What is a Team and a Channel?
A team is a group of people gathered to get something big done in your organization.
Sometimes it’s your whole organization.
Teams are made up of channels, which are the conversations you have with your teammates.
Each channel is dedicated to a specific topic, department, or project.
How to create a Team
To create a Team select the Teams icon in the left-side menu.
If you’re an administrator, to create or find a team within Microsoft Teams, click the link at the bottom of the window which says Join or create a team.
options to Create a team will appear.
Choose Build a team from scratch.
You can then choose if you want to make it private, and have people ask permission to join, public, so anyone can join, or organization-wide, so everyone can join.
Next, you can name the team, and select create.
You’re then free to add people, groups, and entire contact groups by typing out their names, selecting Add and then Close.
How to create a channel
Once you create a team, you’ll get a General channel. (This is a great place for announcements and posting information for everyone to see).
You can create more channels for other purposes if need be.
You can do this by clicking on the … More options next to the team > Add channel and enter in a name and description.
You’ll also want to select Automatically show this channel in everyone’s channel list if you desire to have everyone see the channel. Click Add.
It’s also worth noting that while only Admins can create new teams, users can also create their private channels from within an existing team.
This setting is turned on by default unless otherwise configured by an Admin from within the Microsoft Teams admin center.
Configuration and use of Teams and Channels
Private channels in Microsoft Teams
Only the users on the team who are owners or members of the private channel can access the channel.
Anyone, including guests, can be added as a member of a private channel as long as they are already members of the team.
You might want to use a private channel if you want to limit collaboration to those who have a need to know,
or if you want to facilitate communication between a group of people assigned to a specific project, without having to create an additional team to manage.
For example, a private channel is useful in these scenarios:
A group of people in a team want a focused space to collaborate without having to create a separate team.
A subset of people in a team want a private channel to discuss sensitive information, such as;
budgets,
resourcing,
strategic positioning and so on.
A lock icon indicates a private channel.
Only members of private channels can see and participate in private channels that they are added to.
Manage private channel membership and settings
Each private channel has its own settings,
including the ability to add and remove members, add tabs, and @mentioning for the entire channel.
These settings are independent of the parent-team settings. When a private channel is created, it inherits settings from the parent team,
after which its settings can be changed independently of the parent team settings.
The private channel owner can click Manage channel, and then use the Members and Settings tabs to add or remove members and edit settings.
How to set a Team photo
Click on the three dots next to the Team name. Choose Manage Team
Click on Settings in the top bar menu → Team picture.
How to add an app to a channel
Go to the channel, group chat, or a one-on-one conversation of your choosing, click Add a tab.
From there, select the app you want. In some cases, you might go on to add a specific file to the tab.
How to pin
Go to a channel name and select More options > Pin.
This ensures that the channel stays at the top of your list. If you change your mind, just select it again and unpin it.
You can also position the Teams and/or channels you use the most by Drag and drop for easier access to the teams you most frequently use.