Microsoft Teams is the chat-based workspace in Office 365. It's the hub for team chats, calls, meetings, and messages. Microsoft Teams is extensible and customizable, and it's secured and standards-compliant to make sure your company's most sensitive collaborations are private.
- The Microsoft Teams Exploratory experience lets users in your organization who have Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) and aren't licensed for Teams initiate an exploratory experience of Teams. Admins can switch this feature on or off for users in their organization.
- Microsoft Teams is designed for all kinds of groups. Get started for free or get Teams as part of Microsoft 365.
Important
Download Microsoft Teams now and get connected across devices on Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android. Collaborate better with the Microsoft Teams app.
- Microsoft Teams is a separate application that you can integrate with other Office 365 features such as Groups. For more information about Groups, please view: Office 365 - Getting Started with Groups.
- As of 6/10/2019, Groups created via Outlook on the web, Outlook desktop, Outlook mobile, SharePoint, Microsoft Stream, and Microsoft Teams are now created Private by Default.
Microsoft Teams and Office 365
- How can I access Microsoft Teams?
Microsoft Teams can be accessed via a browser or desktop client.
- Who can create a Microsoft Team?
Any fully licensed UW-Madison faculty/staff/student Office 365. See Office 365 - Reduced access to services due to an affiliation change article to verify your affiliation. Create a team.
- Who can access Microsoft Teams?
Only accounts that have an Office 365 Teams license - service accounts cannot access Microsoft Teams (see Office 365 - Reduced access to services due to an affiliation change article to verify your affiliation).
- What email address should you use to login into Teams application?
You can use any UW-Madison Office 365 email address.
- Who can be invited to a Microsoft Team?
Anyone with a valid email address.
Important:
- If the UW-Madison Office 365 account you are attempting to add is hidden in the GAL (Global Address List), it cannot be added through the Teams/Group client. You will need to use theWisc Account Administration site to add this member.
- It may take up to 24 hours for a UW-Madison Office 365 member to be able to access the Teams application.
- If the UW-Madison Office 365 account you are attempting to add is an alumni/emeriti/service account (one that is not licensed for Teams), you will not be able to add them as a Team member.
- Can I dial-in (audio conferencing) to Teams Meetings?
Yes. This feature is enabled for all faculty/staff Office 365 accounts. If you are a student, you will not be able to create a Teams meeting that allows for dial-in feature. Learn more.
- Can external accounts (guests) be invited to a Microsoft Team?
Yes. Non-Microsoft accounts can be added as a member of a team - they will be considered as 'Guest' accounts and will have limited capabilities. See Microsoft documentation for further details.
- Can I create a live event?
Yes. With Microsoft Live Events, you can broadcast video and meeting content to large online audiences. Anyone can attend a live event. Learn more.
- Can I use read receipts for messages in Teams?
Yes. When they read your message the Seen confirmation appears next to it. Otherwise, you'll just see a confirmation that your message was sent . Learn more.
- Can I take meeting notes?
Yes. Meeting notes are a great place to capture and share notes before, during, and after a Teams meeting. Learn more.
- Are breakout rooms available in Teams meetings?
Yes. Make sure all participants, including the meeting organizer are using the latest version of Teams. If joining on Android or iOS mobile or tablet, make sure participants go to their App Store and download the latest update.
To see the breakout rooms option within your meetings, you must turn on the new Teams meeting experience by
- Clicking on your profile image within Teams
- Select Settings
- Checking the Turn on new meeting experience option within 'General' settings.
- Restart your Teams client.
- You can double check that the setting is setup correctly by starting a meeting and verifying that the meeting opens in its own window.
Learn more.
- How is Microsoft Teams different from Office 365 Groups?
Microsoft Teams is built upon Office 365 Groups and provides a new way to access shared assets for an Office 365 Group. Microsoft Teams is the best solution for persistent chat among group/team members.
- Can I add a Microsoft Team to an existing Office 365 Group?
Yes. When creating a new team in Microsoft Teams, an owner of an existing private Office 365 Group has an option to use the membership in the Office 365 Group to create the team. Create a team from an existing group.
- Can I create a new Teams using the Microsoft Teams app?
