Manage Conversations, Members and Channels in Teams

Quick reference

• 00:04 Teams is an application that allows us to have conversations,
• 00:08 share files, schedule meetings, and also conduct audio and video calls.
• 00:14 And for a lot of organizations, Teams is really their main work hub.
• 00:18 It integrates so seamlessly with other parts of Microsoft 365 that
• 00:23 a lot of people spend most of their working day in some part of Teams.
• 00:29 Now it's worth noting that to access Teams, you can go to teams.microsoft.com.
• 00:34 Or alternatively, if you are already logged in to your online portal,
• 00:38 you can click the App launcher, you guessed it, and there we have Teams.
• 00:43 So let's click to open this up.
• 00:45 Because the other point that's worth mentioning is that there
• 00:49 is a desktop version of Teams as well.
• 00:51 So if you're somebody who would prefer to work in the desktop version as opposed
• 00:55 to in the online version like we have here, it's very simple to download by
• 00:59 going over to the three dots next to your profile picture.
• 01:02 And you have a Download the desktop app link just here.
• 01:06 Now we are going to stay working in the online version.
• 01:09 And let's start out by taking a look at the main parts of Teams
• 01:13 because we can see those in the menu on the left-hand side.
• 01:18 Now, the one that's currently highlighted in purple is what I'm currently
• 01:21 clicked on.
• 01:21 So for me, that is Teams.
• 01:24 And what I see next to this is a big long list of all of the teams that I'm
• 01:29 a member of.
• 01:30 So let's take the top team as our first example.
• 01:34 You can see here we have a team called Sales and Marketing.
• 01:37 Then, underneath that we have team channels.
• 01:40 That's the terminology that we use.
• 01:42 And channels are just really a way of helping us organize conversations around
• 01:47 specific topics.
• 01:48 Now when you first create a team, you will always get a general channel by default.
• 01:53 And this channel is really just for general conversation amongst the team.
• 01:57 But you can see here I have another more specific channel for monthly reports.
• 02:02 So all discussion related to those monthly reports should be kept to that channel.
• 02:08 So channels are really a way of just organizing our information.
• 02:12 Now notice when I hover my mouse over the Teams, Sales and Marketing,
• 02:16 I can see three dots just here.
• 02:19 So if we click on this, it's going to open up a menu that gives us more options.
• 02:23 So we can do things in here like manage the team members, we can add channels.
• 02:28 We can add more members, leave the team, edit the team, get a link,
• 02:33 manage tags, or delete a team.
• 02:35 Now the final option here, Delete team,
• 02:37 is worth noting that you're only going to have this option if you're the team owner.
• 02:42 So effectively, if you created the team.
• 02:45 You can't delete a team if you are simply a member.
• 02:48 So let's move away from this for the time being and
• 02:50 take a look at some of these other options that we have.
• 02:53 Right at the top, we have Chat.
• 02:55 So this is where we can have a private chat with specific team members.
• 03:00 So this differs from just having a chat within the general teams
• 03:04 channel because when we do that, our conversations can be seen by everybody
• 03:09 who is a member of this team, whereas chats are more private.
• 03:13 We can start a new chat and we can enter who we want to chat with specifically.
• 03:17 So maybe I want to have a private conversation with Adele,
• 03:20 I can select her, and that conversation is just between us.
• 03:24 So that is the difference between private chat and just chatting in a channel.
• 03:28 We have an activity feed just here, so this will basically log all of
• 03:32 the goings on within the sites that you have access to.
• 03:37 We have a files section, so
• 03:38 if any files have been shared in any of the conversations,
• 03:42 you've got a quick way of accessing all of those files in one big long list.
• 03:47 I have three files that have been shared in other conversations and
• 03:52 I can filter by specific document types as well.
• 03:55 We have a Teams calendar.
• 03:57 So again, this is a shared calendar which will allow you to schedule things
• 04:02 like meetings with other team members.
• 04:04 And also notice here, we have Tasks by Planner.
• 04:08 Now, it might be that you don't actually see this in your copy of Teams.
• 04:13 This is something that I've added in because I use planner all the time.
• 04:17 And we're going to take a bit more of a look about how you can add other apps into
• 04:21 Teams a little bit later on.
• 04:23 Finally, we have the Apps button that relates to what I was just talking about
• 04:27 and then we have Help at the bottom.
• 04:29 So let's jump back to Teams.
• 04:31 And I'm going to click on the three dots next to Sales and Marketing, and
• 04:34 we're going to go into Manage Team.
• 04:36 Now here,
• 04:37 this is where you're going to see all of the people who are members of this team.
• 04:42 So you can see that we have two owners at the top here and
• 04:45 everybody else is a member or a guest.
• 04:47 Now from here, you could, if you are the owner of the team,
• 04:50 adjust people's permission.
• 04:52 So maybe I want to make Miriam an owner as well.
• 04:55 I can bump up her level of access and she gets added to the top half of this screen.
• 05:01 Also notice, I can add additional members from here as well.
• 05:04 And if we go to the Channels tab, this is going to show me the channels that
• 05:09 belong to this team and I could go In and add another channel if I wanted to.
• 05:15 So let's click on Add Channel.
• 05:17 Let's just call it Marketing Team.
• 05:21 You could give your channel a description, I would recommend that you do that,
• 05:25 and then you can set the privacy.
• 05:27 So everyone on the team has access.
• 05:29 That is fine, let's click on Add.
• 05:31 And you can now see that that channel has been added and
• 05:34 we can now start to have conversations within that channel.
• 05:37 Now to have a conversation, all we do is click New Conversation at the bottom, and
• 05:42 then we can type whatever we want.
• 05:44 So I'm just going to say hi.
• 05:46 Notice, underneath, we have some formatting options.
• 05:48 So if I click the Format button, it's going to open up this wider pane and
• 05:53 I have access to a formatting toolbar.
• 05:55 I can also choose from the drop-down here if I want to make an announcement.
• 05:59 So the default is just simply a conversation.
• 06:02 But if you want to really highlight something or
• 06:04 make something stand out in the feed, you could choose to use announcement.
• 06:08 When you posted an announcement, you get a banner heading and
• 06:12 the text is a lot bigger.
• 06:13 The next button along will allow us to add attachments to our messages if we want
• 06:17 to share a file.
• 06:18 We can insert an emoji.
• 06:20 So I'm going to insert a little smiley face.
• 06:22 We can insert gifs, stickers, and
• 06:25 the rest of these icons are all related to apps that I have installed.
• 06:29 Once you're happy with your message, you have two options,
• 06:33 you could click on the Delete icon if you want to discard your draft or
• 06:37 you can click the Paper Plane icon to send that through.
• 06:40 Now if we go to another channel,
• 06:41 let's go to the Design channel where we have a few more posts from other people.
• 06:46 Notice that when you hover over other people's posts,
• 06:49 you also can add a reaction.
• 06:51 So if I like this post, I can give it a little thumbs up like so.
• 06:56 I have a reply link underneath if I want to reply to a post.
• 07:01 So really simple and straightforward.

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