Getting Started with Teams

Teams lets you quickly pull together a team with people inside and outside your organization, chat with others to drive fast and inclusive conversations, securely share and coauthor documents, and iterate on projects.

Teams is platform-agnostic, which means you can use or download it on almost any device including, Windows, MacOS, iOS, Android, and web browser.

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Download Teams Download Teams

The Teams desktop and mobile clients provides the best experience.

Online Access Teams Online

Not ready to download Teams? Teams is available online through your web browser.

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Choose a Team name. Before you create a Team, make sure to give it a unique name and include some basic identifiable departmental/organizational indicators.

We recommend using the following to create a Team name. Not all sections may be applicable.

  • [Faculty/Division/Group]
  • [Sub-Group/Centre/Course/Committee]
  • [Purpose/Topic]

For example,

If your team is the Thode Makerspace, which is part of the Library & Learning Technology (LLT) in the McMaster University Library (MUL), then your Teams name might be MUL LLT Thode Makerspace.

Choose a team type to collaborate in Teams. There are different types of Teams available.
Note: Once a Team type has been selected, you cannot change it. Learn more about the different templates.

  • Classes
  • Professional Learning Community (PLC)
  • Staff Members
  • Anyone

Finally, assign a second owner to your Team. It is recommended that all Teams have at least two owners.

After you have created your Team, add the members to your Team. The best way to find your team is by searching for them by their email address, i.e., smithj@mcmaster.ca.

You can also message your friends and colleagues in a 1-to-1 chat using the Chat tab.

Find out the best Tips and Tricks to become a Teams expert.

Important temporary change for editing documents within Teams:

  • Microsoft has made a temporary adjustment to Office document behaviour within Microsoft Teams.
  • There is now an additional step in order to edit a document. This is a change from the previous function that allowed users to go straight to edit mode when clicking on a document in the “Files” tab of a channel, a conversation, or from inside an assignment.
  • Please see below the new steps to edit a shared document in Teams:
    1. Upon clicking on the document, users will first see the document in view mode – they will be able to see the document content, but not make changes.
    2. In order to edit the document, users need to click on the options in the top right of the white bar above the document content and select “Open in Browser” or (for users with Office for Windows installed on their device) “Open in Desktop App”. This will open the document in Office in a separate window from Teams and allow the user to make changes.

Teams can be used for the following.

  • Do you have a quick question for a co-worker? Send a message on Teams instead of an email!
  • Are you starting to work on a new project? Create a new team and invite your co-workers to join you.
  • Want feedback on something? Share the file!
  • Having a team chat and think you might need a meeting? Hold it right in Teams! No reason to find a room or availability.

Teams should not be used for the following.

  • Teams should not be used to replace or circumvent existing systems such as Mosaic.
  • Teams should not be used to send or share personally identifiable information (PII).
  • Do not store confidential documents within your Team. Full document storage guidelines available here.
  • Do not use Teams if your work requires you to send PII as a reference for someone else, i.e., a name or MacID, use only 1 identifier.
  • Teams should not be used as a long-term repository for conversations or documents.

WARNING: When you delete a Team, you are permanently deleting the group.

Deletion will remove all team chats, group conversations, files, calendars, and any other related information. Team owners and administrators can recover deleted teams for up to 30 days. For additional information on how to delete a team, visit the Office support page.