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Add a useful document as a tab in a Teams channel.

Quick reference

Add Documents as Tabs

Add important documents that all team members need to access permanently as a tab in a channel.

When to use

We add a document as a tab whenever we want to make it easy for channel members to access an important document.

Instructions

We access our conversations and files in Teams by clicking on the relevant tabs at the top of the channel. By default, we have two tabs: Posts and Files. 

However, we can add our own tabs to make it easy for all channel members to work with important documents, plans, projects, lists, etc. 

For example, maybe there is a document that the entire team needs to refer to frequently. Instead of having it buried in the file library where it has no context, we could add it as a permanent tab in a Teams channel. 

Add a Document as a Tab

In this example, we are going to add the Word Document 'Flyer Design.docx' as a tab. 

  • Go to a channel
  • Click the plus (+) button in the tabs area
  • Search for Word and press Enter
  • Browse the folders and find the file to add
  • Click Save

The document will now be loaded into the channel as a tab. 

When we click on the tab, we are essentially working in a mini version of Word and have access to all of the usual formatting options. 

  • Right-click on the tab to see the tab options

Hints & tips

  • If we check the Post to the channel about this tab option, a post will be made in the channel letting others know the tab has been added
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  • 00:03 A lot of information that we share in Teams comes in the form of
  • 00:08 conversations that we post in the Posts tab.
  • 00:11 We could also share files and find those files underneath the File tab.
  • 00:16 And if you recall in the last lesson,
  • 00:18 we added a link through to our SharePoint document library.
  • 00:21 But what if we have a specific document or spreadsheet or presentation that we
  • 00:26 want to make permanently available to everybody within a channel?
  • 00:31 Maybe there's a specific template that people always need to refer to.
  • 00:35 Or maybe we have a document that lays out the brand guidelines that people need to
  • 00:39 access frequently.
  • 00:40 Now, instead of just uploading that as a file where it can easily get lost when we
  • 00:44 start uploading lots and lots of files,
  • 00:47 we could choose to create a tab to display those important documents.
  • 00:51 And tabs make it super easy to get to the information that we need.
  • 00:55 Now, the tabs that we currently have in this channel are Posts and Files.
  • 01:00 But notice we have a little plus symbol just here where we can add our own tab.
  • 01:06 Now we can pretty much add a tab for everything in Microsoft Teams.
  • 01:10 We can add forms, we can add lists, we can add PDF documents,
  • 01:14 we can add polls, plans from Planner, pretty much everything.
  • 01:18 Now, in this case,
  • 01:20 I want to add a really important Word document as a tab at the top.
  • 01:25 Now, this Word document contains the design for
  • 01:28 a flyer that we're going to be sending out.
  • 01:30 And it's going to be useful for all of our team members in the channel
  • 01:34 to refer to the design of the flyer when they're working on other things.
  • 01:38 So I want to make sure this is really obvious and add it as a tab at the top.
  • 01:42 Now, because this is a Word document,
  • 01:45 we need to make sure we select Word in this list of apps.
  • 01:48 Now, I can see mine up here, but let's imagine for
  • 01:51 a moment that this isn't there.
  • 01:53 What I can do is click in Search for apps and simply type in word.
  • 01:58 It's going to find it and I can click to open it up.
  • 02:02 So now, I can go through and I can choose the document that I want to add as a tab.
  • 02:06 And from here, I can pick up my file from OneDrive or
  • 02:10 I can access other teams and Microsoft 365 groups.
  • 02:14 So I'm going to click on My files, and
  • 02:16 I have this flier stored in the Training Files folder in OneDrive.
  • 02:20 There it is, Flyer Design.
  • 02:22 Let's select it, and click on Save.
  • 02:25 And what you'll notice is that immediately,
  • 02:28 it adds a new tab to the top here, and it loads up that Word document.
  • 02:34 So now, everybody who's working in this team can very easily switch
  • 02:38 between having a conversation and checking out the flyer design.
  • 02:44 And notice when we're clicked on this,
  • 02:46 we actually are working in kind of a mini version of Word.
  • 02:49 So channel members can click in here, they can make edits,
  • 02:53 they can format, they can do what they like with this document, but
  • 02:58 adding it as a tab just makes it a lot easier to find.
  • 03:01 And of course, this doesn't just work with Word documents.
  • 03:04 We could click on the +, and we could search for
  • 03:06 maybe a PowerPoint presentation, or we could add an Excel spreadsheet.
  • 03:11 And of course, you can see from here that there are many,
  • 03:13 many different types of things that we can add as tabs to our Teams channel.
  • 03:17 And we're going to add more of these as tabs as we progress
  • 03:20 through the balance of this section.
  • 03:23 But for now, that is how you can add documents, presentations,
  • 03:29 and spreadsheets as tabs and share them with the channel.

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