Teams - best practices

In Teams, you can communicate in the public channels/Teams and in private chat messages.

Chat 

A chat is a discussion between two people or a small group. In a chat, you can write, create and edit materials together using the Office software and share them. The chat has no owners; all the chat participants are equal members. Chat disappears when it is more than 6 months since the last message was sent.

Teams (groups in the Teams software)

Teams are permanent communication platforms for a larger groups where you can create various channels for different topics and groups of people. You can add up to 5,000 users to a Team. A specific Sharepoint space is created for the Team. Files shared between the Team are stored in Sharepoint. 
As Teams always communicate in threads, make sure that your replies are relevant to the topic. However, if you have posted a reply as a new thread, you can always delete it (see instructions below).

Please note that the thread with the most recent messages will always be moved to the bottom. 

The messages in a Team will be stored ‘permanently’ until the Team/channel is deleted. After this, you can restore the messages within the next 30 days. After the 30 days, the Team/channel will be permanently deleted and even the administrators will not be able to restore it.

The messages in a Team and their attachments will be stored ‘permanently’ until the Team/channel is deleted. 

Deleting and restoring a channel 

To delete a channel, click the ••• symbol after the channel. Select Delete channel. 

After this, you can restore the channel within the next 30 days yourself. After the 30 days, the channel will be permanently deleted and even the administrators will not be able to restore it. 

To restore a channel, go to the Team settings. Select Channels > Deleted. 

Deleting the entire Team 

A Team is deleted in the same way, but this deletes ALL the Team files and messages. Note that only Office 365 administration can restore a deleted Team. You can contact it through Helpdesk.  

To delete a Team, click the ••• symbol after the Team. Select Delete the team. 

You can adjust the appearance and settings of Teams by clicking on your picture in the top right-hand side corner of the window. In the menu, select Settings. 

Your saved settings will be stored across all platforms; you only need to modify them once and the appearance will be the same everywhere.

In the settings, you can adjust the theme and the layout. In the layout list, we recommend trying the List to see all the chats/Teams in a single list (the default option is Grid).
There are also settings related to starting the software (in Application): You can, for example, set Teams to open automatically when starting the computer (Auto-start program).

For university computers, Teams can be found as an optional installation in the Software Center (Windows) or the Managed Software Center (Mac). The software is also available in Cubbli, but users have reported that Teams works better through a browser. 

Install Teams on your home computer at: https://teams.microsoft.com/downloads

• The installation will not require administrator rights.

In the Teams menu, you will see the link Join or create a team at the bottom of the Teams list.

The next question is: What is the purpose of the team? There are four different options. As a rule of thumb, if you do not know what to select, select Other. There are very minor differences between team types. You can read more about team types in the Microsoft help.

Determining the privacy level of a Team – who can see the Team (public vs hidden).

Add the members to the list (start typing the name to see suggestions). You can also use IAM groups, but note that any changes to the IAM group will not be updated in the list of Team users.

Once you have found the name on the list, select it and click Add.

You can determine the necessary rights for individual people: Member or Owner.

Once all the people have been added to the group, you can Close the window. 

You can create channels for various purposes/topics in a Team. There may be several smaller channels in a large Team. This is better than creating several Teams as a large number of Teams means that the discussion is dispersed and, at its worst, the same topic may be discussed separately across several Teams.

We do not recommend creating new Teams for smaller groups in a larger Team. If you want to communicate with a smaller group, create a private channel.

A private channel is visible only to the group members and there is a lock-icon next to the name of the channel. 

Teams communicate in threads. If you have accidentally posted your reply as a new thread, you can always copy and paste it to the correct thread and delete the misdirected reply.

Here is an example of a misdirected reply: 

  You can edit a sent message by clicking on the three dots in the emoticon menu (which opens automatically when you hover your cursor over the message) > click Edit. This opens the editor where you can edit your message. Click Enter to save your changes. 

You can delete a sent message by clicking on the three dots in the emoticon menu (which opens automatically when you hover your cursor over the message) > click Delete.

The message is deleted. You can restore the deleted message by clicking Undo. 

Show the most interesting channels and Teams and hide those you are not interested in.  

Click on  '•••' next to the name of the Team/channel > Show / Hide 

We recommend only using the Do Not Disturb status if you are attending a meeting or need to focus. We do not recommend using the status all the time as it blocks all messages and notifications. 
Remember to always respect your colleagues’ DnD status.

You can edit a message. Click on the [A] icon at the bottom of the text field to see all the editing options. Please note: in this section, pressing Enter adds a line break, whereas otherwise it means Send. Send the message by clicking on the arrow icon at the bottom corner.

In addition to a normal thread, you can also create an Announcement. In the message field, click on the A icon and then the New Conversation menu. In the new menu, select Announcement.

Example of an announcement:

Especially in large Teams, we do not alerting (tagging) the entire channel or Team but targeting the message to a smaller group. Other members will be able to see the message, but the tags tell them that this message may not concern them. 

You can tag people by typing their name: @name. It is also possible to tag the individuals in a specific group (e.g. on-site support, Helpdesk). You can manage tags and the related individuals in the Team settings (note that tags are Team-specific).

Example of tagging a person:

You can catch the attention of the individuals related to the tag as follows: Type @tag (e.g. @Tukikanava) and the message will be highlighted for the users related to the tag. 

You can manage tags in the Team settings. Click on the three dots next to the Team name and select Manage team (1) or Manage tags (2). 

Through Manage Team > Members , you can see the Team members and their tags. You can also see the members who do not yet have tags.

The Manage Tags option is the easiest way to view existing tags. You can also see Your tags. 

A team administrator can add a new application (App) to a team, (see instructions on this page below). Any team member can then add an RSS feed to the channel of their choice.

Choose a channel to which you want to add an RSS feed. Click on the three dots next to the channel name > Connectors.  Alternatively, you can open the channel and right-click on the three dots in the upper right corner.

A window opens with a list of Connectors. Find RSS in the list and click Configure.

Fill in the fields:

• Enter a descriptive name for the RSS feed (for example, HY interruptions)
• Give the address for .rss feed: https://od.helsinki.fi/katko/katkot.rss
• Choose digest frequency or how often the feed is updated. In this example, the update frequency is set at every 15 minutes.

Last, you’ll see a view where you can see the connectors added to the channel. You can add other connectors from this view. Click on the X in the upper right corner to close.

You will return to the team channel and a notification will appear informing you that you have added an RSS feed to that channel.  
The interruption notifications appear according to a defined schedule (e.g. every 15 minutes).

To edit an RSS feed, click the three dots at the top of the feed > select Connectors from the drop-down menu.

Find Configured in the menu on the left and click 1 Configured > Manage.

You can edit a previously added RSS feed and, if necessary, delete the feed.

Administrator instructions

Click on the three dots next to the channel name > Manage team.

Select Apps tab. Select RSS from the list. If the app is not found on the list, select More Apps.

Type rss in the search field. Click the RSS box.

Add the RSS app to your team by choosing Add to a team.

Once an RSS app is added, anyone on the team can add an RSS feed to the channel of their choice on that team. Note that you must add Connectors separately for each team.

Here are some other features you can try:

• You can pin your most important Teams/chats to the top of the view. Click on ••• next to the name of the Team/chat and select Pin. 
  
• You can name the chat according to the topic (please note that chats should usually be used to discuss a single topic, in which case naming them is a good idea to keep the discussion relevant to the topic). Name the chat by clicking on the pencil icon: