Click this icon to see a list of all dedicated Teams you have access to.

Teams you’re a member of are organised into tiles which you can click and drag to reorder:

Click on the name of the Team you wish to access to be taken directly to it.

From within a team, click All Teams in the top left-hand corner to go back to the list of all your Teams:

Teams Explained

Teams consist of “channels”, each of which has its own separate chat window. By default, new teams only have one channel named General, but it is possible for Team owners to create additional channels per subject that needs discussing, and can choose to open this up to all members of a Team or only to a certain subset of members depending on the purpose of the channel. Information on how to create additional channels will be included later in this guide.

To start a chat within your channel, ensure the Posts tab is selected from the top menu of the Team window. It will be highlighted and underlined with purple when selected:

At the bottom of the Posts window is a text box – click here to type your message:

Once you’ve typed your message simply press Enter on your keyboard or click the aeroplane icon below the chat window to post it.

Sending files to your Team

Each Team is underpinned by a dedicated SharePoint site, meaning it’s possible to post files to a Team and have them stored securely on the University’s SharePoint farm and easily accessible through Teams.

You can send a file to your team by clicking the paperclip icon below the chat window.

You will then be given a list of available locations to browse for your file.

Recent – lists all files that have recently been shared within the Team.

Browse Teams and Channels – allows you to search through any Teams and their contained channels to which you have access, and share a document from one of these.

You can click on the up arrow to move up a level within the folder structure and move between Teams with ease. Once at the top level, just click on the team name to drill down into its structure.

OneDrive – browse through and share files stored in your personal OneDrive.

Upload from my computer – browse through files stored on the PC you’re working on. If you’re connected remotely to your work computer, use this option to browse through your documents/desktop or your shared network drives. Finding the file will follow the same process you would use if browsing on your work PC.

Mentioning someone

Teams with several members can often get very busy with text chat. To ensure somebody sees a message, you can mention somebody by name to direct a message for their attention – they will receive a notification to say you have mentioned them. Simply type @ in the chat box and a list of suggested contacts will appear. Click the name of the person you wish to mention and their name will appear in the chat box in purple font. Continue typing your message.

Replying to messages

You can reply to a chat message left by somebody else in your team by hovering over it and clicking Reply. This will ensure your message is included in a thread that follows the original message, making it easier for multiple topics to be discussed in the same channel and avoiding confusion if several people are chatting at once.

Reacting to messages

You can react to a message by hovering over it and clicking one of the emojis that appear:

Channel notifications

You can turn on channel notifications for any channel in your team by clicking the three dots next to the channel name and selecting Channel notifications. Here you can edit the notification settings for new posts and for times the channel is @ mentioned in chat.

File management in Teams

To view all files uploaded to a Teams channel, navigate to the channel by clicking it in the left-hand sidebar. The list of channels appears underneath the name of the Team:

Once in the correct channel, select the files tab from the top menu bar. When selected the text will be highlighted and underlined in purple:

You’ll now see a list of any files that have been shared with that channel. You can also use the Upload button to browse and upload more files. These will be stored in the SharePoint document library for your Team, organised in subfolders by channel name.

You can click the three dots icon next to the Download button to see the option to open the document library in SharePoint:

You can then browse all the documents stored on your Team’s SharePoint site and upload documents directly to SharePoint or create them outside of Teams.

Creating a new Channel within your team (applies to Team Owners only)

To create a new channel, click the three dots next to your Team’s name and select Add channel

Type a meaningful name for your channel, a description (optional), and select the privacy settings:

Setting the privacy of the channel to Standard means everyone who is a member of the overall team will be able to see and use it. Private channels are locked down to specific members of the team only. If you change the privacy mode to Private, when you press Next you will be asked to select the members of your team who should be able to see and use the channel.

Start typing the name of the team member(s) you want to add and click on them when they appear in the list of suggestions. You can add multiple people into the box; when you are finished click Add:

After clicking Add you’ll be asked to assign permissions to the members you are adding. By default people will be added as members, but you can promote them to Owners using the down arrow on the right-hand side of the window. Owners can add/remove members and edit settings of the channel.

Private channels are denoted with a padlock icon and are only visible to owners and members. Click the three dots to the right of the channel name to add members or manage the settings of the channel:

Add tabs to a channel

It’s possible to add additional tabs along the top of your channels to add extra functionality such as quick access to documents, forms or web pages. Click the + icon in the top centre menu to get started:

The next menu allows you to select the type of app you want to add to the new tab. You can use this to provide quick access to files such as documents and spreadsheets that are stored within your team, and can also add and edit forms for data collection:

Back to Teams Overview