Yes - but when a new team is created via Microsoft Teams application and not associated with an existing Group, an Office 365 Group is created for the team but the group will not appear in Outlook. The group will not be visible in the Outlook left hand navigation and will not be visible in the address book (Global Address List - GAL). Additionally, the group name will not resolve when attempting to resolve the address while authoring a new mail message in Outlook clients. If the associated group does not currently exist and you want the group to be visible in the GAL, then it would be easier to create the group/team using the Group interface. If the Group already exists and is hidden in the GAL, you can request to have the Group made visible in the GAL. However, for new groups/teams created via Teams, this will not make the group visible in the Outlook left hand navigation menu - contact the DoIT Help Desk and ask them to make the Team visible to Outlook clients.
- Can I add Microsoft Teams to an existing Yammer group?
Yammer groups can't be activated into Microsoft Teams. However, you can add a Yammer feed as a connector to a channel in Microsoft Teams.
- When an existing Office 365 Group is associated with a team in Microsoft Teams, what happens to the group conversation?
The group email conversation remains in Microsoft Outlook. In Microsoft Teams, Office 365 Group members can use chat to communicate in a separate service within Teams.
- Can a deleted Team be restored?
If it has been more than 30 days since the Team was deleted, it cannot be restored. Microsoft purges all data related to a deleted Team after 30 days. If within 30 days, follow these steps to restore it:
- As the owner who deleted the Group/Team, log into Outlook on the web.
- Go to People from within Outlook screen.
- Expand the 'Groups' section.
- Click Deleted folder.
- Find the Group/Team in question and click the Restore button.
Note: It may take up to an hour for the Team and all its related data to be restored and available within all clients. At this time, Shifts data/schedule is not restored - Microsoft is aware of this and is working on a solution.
Limitations
| Number of members in a team | 10,000 |
| Number of channels per team | 200 |
| Number of Private channels per team | 30 |
| Number of people in a meeting (can chat and call in) | 300 |
| Number of attendees in a Teams live event | 10,000 |
Desktop and web
Mobile devices
Interactive Demo
FAQs and resources
See Also:
-->Microsoft 365 Groups is the cross-application membership service in Microsoft 365. At a basic level, a Microsoft 365 Group is an object in Azure Active Directory with a list of members and a coupling to related workloads including a SharePoint team site, shared Exchange mailbox, Planner and Power BI workspace. You can add or remove people to the group just as you would any other group-based security object in Active Directory.
By default, users in Microsoft 365 can create and manage groups. For more information about Microsoft 365 Groups, see Learn about Microsoft 365 Groups and the Groups in Microsoft 365 for IT Architects poster.
How Microsoft 365 Groups work with Teams
When you create a team, a Microsoft 365 group is created to manage team membership. The group's related services, such as a SharePoint site, Power BI workspace, etc. are created at the same time.
People who create teams can choose to use an existing Microsoft 365 group if they are an owner of that group. Each channel in the team has a separate folder in the document library. Creating folders directly in the document library does not create channels in the team.
When creating a Microsoft 365 group in Outlook or SharePoint, the group mailbox is visible in Outlook. When creating a team in Teams, the group mailbox is hidden by default. You can use the Set-UnifiedGroup cmdlet with the HiddenFromExchangeClientsEnabled parameter to make a mailbox visible.
Group membership
If you remove a member of a team, they are removed from the Microsoft 365 group as well. Removal from the group immediately removes the team and channels from the Teams client. If you remove a person from a group using the Microsoft 365 admin center, they will no longer have access to the other collaborative aspects such as SharePoint Online document library, Yammer group, or shared OneNote. However, they will still have access to the team's chat functionality for approximately two hours.
As a best practice for managing team members, add and remove them from the Teams client to ensure that permissions updates for other group-connected workloads occur quickly. If you add or remove team members outside of the Teams client (by using the Microsoft 365 admin center, Azure AD, or Exchange Online PowerShell), it can take up to 24 hours for changes to be reflected in Teams.
Deleting groups and teams
Teams O365 Groups
Deleting a Microsoft 365 group will remove the mailbox alias for persistent Outlook/OWA conversations and Teams meeting invites, and mark the SharePoint site for deletion. It takes approximately 20 minutes between the removal of a team and its effect on Outlook. Deleting a team from the Teams client will remove it immediately from view to all who are members of the team. If you remove members of a Microsoft 365 Group that has had Teams functionality enabled on it, there could be a delay of approximately two hours before the team is removed from view in the Teams client for the affected people who were removed.
Teams O365
For details about groups and teams end of lifecycle options, see End of lifecycle options for groups, teams, and Yammer and Archive or delete a team in Microsoft Teams.
Teams O365 Issues
Related topics