What is Microsoft Teams?
Using Microsoft Teams (KB0013838)
Microsoft Teams is a workspace for real-time collaboration and communication, meetings, file and app sharing, and more. Teams builds on Microsoft 365 Groups: when you create a Team, you are also creating a Microsoft 365 Group. A comparison of Teams and Groups is below.
Cost and eligibility
Teams is available at no cost to all 91ÌÒÉ« faculty, staff, and students as part of Microsoft 365.
Features and benefits
- Create teams and channels to track projects, conversations, files, and meetings
- Chat with text, audio, video, and file sharing
- Keep files and documents in one place
- Schedule meetings that integrate with your Outlook calendar
- Meet with up to 1,000 participants at the same time
- Share your desktop, an application, or a whiteboard during meetings
- Record meetings; recordings are saved to OneDrive or SharePoint, where they can be shared securely with attendees
- See presence status based on Teams activity, manual status settings, and your Outlook calendar
- Add apps such as Planner, Forms, and GitHub
Why should I use Teams?
| Instead of... | You could... |
|---|---|
| Meeting recordings: recording in Zoom, then emailing or uploading the file afterward | Schedule meetings in Teams that record and save to the team's file space |
| Document collaboration: emailing an attachment and asking for feedback | Upload the document to Teams, edit it there, and collect feedback in comments |
| Calendar coordination: keeping a group calendar each person adds to Outlook | Schedule meetings that appear in the Teams calendar and on each member's Outlook calendar |
| Communication hub: an inbox full of quick email exchanges | Use chat for internal communication and keep email for more formal messages |
| Shared file storage: a shared drive for your department or a cross-departmental group | Store and share files securely in the cloud with everyone on the team |
| Project management: frequent status meetings | Post updates in chat, or use Planner to track tasks and due dates |
| Organization: using Outlook, OneDrive, OneNote, or Planner separately | Keep your Microsoft 365 content together in one place |
How do I start using Teams?
Download Teams for desktop, iOS, or Android, or use it on the web at . Sign in with your 91ÌÒÉ« credentials.
Training resources
- Microsoft Teams Quick Start articles (Microsoft)
- Faculty and staff: Teams courses on LinkedIn Learning (choose "Sign in with your organization account")
What is the difference between Groups and Teams?
| Task | Groups | Teams |
|---|---|---|
| Communication | Ìý | Ìý |
| Group email address | ✓ | ✓ |
| Internal and external communication (guest access) | ✓ | ✓ |
| Create channels (sub-groups) | Ìý | ✓ |
| Start a chat with individuals or groups | Ìý | ✓ |
| Turn a chat into a call | Ìý | ✓ |
| Share a file with people in a chat | Ìý | ✓ |
| Share a file with offline participants | Ìý | ✓ |
| Emoji, GIFs, and memes | Ìý | ✓ |
| Threaded and persistent conversations | Ìý | ✓ |
| @mention, #tag, and like conversations | Ìý | ✓ |
| Search for files, content, and people | Ìý | ✓ |
| File sharing | Ìý | Ìý |
| Group file storage | ✓ | ✓ |
| Restricted access to files | ✓ | ✓ |
| Document collaboration | ✓ | ✓ |
| Meetings | Ìý | Ìý |
| Shared calendar | ✓ | ✓ |
| Schedule a meeting from Outlook | ✓ | ✓ |
| Record meetings | Ìý | ✓ |
| Automatically share recordings with the group | Ìý | ✓ |
| Share desktop or app | Ìý | ✓ |
| In-meeting access to chat and files | Ìý | ✓ |
| Persistent chat before, during, and after a meeting | Ìý | ✓ |
| Calls | Ìý | Ìý |
| Make, forward, and transfer calls | Ìý | ✓ |
| Make calls outside the university | Ìý | ✓ |
| Mobile | Ìý | Ìý |
| Chat, call, and meet from your device | Ìý | ✓ |
More Teams FAQs
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Link to knowledge base article