Introduction
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 students, faculty, and staff with an Office 365 mailbox at https://teams.microsoft.com. You can download the Teams desktop application at https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/microsoft-teams/download-app
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 @myutexas.edu address.
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Save time by organizing all work in one hub
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Set up recurring or one-on-one staff meetings
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Collaborate in conversation stream posts
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Communicate via chat, audio, or video calls
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Make announcements using @mention to the team’s General channel or by pinning important documents as permanent tabs
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Share and organize content
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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
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Add tabs such as Planner, Power BI, and more
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
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Login to the Teams application
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Select Teams in your left rail to view your teams.
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Select Join or create team > Create a new team.
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Select Staff to create a Staff Team. More information on Team types can be found here.
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Enter a name and optional description for your team, then select Next.
Learn more about creating Teams >>
Getting Started
Access
Teams is available in a desktop and mobile client, and on the web.
Desktop Client Download: https://teams.mircrosoft.com/download
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
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.Â

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.Â
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.Â

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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.

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