Organization will join automatically. If a new user is created in Microsoft 365, that user will become a member of the team automatically

We are now creating a new Private Team. Hence choose the option – Private.


4. Then, you will be asked to provide a name for the Team. You can provide a description for the team in the “Description” box which is optional. Click Create to proceed with the new Team creation process

5. After creating the Private Team, you will be asked to enter the users to join the Team. Not only users, but you can also add a distribution list or a security group to the Team. Apart from this, you can add external users (Users outside your organization) as guests, if you know their email addresses. You can also skip this step if you want to add the users later

6. Once you have entered the user list, click Add, to add these members to the newly created Team. Also, you can designate each user as a Member or Owner of the newly created Team. Finally, click Close to finish the Team creation process

Creating a Channel in the newly created Team

Channels are further dividing the Team members into smaller groups.

For example in a Department, there may be a few sections. In an Accounts Department, you may have the sections for local and overseas, forex, and credit cards, and tax account management. You can put these users into a channel and can have multiple channels for each small group.

So a Team is made of several channels, and each channel has members. One team member can be a member of several channels

1. Choose the Team, and click “Create more Channels” on the main page of the Team
2. On clicking “Create more channels”, a new popup page opens. You will be asked to provide a name and description for the channel. Further, you should choose the privacy type of the channel

Privacy Types:

• Standard – When choosing this privacy level, everyone in the team has access, and all users of the team will be able to become members of the channel
• Private – Only specific users of the Team can be members of the channel, and you should provide the member’s name during channel creation
• Shared – People you choose from the Organisation or from external Organisations. These users may not be a member of the Team, to which the channel belongs

Here we have created Channel with the ‘Private’ privacy type.


3. Click “Create” to initiate the creation process. In the next step, you can add the members to the channel. Here you can view only the members belonging to the Team under which the Channel is created. You can also skip this step and can add members later. After adding, you can designate a member or owner for each user you chose
4. Click “Done” to finish the channel creation process

Conclusion:

Microsoft Teams is the best messaging app for any Organization. It creates the best workspace for real-time collaboration and communication, meetings, & file and app sharing. It is an all-in-one tool, accessible to everyone, and creates healthy lively productivity sitting anywhere and using any device.

In this Part -1, we have discussed how to create a Team and Channel, and how to add members to Teams and Channels.

In the next Part -2, we will provide details on how to work with the Teams app to streamline work and save time. Also, about how to host more effective video meetings and start chat conversations.

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