Join an Existing Team

Quick reference

• 00:03 As we saw in previous lessons, teams can be public, private or org-wide.
• 00:10 If a team is org-wide,
• 00:12 anyone who is part of that organization is automatically a team member.
• 00:18 If a team is public, we need to join it but
• 00:21 it doesn't require any approval from the team owner.
• 00:25 Whereas if a team is private, we need to request to join and
• 00:29 the team owner needs to approve that request.
• 00:32 So I guess the flip side of adding members to a team is joining a team yourself.
• 00:38 So how do we join existing teams?
• 00:41 Well, there are a few different ways.
• 00:44 You could be invited by the team owner via a link.
• 00:48 So this will be a link that you receive via an email and
• 00:52 you can simply click on the link to join the team.
• 00:56 The other way that you can join a team is to go down to join or create a team at
• 01:00 the bottom and you could simply search for the team that you want to join.
• 01:05 So using the search bar at the top, I could search for a team, and
• 01:09 I'm just going to search for an existing team so let's go for SharePoint Online.
• 01:14 Now because this is a public team, it's coming up in search.
• 01:18 If this was a private team, I wouldn't be able to search for it.
• 01:22 So I'd need to be invited by the owner, or I would need to request access from them.
• 01:27 Now because SharePoint Online is public, if I wasn't a member of this team,
• 01:32 I could simply click on it and then choose join.
• 01:36 And, as I said, there are no approvals that are required so
• 01:39 you should see that automatically pop up in your team's list.
• 01:42 Now, notice here that I have a new notification in my activity log.
• 01:49 So if I click on activity, let's see what's going on.
• 01:54 Well, Ben has added me to Ben's Friday Lunch Club.
• 01:59 So my colleague, Ben, has created a new team and he's added me to this team.
• 02:04 So I've received a notification that I've been added to the team and
• 02:09 because it's a public team, it automatically appears in my team's list.
• 02:14 So I haven't had to join this team because it's public.
• 02:18 Now if we go back to join or create a team,
• 02:21 something's changed on this page since we were last here.
• 02:26 Notice I now have a new team, HR Team Hub.
• 02:30 So this is a public team that my colleague, Ben, has created.
• 02:36 He hasn't invited me to the team, but because it is a public team and
• 02:40 he's within my organization, I can see that team listed there.
• 02:45 So if I decide, actually, you know what?
• 02:47 I want to be part of this team, I can click the join team button.
• 02:53 As soon as I do that, that team is going to appear in my team's list.
• 02:59 The third way that you can join a team is by using a team code.
• 03:04 And notice here, we have join team with a code.
• 03:08 So what is this magical code?
• 03:11 Well, team owners can generate a team code and
• 03:14 then send that code to you to make it really easy for you to join a team.
• 03:19 And there is a big advantage to joining a team using a team code,
• 03:23 particularly for team owners.
• 03:26 If a code is generated and someone joins using that code,
• 03:29 it means the team owner doesn't have to approve the request.
• 03:33 So that's particularly going to come into play if you have people wanting to join
• 03:37 a private team.
• 03:38 Sometimes if you're getting a lot of requests as a team owner,
• 03:42 it's quite time consuming to have to go through and approve them all.
• 03:46 So a team code kind of bypasses that whole scenario.
• 03:49 Now I just want to show you how team owners can generate a team code.
• 03:55 So, for example, if I go to Northwind Traders,
• 03:58 I can click on the three dots and select manage team from the contextual menu.
• 04:04 Now if we go to the settings tab,
• 04:07 you'll notice that we have a section here for team code.
• 04:12 So if we expand this, what I could do is generate a team code.
• 04:17 Notice that it says that guests won't be able to join using this team code.
• 04:21 It's purely for people within your organization.
• 04:24 So what I could then do is simply choose copy to copy this code to
• 04:28 the clipboard and then I could maybe paste that into an email and
• 04:32 send it to the person that I want to join the team.
• 04:36 And they would just use that team code on this page and
• 04:40 enter into the box in order to automatically join this team.
• 04:45 So it is really straightforward.
• 04:47 So three different methods there,
• 04:49 you need to be invited by the team owner via a link which will be shared via email.
• 04:55 If the team is public you can search for the team and choose join.
• 05:00 Alternatively, your team owner can generate a code and
• 05:04 send that to you so you can join the team.
• 05:07 Alternatively, if you have a colleague who's already part
• 05:10 of the team that you want to join, you can get them to request access on your behalf.
• 05:15 And that's simply a case of clicking on those three dots again,
• 05:19 clicking add member, and typing in your email address.
• 05:23 And, of course, this relies on the fact that the team member that you've asked to
• 05:28 do this has the relevant permissions in this team.
• 05:30 It's not always the case that any member can add other members to the team, but
• 05:35 a lot of the time that setting is turned on.
• 05:38 So when it comes to joining teams, there are really three methods.
• 05:42 You will see any public teams that have been created within your organization and
• 05:48 you can join them simply by clicking on the button,
• 05:51 org-wide teams you'll automatically be a member of, and
• 05:55 private teams require an invite from the team owner.

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