Teams (How to) Create a Team

This article will provide information on how to create a team and act as a team owner.

Teams

Views

Team Roles

Teams

Teams are a collection of people, content, and tools surrounding different projects and outcomes within an organization.

Teams can be created to be private to only invited users.
Teams can also be created to be public and open and anyone within the organization can join (up to 5000 members).

Note: An inactive Team or Group will expire after a period of 1 year unless an automatic renewal action is performed. For more information about team expiration please see the article Office 365 - Groups & Teams Expiration. If a team is deleted by mistake, please contact the UWM Helpdesk to restore it.

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Views

There are two different views that you can choose from in Teams:

Grid - This view displays all of your teams as a grid. Once you select a team, you will see your teamâ€™s name, and the channels in the list pane, and the content of the respective channel that you have selected in the list pane will be displayed in the content pane.
List - This view displays all of your teams as a list. You can choose to display your channels of each team or collapse them in the list pane. Like the grid view, you will also see the content of the respective channel that you have selected in the list pane displayed in the content pane.

To switch between views:

Click on the person icon in the top right corner of your working screen.
From the drop-down menu, click on the button for Settings.
From Settings, make sure General is selected.
Under the heading for layout, select whichever view you prefer: Grid or List.
Your teams will now be displayed in the view you selected.

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Team Roles

There are two main roles in Microsoft Teams:

Team owner - The person who creates the team. Team owners can make any member of their team a co-owner when they invite them to the team or at any point after they've joined the team. Having multiple team owners lets you share the responsibilities of managing settings and membership, including invitations.
Team members - The people who participate in a team.

The following is a list of various other actions that Team owners and members can take in a Team:

After adding a member to a team, an owner can also promote a member to owner status. It is also possible for an owner to demote their own status to a member.
Team members can add other members to a public team.
While a team member can't directly add members to a private team, they can request someone to be added to a team they're already a member of. When a member requests someone to be added to a team, team owners receive an alert that they have a pending request that they can accept or deny.

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Creating a Team

To create a team:

In the navigation bar, click the tab for Teams.

Note: If you are in the Grid view and do not see this option, click the back button titled All teams.

In the top right corner of the reading pane, click Join or create a team.
Click Create team.
Here you will have four options for different types of teams that you can create:

Class - Recommended for teachers and students collaborating on group projects, assignments, and more.
Professional Learning Community (PLC) - Recommended for educators collaborating within a professional learning community.
Staff - Recommended for staff leaders and staff members collaborating on school administration and development.
Other - Recommended for clubs, study groups, after school activities, and any other use there may be for a team.

Determine which type of team works best for your team and select that option.
This will open a template for you to create the team.
Fill in the text box for Team name to name your team.
Fill in the text box for Description so your team members know what the team is for.
Select your privacy settings:

Private - Only team owners can add members. Teams are restricted to team members approved by the team owner(s). This is a typical setting for project teams and virtual teams in a large organization.
Public - Anyone in your organization can join. teams are open to anyone in the organization, and users can join them directly. Public teams are useful for collaboration on topics of general interest to people in different departments or to people who are working on different projects. This is a good default setting for smaller organizations.

If needed change the classification settings. By default, your team will be classified for Internal information. To change this, click the button for Change setting.
- Internal
- External
- Confidential

Select one of the following options from the drop-down menu:

You can also create a team from an existing template. This will give you the option to choose one of your current teams to base your team off of.

Select which team you want to use as a template.

Once you have selected all of your team settings click on Create.

Note: If you do not want to create this team click Cancel.

Next you will be prompted to add members to your group. Begin by typing a name, distribution list, or security group to add to your team. Additionally, you can add people outside your organization to your team as guests by typing their email address and clicking Add.
You can also choose to Skip this step and add teammates later.

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Adding Members

There are various options for adding members to a team:

From the team - To add a member from the team:
- Continue this step until you have added all desired members.

Click on the (more options) button.
In the pop-out menu select the option for Add member.
Start typing a name or group in the text box. Suggestions will auto-populate.
When you find the user you are looking for either click on their name, or press enter/return on your keyboard.
Click on the Add button.
To the right of the user's name who you just added you will be able to change their permissions from Member (default) to Owner if you wish.
When you are finished adding users and setting their permission levels click Close.

From the Teams grid - This option will follow the same instructions as you would adding members from the team.
With a code - Users will be able to join the team themselves by entering a code that you provide to them.

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Creating Channels

Team channels are places where everyone on the team can openly have conversations. Channels are dedicated sections within a team to keep conversations and files organized by specific topics, projects, disciplines. Create a Channel and tailor it to what your team needs. To create a Channel:

Navigate to the team where you would like to add the new Channel.
Click on the (More options) button.
In the pop-out menu select the option for Add channel.
In the window that appears give your channel a name and description (optional).
You will also have the option to set the teams Privacy settings.

Standard - This channel will be accessible to everyone on the team. This is the default option and will be set if you do not change the selection.
Private - This channel will be accessible only to a specific group of people within the team who you set.

There is also a box that you can check to Automatically show this channel in everyone's channel list. If you don't select this option users will still have access to the channel, but it may be visible or hidden depending on the user.