Teams
Microsoft Teams is a chat-based workspace. It serves as a hub for teamwork and collaboration by connecting you to applications, people and chats, data, and more - all within one space.
Teams is available to current or future university faculty and staff, as well as current students.
Note: UTMail Google addresses (@utexas.edu) cannot be used for login to or invited as guest accounts in Teams. UT users must use their Office 365 account to login: Faculty and staff should use their @austin.utexas.edu address and students should use their @my.utexas.edu address.
You can download the Teams desktop application at https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/microsoft-teams/download-app
Learn about adding guests (non-UT Austin affiliates) to your Teams here.
Join a Team
To join a team, you must be added by a Team owner.
Create a Team
- Login to the Teams application
- Select Teams in your left rail to view your teams.
- Select Join or create team > Create a new team.
- Select Other to create a Team. More information on Team types can be found here.
- Enter a name and optional description for your team, then select Next.
Benefits of Using Teams
Save time by organizing all work in one hub
Set up recurring or one-on-one staff meetings
Collaborate in conversation stream posts
Communicate via chat, audio, or video calls
Make announcements using @mention to the team’s General channel or by pinning important documents as permanent tabs
Share and organize content
One Note Notebook
Use OneNote Staff notebook, which includes a Content Library for all members to read, a Collaboration Space where members can edit collaboratively, and private notebooks for each staff member that only they and the staff leader(s) can see
Add tabs such as Planner, Power BI, and more
Getting Started
Access
Teams is available in a desktop and mobile client, and on the web.
Desktop Client Download: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/microsoft-teams/download-app
Mobile Client Download: Google Play or iOS store Browser: https://teams.microsoft.com.
Internet Explorer 11 | Calling and meetings are NOT supported. Users who attempt to join a meeting on IE 11 will be directed to download the Teams desktop client. |
Microsoft Edge | Calling and Meetings are supported on Edge RS2 and later |
Chrome, Latest version | Meetings are supported on Chrome 59 and later |
Firefox, Latest Version | Calling and Meetings are NOT supported. Users who attempt to join a meeting on Firefox will be directed to download the Teams desktop client. |
Safari 11.1+ | Safari is enabled on versions higher than 11.1 in preview. |
Team Limits and Specifications
Maximum Number of Members on a Team | 5,000 |
Maximum Number of Channels on a Team | 500 |
Maximum Number of People in a Meeting | 250 |
Maximum Number of People in a Private Chat | 50 |
Team Storage Capacity | 25TB |
Navigation
- Activity Feed: Your activity feed aggregates important content from Teams, channels, chats, and applications you interact with to create an inbox for activity across Teams.
- Chat: 1-1 or group chat with users in our organization
- Teams: Access and communicate with Teams you're part of. They'll automatically appear here once you've been added by a Team owner
- Assignments: If you're part of a Classroom Team, you'll be able to create, upload, and access Assignments here
- Meetings: View your calendar and schedule meetings with users and Teams in our organization
- Files: Add and access content from cloud storage locations like UTBox, Google Drive, OneDrive, and more
- More Added Apps: View bots, tabs, connectors, or messaging extensions added to your current Teams
- Apps: View available bots, tabs, connectors, or messaging extensions you can to Teams
- Help: Get training on various topics, see what's new, share an idea, or report a problem
- New Chat: Start a new chat with on person or a group of people
- Search: Use the keyword search to find matches in messages, contacts, or files
- Profile: Change your profile picture, update your status, and update your notification settings here
- Join or Create a team: Join a public Team. If you would like a Team created, email microsoftteams@austin.utexas.edu with your desired Team name, Team owner, and the Department and Unit your Team represents.
- Start a Conversation: Send and participate in conversations and share content to members of your team
- Team: A team is a group of people gathered together to get something done.
- Channels: Teams are made up of channels, which give you the ability to create topic specific places to have conversations, upload content, and more
- Team Options: Create channels, add members, manage your team, and more using this menu
- Hidden Teams: Use the 'Hide team' and 'Unhide team' in the Team options menu to add and remove Teams from this list
Get Working
Private
Start a 1-1 chat with someone by clicking the New Chat button
at the top of the Teams window and typing in the name of the person you want to send a message to.
Group
Use the New Chat button to start a new group chat and type the names of the people you'd like to chat with. From an existing chat, you can click the add people button and type the names of the people you'd like to add to your chat.
Team
To send a message to your Team, open the channel you want to send the message to and open the message format menu. Once you're ready, click the arrow at the bottom right to send your message.
Use @mentions to get someone's attention from a chat or channel conversation by typing the @ symbol before their name and selecting them from the menu. Users and groups you @mention will receive a notification.
Type @[Team Name] to message everyone on your Team. You can use @[Channel Name] to notify everyone who is following that channel.
A Team is a group of people who get together to get stuff done.
A Team can represent a department, sub-unit, project group, and more! Are you a member of multiple Teams? You can sort and customize which Teams you view by hiding or unhiding a team or reordering the Teams list. You can always learn more about teams and channels or find more information about a teammate to get the most out of your Team space!
Sending A Message to Everyone
To send a message to your Team, open the channel you want to send the message to and open the message format menu. Once you're ready, click the arrow at the bottom right to send your message.
Use @mentions to get someone's attention from a chat or channel conversation by typing the @ symbol before their name and selecting them from the menu. Users and groups you @mention will receive a notification. Type @[Team Name] to message everyone on your Team. You can use @[Channel Name] to notify everyone who is following that channel.
Learn more about messaging everyone on a team>>
Using Teams and Other Apps
Microsoft Teams works as a hub for your business and productivity applications by providing built-in integration opportunities for a wide variety of Office 365 and third-party applications.
Teams, SharePoint, and Document Storage
Each Team will automatically have a SharePoint Team site provisioned for it upon creation. SharePoint acts as the backbone of your Team's document library, and can be accessed from the Files tab within any channel. Click Open in SharePoint to navigate to your SharePoint Team site.
In SharePoint, Channel names represent folders, and files that are shared with your Team will be available in the Files tab of the folder they are shared in.
Adding More Apps to Teams
Tabs
Use tabs in channels to connect your Team to Office 365 and third-party applications and services like websites, Office documents, Trello, JIRA, and more. Each channel is automatically provisioned with a Conversations and Files tab. Click the + icon to see a list of available tabs you can add.
Connectors
You can use connectors in each channel to get updates on activity in services like Trello, GitHub, Twitter, and more. Click on the channel's more options menu to open the list of available connectors.