Microsoft Teams is a messaging application for teams to work together where conversations, meetings, files and notes can be accessed by everyone in the team all in one place.

The Activity area keeps track of your Likes, @mentions, replies to your messages and more.

Chat displays private chat messages outside of a team or channel.

The teams’ area displays all of your teams and the conversations within those teams. The conversations are known as channels

Meetings displays meetings planned for that day – this information is pulled through from Outlook.

Files displays your documents stored in OneDrive for Business and your team SharePoint.

If you are a team owner you can create a team. This would be for a collection of people, content and tools that centre around different projects and roles within an organisation.

Channels can be created within a team and they are there to help keep team conversations organised, for example you can dedicate a channel to specific topics or projects.

1.     On the left navigation, click Teams.

2.     Click Create team.

3.     Enter a team name, description and select whether the team should be Private or Public.

4.     Private teams can only be joined if the team owner adds you to them. They won’t show up in your teams’ gallery. Public teams are visible to everyone from the teams’ gallery and you can join them without obtaining approval from the team owner.

5.     Click Next.

6.     Search and add people to join the team.

7.     The team is displayed on the left within the teams list with one channel called General.

1.     Click the More Options button next to the team name.

Option	Description
Remove Favourite	Removes the team from the favourites list. It will then be displayed within the More category instead.
Manage Team	Where you can: - ·       Add team members and modify the Role (Owner/Member). ·       View channels within the team. ·       Modify team settings, such as applying a team picture, permissions etc.
Add channel	Create additional channels within the team.
Add members	Add members to the team.
Leave the team	Choose to leave the selected team.
Edit team	Change the team name, description and privacy settings for the team.
Get link to team	Obtain the team URL.
Delete the team	Permanently delete the team.

1.     At the bottom of the teams list, click Create and join team.

2.     Public teams will be displayed.

3.     Click Join Team for the relevant team.

1.     Click the More Options button next to the team name.

2.     Click Add channel.

3.     Enter a name and description for the channel and click Add.

4.     The additional channel is created.

5.     You can create a maximum of 100 channels per team.

1.     Click the More Options button to the right of the channel name.

Option	Description
Remove favourite	Remove the channel from the favourites list.
Edit this channel	Change the channel name and description.
Connectors	Connect the channel to other services and get notified of the teams activity in that service.
Get email address	Obtain the email address of the channel so that you can send emails to the channel.
Get link to channel	Obtain the channel URL.
Delete the channel	Delete the currently selected channel.
Follow this channel	Select to follow the channel, whereby you’ll receive direct notifications whenever there is new channel activity.

When you create messages everyone on the team can see your messages. In private and group chats only the people in the chat can see your messages.

1.     Select the relevant team and channel that you wish to create a chat within.

2.     Enter your chat in the Conversation box.

3.     Notice there are additional options such as attaching files and including emojis in your message.

1.     Click the New Chat icon next to the Search bar.

2.     In the To box, start typing someone’s name.

3.     Additional names can be added to the list.

4.     Enter your chat in the Conversation box.

5.     Notice there are additional options such as attaching files and including emojis in your message.

6.     Recent conversations are displayed on the left pane.

7.     Favourite chats are also displayed on the left pane.

1.     To view documents that have been shared in a chat, click on the relevant chat on the left navigation.

2.     Click the Files tab.

3.     To save messages, click the message save icon in the top right corner of the message.

4.     Saved messages can then be viewed in the lower left corner of the teams’ window.

5.     To bring the conversation to the attention of other people you can @mention them in the conversation box by simply typing the @ sign before their name.

6.     You may also be able to mention an entire team or channel using this method.

7.     The number of times your name has been mentioned in a particular channel will be displayed next to the channel.