Microsoft Teams: An introduction

Collaborating digitally as if you were sitting in the same office: that’s Teams in a nutshell. This new tool dovetails seamlessly with the modern way of working. What’s more: all Office 365 tools are linked to it. Teams is based on Office 365 Groups, but it works as a separate application.

Where to start? 

Open Office 365 and click the ‘Teams’ button on your homepage. This opens a new tab. If you click your profile icon in the bottom left corner, you’ll see the option to install Teams on your desktop. Download the tool and log in. Remember: Teams only works when you’re connected to the Internet.

What does Teams have to offer?

Whenever you open Teams - online or with your pc application - you’ll see a home screen that gives you an overview of everything that’s possible and happening in Teams. To the left, you’ll see a list of channels and groups. If you click a channel or group, it’ll open to the right. 

To the far left, next to the channel list, you’ll find buttons to access the following information:

recent notifications and activity;
the conversations you’re participating in (separate from your channels and groups, with participants of your choice);
your meetings and appointments (linked to your Outlook calendar);
an overview of important file locations;
profile and general tool settings.

Want to personalise Teams? No problem!

How can you customise Teams to make it even easier to use? Just like Skype, Teams lets you indicate your availability in your profile. This isn’t linked to Skype, though: you can be online in Teams and offline in Skype. Of course, you can also choose your profile picture, Teams colour scheme, language, notifications and startup settings, so you can start Teams as soon as you boot up your PC.

If you want to excel at Office 365 even more, don’t forget to enrol in our IT courses. Check out our course Successful collaboration with Office 365 and subscribe! See you soon!