Office 365 - Getting Started with Teams
Microsoft Teams is the chat-based workspace in Office 365. It's the hub for team chats, calls, meetings, and messages. Microsoft Teams is extensible and customizable, and it's secured and standards-compliant to make sure your company's most sensitive collaborations are private.
Important
- Microsoft Teams is a separate application that you can integrate with other Office 365 features such as Groups. For more information about Groups, please view: Office 365 - Getting Started with Groups.
- As of 6/10/2019, Groups created via Outlook on the web, Outlook desktop, Outlook mobile, SharePoint, Microsoft Stream, and Microsoft Teams are now created Private by Default.
Microsoft Teams and Office 365
- How can I access Microsoft Teams?
Microsoft Teams can be accessed via a browser or desktop client.
- Who can create a Microsoft Team?
Any fully licensed UW-Madison faculty/staff/student Office 365. See Office 365 - Reduced access to services due to an affiliation change article to verify your affiliation. Create a team.
- What type of Teams can be created?
When you create a new team in Microsoft Teams, you’ll be asked to select from one of four team types. At this time, you have the ability to create the following Team types: Class, Professional Learning Community (PLC), Staff, and Other. Learn more about each Team type.
- Which type of team should you create?
This will depend on the use/workflow for your team. It is recommended that you create a team of type "Other". Learn more.
- Existing OneNote notebooks can be added to these team types: PLC and Other.
- For Staff and Class team types, you cannot add/connect existing notebooks, but you are able to create a new notebook and link to it.
- For Staff and Class team types, before you can access (manage the content) the Staff/Class notebook within any OneNote application, you must first setup the Staff/Class notebook within a Teams client.
- Students will not have the option to select a team type. The team will default to "Other" type.
- Who can access Microsoft Teams?
Only accounts that have an Office 365 Teams license - service accounts cannot access Microsoft Teams (see Office 365 - Reduced access to services due to an affiliation change article to verify your affiliation).
- What email address should you use to login into Teams application?
You can use any UW-Madison Office 365 email address.
- Who can be invited to a Microsoft Team?
Anyone with a valid email address.
Important:
- If the UW-Madison Office 365 account you are attempting to add is hidden in the GAL (Global Address List), it cannot be added through the Teams/Group client. You will need to use the Wisc Account Administration site to add this member.
- It may take up to 24 hours for a UW-Madison Office 365 member to be able to access the Teams application.
- If the UW-Madison Office 365 account you are attempting to add is an alumni/emeriti/service account (one that is not licensed for Teams), you will not be able to add them as a Team member.
- Can I dial-in (audio conferencing) to Teams Meetings?
Yes. This feature is enabled for all faculty/staff Office 365 accounts. If you are a student, you will not be able to create a Teams meeting that allows for dial-in feature. Learn more.
- Can external accounts (guests) be invited to a Microsoft Team?
Yes. Non-Microsoft accounts can be added as a member of a team - they will be considered as 'Guest' accounts and will have limited capabilities. See Microsoft documentation for further details.
- What are the roles in a Microsoft Team?
There are two roles to choose from: presenter and attendee. Presenters can do just about anything that needs doing in a meeting, while the role of an attendee is more controlled. See Microsoft documentation for further details on each role and the capabilities they have.
- What are the roles in a Microsoft Teams Meeting?
There are three roles within a Microsoft Team: owner, member, guest. See Microsoft documentation for further details on each role and the capabilities they have.
- Can I assign a co-organizer to a Microsoft Teams meeting?
Yes. Starting in late May 2022, the ability to add a co-organizer will be available to organizers/owners of a meeting. Organizers will now be able to share control by assigning the new "Co-organizer" role to people they invite. Co-organizers will have almost all of the capabilities of the organizer, including management of Meeting Options. Learn more.
- Can I create a live event?
Yes. With Microsoft Live Events, you can broadcast video and meeting content to large online audiences. Anyone can attend a live event.
For larger meetings, and especially for any meeting over 1,000 attendees, Microsoft recommends using Teams Live Events. Microsoft also recommends using Teams Live Events for meetings involving a mixer, video feeds, or other more complex setups. Teams Live Events is a broadcast-style experience for sharing audio, video, and screen sharing for up to 10,000 view-only attendees (We have increased this limit to 20,000 view-only attendees until the end of this year).
- It includes Q&A and attendance report capabilities, and integrates with enterprise CDN (eCDN, or Enterprise Content Delivery Networks) providers.
While it is possible to use the new Teams “View Only Experience” for meetings with more than 1,000 attendees, it does not currently provide:
- An attendance report
- Q&A capabilities
- eCDN support
- The production capabilities of Teams Live Events
Note: Over time, Microsoft will add more capabilities to the Teams View Only Experience.
- Can I use read receipts for messages in Teams?
Yes. When they read your message the Seen
confirmation appears next to it. Otherwise, you'll just see a confirmation that your message was sent 
. Learn more. - Can I take meeting notes?
Yes. Meeting notes are a great place to capture and share notes before, during, and after a Teams meeting. Learn more.
- Are breakout rooms available in Teams meetings?
