What is a Team?
A team is a place where you can invite others to collaborate. Think of a team as a group of people brought together for work, projects, or common interests.
Each team is connected to one or more SharePoint sites. These sites are where the team’s files are stored. In addition to SharePoint, each team is connected to other tools that you can use to collaborate with others via “Apps”.
A Team can be Public or Private. A public team is a team that anyone in the organization can join. Public teams do not require a team owner to invite someone to the team. A private team is a team that a person can only join when invited by a team owner. Both public teams and private teams offer the same channel types - standard, private, and shared.
What is SharePoint?
SharePoint is a tool for creating web sites, publishing content, and storing files. SharePoint serves as the file storage backend for teams. If you’re only using Teams to chat and share files you will likely not have a need to interact directly with SharePoint.
What is a SharePoint Site?
A SharePoint site is a web site in SharePoint where you can create web pages and store and collaborate on files. SharePoint sites can be used independently and are also used by Teams for file storage (these are called Teams-connected sites). A Teams-connected site is created automatically whenever you create a team.
What are Channels in Teams?
A channel is a location within a team where you can collaborate with others on a specific topic. A team can have multiple channels for different purposes. For example, you might have a team for your department with different channels covering different research groups, events, or committees. Channels are where you hold meetings, have conversations, and work on files together.
It’s important to remember that channels do not have a membership. You don’t “join” a channel. You join a team. Once you are a member of a team, you can see all the channels in it unless they are hidden.
Channel Types
There are three types of channels in Teams: standard, private, and shared.
Standard - A standard channel is a channel that all members of a team have access to. Each team comes with a standard channel called “General.” Team owners and members can add additional standard channels.
Private - A private channel is a channel that only some of the team’s members have access to. It is used for private conversations and collaboration. Each private channel has its own SharePoint site for file storage. Only members of the private channel can access this site and the files within.
Shared - A new feature in Teams is the shared channel. This is a channel that allows for easier collaboration with internal or external guests. A shared channel is similar to a private channel in that each shared channel has its own SharePoint site for file storage. Only members of the shared channel can access this site and the files within.
Learn more about Teams and Channels.
What is the Posts Tab?
The Posts tab is where you post anything you want to say to channel members. This is the main chat interface for
Learn more about creating and formatting a new post and how to post a message to multiple channels.
What is the Files Tab?
Files that you upload to a channel are stored in your team’s SharePoint folder. These files are available in the Files tab at the top of each channel.
Files that you upload to a one-on-one or group chat are stored in your OneDrive for Business folder and are shared only with the people in that conversation. These are available in the Files tab at the top of a chat.
When you upload a file to Teams it is automatically made available to other members of the team. This means multiple people can collaborate on a file at the same time during a Teams meeting.
Learn more about collaborating on files in Teams and how to share files using Teams.
What are Apps?
Apps let you do more in Teams. Apps are a way to enhance the functionalit of a team by integrating a third-party service or using an additional service running in Microsoft 365. Many of the third-party tools, files, and dashboards your department already uses can be added right into Teams.
Learn more about using Apps in Microsoft Teams.
What is Chat in Teams?
Chat lets you have a private 1:1 conversation with a student or colleague. You can jump directly into a Teams call, video chat, or add additional guests to your private chat. Of course, you can also use these same features from your Teams mobile app on iOS and Android devices.
Think of Chat as a direct way to message individuals or groups without everyone needing to first become a member of a Team.
Learn more about starting a chat in Teams.
What is the Calendar in Teams?
The Calendar app in Teams shows your personal Microsoft 365 calendar. This is the same calendar that is available to you via Outlook desktop or Outlook on the Web.
To create a Teams meeting, click on Calendar, then New Meeting. Fill out the Details form and click Send. Teams will automatically add a meeting URL to the body of the calendar invitation message that will allow attendees to join the meeting.
By default, you can invite anyone to a meeting, even if they are not members of your organization. When it’s time to join, clicking on the URL in the invitation offers the opportunity to launch or download the Teams app, or join using a web browser.
Learn how to schedule a meeting in Teams, join a meeting, and manage your Teams calendar.