WVU-CPASS Guide to Teams
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Your WVU Office 365 account includes Microsoft Teams. Teams is an integrated team productivity application that allows your WVU workgroups to accomplish the following on one platform:
- Have a dedicated workspace for each workgroup.
- Have group conversations and chat (like social media threads and messaging apps) – all in one place dedicated to the Team.
- Schedule and conduct team meetings via video/web conference (syncs with your Outlook calendar)
- Collaborate on files (all Office app types: Word, PowerPoint, Excel, etc.) and projects and organize and store files unique to the team
- Share a Team notebook with OneNote
- Separate topics, projects, or breakout groups into Channels within the Team
- Import additional apps that your team might find useful into the Teams site; a few examples:
- Microsoft Planner for project management
- Microsoft Forms for creating forms
- Shortcuts to frequently accessed web pages
- Wiki for building a knowledge base
- Links to existing SharePoint libraries
For a quick demonstration of Teams, see Microsoft’s video Introduction to Teams (2-min. 42 sec.).
You may have already been added to one or multiple Teams at WVU. You (or your workgroup leader or support staff) can also create Teams for your workgroups. Examples of workgroups for which you may want individual Teams sites include committees, project groups, program faculty and GAs, unit support staff, and specific offices/administrative groups.
Getting Started with Teams
Teams should already be installed on your WVU-owned computer as part of WVU’s Office365 license. If it is not, you may have an outdated version of Office365 or Office and you should contact the CPASS tech office at (304) 293-0825 (voice mail will be directed to email) to have it updated. You can also access Teams and all other WVU Office365 apps online at office365.wvu.edu.
Teams may automatically open when you start Windows. If not, you can launch it from the Windows Start button (Click Start, type Teams, click on Microsoft Teams).
You can install Teams for your mobile device by searching for and installing Microsoft Teams from the App Store (iPhone) or Play Store (Android).
To start using Teams, see Navigating the Teams Interface (2-min. video) and/or the WVU ITS Teams Quick Start Guide (PowerPoint presentation). These describe the features of the Teams interface and their functions.
Important Tips
- To get the most out of Teams conversations, make sure you see them by configuring your Teams notifications to send you a notification on all activity: To manage your notifications, select your profile picture in the top right of Teams, then select Settings > Notifications.
- To make sure others see what you post in Teams in case they have not set notifications to see all activity, use @ mentions. You can @ mention an individual, the Team, or the members of a Channel. Click for how-to (41-second video and/or text instructions).
- The first time you open Teams it will default to the view of all teams you have joined, created, or been added to (the Teams dashboard). The next time you open Teams it will open where you left off when you closed it. To get back to the view of all your Teams click the Teams button on the left navigation menu. To open a specific team site, click on that Team.
- Since Teams is synchronized with your Outlook calendar, if you keep your Outlook calendar up to date Teams will show your available/busy/out of office status beside your profile image.
- You can customize the status message, privacy, and other settings including notifications, themes, whether Teams starts when Windows starts, and a multitude of other settings.
Becoming Proficient in Teams
You can quickly familiarize yourself with Teams with the following short video demonstrations and tutorials from Microsoft and third parties:
Get Your Team Up and Running (2-min. 11-sec. second video and/or text instructions) - Includes creating a team, setting its privacy, adding members, adding channels and setting their privacy, adding a team logo, and customizing team settings
Group Conversations in Teams (48-second video and/or text instructions) - Includes posting new conversations, editing posts, and replying and reacting to posts. Also see Create and Format a Post.
Video/Web Meetings in Teams (Illustrated text instructions) - Includes joining, scheduling, and starting meetings; using video and sharing content in meetings.
Chat in Teams (1-min. video and text)
Collaborate on files in Microsoft Teams (text/illustrations) - Includes creating or uploading files to your channels’ files area and editing, collaborating, and sharing them. Also see Organizing Files in Teams into Folders (3 min. video by the WVU CPASS Tech Office, requires WVU Zoom login).
Teams Mobile App (illustrated text instructions) - Includes chat, videoconference, and share files from the Teams mobile app.
Configure Your User Settings in Teams (illustrated text instructions)
Tips & Tricks (illustrated text instructions) - Up your game and go beyond the basics with these tips for organization, productivity, engagement, and better meetings.
App Integrations
As mentioned above in the intro, you can integrate apps you already use, or are interested in starting to use, into your Teams channels.
If a particular app will be used frequently by a group, you can add it to Teams channels to allow users access it quickly. To add a tab for an app to a channel, click the plus sign to the right of the channel's existing tabs to search for apps.
Page developed by S. Binion, rev. Dec. 2020