Yes. Make sure all participants, including the meeting organizer are using the latest version of Teams. If joining on Android or iOS mobile or tablet, make sure participants go to their App Store and download the latest update.
To see the breakout rooms option within your meetings, you must turn on the new Teams meeting experience by
- Clicking on your profile image within Teams
- Select Settings
- Checking the Turn on new meeting experience option within "General" settings.
- Restart your Teams client.
- You can double check that the setting is setup correctly by starting a meeting and verifying that the meeting opens in its own window.
- Can a meeting be recorded?
No.
- How is Microsoft Teams different from Office 365 Groups?
Microsoft Teams is built upon Office 365 Groups and provides a new way to access shared assets for an Office 365 Group. Microsoft Teams is the best solution for persistent chat among group/team members.
- Can I share an email message to Teams?
Yes. Share to Teams from Outlook enables users to share an email conversation from Outlook, including attachments, to any chat or channel in any Teams client. This capability is currently available in Outlook for Windows, Outlook on the web, and Outlook for Mac preview. This feature is not yet available for Outlook mobile.
When a user is sharing an email from the Outlook desktop client or Outlook on the web, Share to Teams in Outlook will either launch a window in the Teams desktop client if it is installed or open a window within Outlook. Within Teams, recipients will see a preview of the email message which they can open to view the full contents by clicking on the preview.
- Share to Teams from Outlook creates a copy of the email and any attachments. Copies are stored in the "Email Messages" sub-folder within SharePoint for channels. Copies are stored in the sender's OneDrive for chats.
- Share to Teams does not support Individual Rights Managed (IRM) and Do Not Forward (DNF) emails.
- Can I pin a chat message?
Yes. Teams supports pinning of important elements, such as pinning important chats in the chat list or channels in the channel list. Learn more.
- Can I add a Microsoft Team to an existing Office 365 Group?
Yes. When creating a new team in Microsoft Teams, an owner of an existing private Office 365 Group has an option to use the membership in the Office 365 Group to create the team. Create a team from an existing group.
- Can I create a new Teams using the Microsoft Teams app?
Yes - but when a new team is created via Microsoft Teams application and not associated with an existing Group, an Office 365 Group is created for the team but the group will not appear in Outlook. The group will not be visible in the Outlook left hand navigation and will not be visible in the address book (Global Address List - GAL). Additionally, the group name will not resolve when attempting to resolve the address while authoring a new mail message in Outlook clients. If the associated group does not currently exist and you want the group to be visible in the GAL, then it would be easier to create the group/team using the Group interface. If the Group already exists and is hidden in the GAL, you can request to have the Group made visible in the GAL. However, for new groups/teams created via Teams, this will not make the group visible in the Outlook left hand navigation menu - contact the DoIT Help Desk and ask them to make the Team visible to Outlook clients.
- Can I add Microsoft Teams to an existing Yammer group?
Yammer groups can't be activated into Microsoft Teams. However, you can add a Yammer feed as a connector to a channel in Microsoft Teams.
- When an existing Office 365 Group is associated with a team in Microsoft Teams, what happens to the group conversation?
The group email conversation remains in Microsoft Outlook. In Microsoft Teams, Office 365 Group members can use chat to communicate in a separate service within Teams.
- Can I send Teams messages via SMS (Short Message Service)?
Yes. The recipient will receive a link requesting that they join the chat via Teams. Note: We do not have phone numbers for each user to allow SMS replies to be received by Teams. Learn more.
- What happens when a team is deleted?
Important: only the Teams/Group owner(s) have the ability to delete a team/group. Do not delete a team/group unless you are sure you no longer need any data associated to the team/group.
- Deleting a team removes the team mailbox and calendar from Office 365.
- The corresponding SharePoint site and all its files will also be deleted.
- And any Group (associated/connected to this team), OneNote notebook(s), Planner plan, PowerBI workspace, or Stream group affiliated with the team will also be deleted.
- Can a deleted Team be restored?
A Team can be restored within 30 days of it being deleted by any owner of the Team. Important: If it has been more than 30 days since the Team was deleted, the Office 365 team will not be able to restore it - Microsoft automatically expunges all Group/Teams data after it has been more than 30 days of deletion. If within 30 days of deletion, any owner can follow these steps to restore it:
Important: If the Group/Team is not appearing within Outlook on the web (per the instructions below), please contact the DoIT Help Desk.
- As the owner who deleted the Group/Team, log into Outlook on the web.
- Go to People from within Outlook screen.
- Expand the "Groups" section.
- Click Deleted folder.
- Find the Group/Team in question and click the Restore button.
Note: It may take up to a day for the Group/Team and all its related data to be restored and available within all clients. At this time, Shifts data/schedule is not restored - Microsoft is aware of this and is working on a solution.
Limitations
| Number of members in a team | 10,000 |
| Number of channels per team | 200 |
| Number of Private channels per team | 30 |
| Number of people in a meeting (can chat and call in) | 300 |
| Number of attendees in a Teams live event | 10,000 |
Desktop and web
Mobile devices
Interactive Demo
FAQs and resources
For PCS Staff - Jade and Ara worked on the following MS case - 28354963. Please see this case for clarification on the use of Team types. Some information within this doc came from this case.