Microsoft Teams: Basic Collaboration and Project Management Tools

What we’ll cover today

Welcome to Microsoft Teams at IU: Basic Collaboration and Project Management Tools. In today’s session, we’ll be covering the following:

• First, we’ll explore some ideas for using Microsoft Teams as a collaboration tool.
• We’ll also learn how to do common tasks in Microsoft Teams, such as uploading and editing files, starting conversations, and hosting meetings.
• And finally, we’ll talk about how to use Tasks by Planner and To Do for project management.

Let’s go ahead and get started with today’s session.

About Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams makes it easy to work with others on projects where collaboration is important– you can create a team for a specific project and use it to store files, take notes, and have discussions with your team members – all in one place!

There are many ways you can use Teams to help facilitate collaboration – and here are a few ideas to help you get started.

• First off, you can use OneNote through Teams to build a meeting agenda, and all group members can help take notes during a meeting.
• You can also collaboratively work on Microsoft Office documents through Teams. Multiple people can work on Word, PowerPoint, and Excel documents at the same time - as you might be familiar with from using Google Docs - so everyone can work together on files used for a specific project.
• Additionally, you can use Tasks to help facilitate project management. A team’s owner can create a Tasks board for the project, create tasks for each piece of the project, and assign individual tasks to group members.

Accessing Microsoft Teams

• Microsoft Teams is part of Microsoft Office 365, which means if you’ve got Office 365 installed on your computer, the Microsoft Teams app was installed as well.
• If needed, you can also download the Teams desktop app from Microsoft’s website - the link is in the outline for this video on IT Training’s website.
• Teams is also available for mobile devices – you can get it from the Google Play store on Android devices, and the Apple App store on iOS devices.
• You can also access Teams through a web browser. I’ll go ahead and demonstrate the login process, and show you how to find Teams once you’re logged in.
  • To start, go to office.iu.edu, and click on the Access Microsoft 365 button. From here, you’ll need to log in with your-IU-username@iu.edu and your passphrase, and authenticate with Duo when prompted. Then, when the Office 365 home screen loads, in the list of applications on the left side of the screen, click the Teams icon – Teams will then load right inside your browser. The browser version of Teams looks and behaves almost exactly the same as the desktop app.

For today’s session, I’ll be using the web browser version of Teams with a demonstration account – my alter ego for today is Carol Cape, and her username is demo32.

Navigating the MS Teams interface

Before we dive into working with the collaboration tools available in Teams, let’s familiarize ourselves with the Microsoft Teams interface.

• The application bar, or app bar for short, is located on the left side of the Teams interface. The app bar provides a quick way to access different sections of the Teams app. We can add shortcuts to the app bar if we want to – your shortcuts might look a little different than the ones displayed here.
• To view the teams you’re a member of, in the app bar, click on Teams – a list of the teams you’re a member of will display. The appearance of this list will look different, depending on your individual settings – you may see your teams in a grid view like I have here, or you might see them in list format. You can change how your list of teams is displayed, if you want.
  • To change your layout preferences, in the upper right corner of the Teams window, click on your user picture – if you don’t have a user picture set, this will display your initials instead. In the menu that appears, click Settings.
  • The Settings dialog box will appear. To change the layout for your teams list, under the Layout heading, click on the thumbnail for your desired layout – you can choose between Grid and List view. Your changes will automatically be applied.
  • To close the Settings dialog box, in the upper right corner of the dialog box, click the Close button. It looks like the letter X.
• To navigate to a specific team, click on its icon in the list of teams. I’ll be working with the team O365-IU-UITS-TeamsCollab today, so I’ll click on its icon.
• The team will load, and we can see a few new things in the Teams interface.
  • When we first visit a team, we’re brought to the General channel for that team, and the contents of the Posts tab will display. We’ll learn more about channels in a little bit.
  • On left side of the interface is the team’s channel list. The channels shown for each team will be different, depending on the team’s needs. In this team, we have three channels in the list – General, Project Planning, and Staff Meetings.
  • Just underneath the Search field at the top of the screen is the tabs list – we can navigate between different parts of a channel using these tabs. Again, the tabs shown here may vary, depending on how your team is set up.
• Now that we’re a little more familiar with the Teams interface, let’s explore the different parts of Teams and how we can use them for collaboration.

Exploring Channels

One of the functions of Teams that can help facilitate collaboration are channels.

When we first visited the O365-IU-UITS-TeamsCollab team, we were brought to the General channel. Each team has a General channel by default, but additional channels can be created as needed.

• Each channel has a Posts tab, where you can have discussions with team members, and a Files tab, where any files uploaded to a channel are stored.
• The owner of a team can create new channels as needed – if you’re a team owner and want to learn how to create a channel, check out the video Microsoft Teams at IU: Requesting and Managing a Team.

Managing files

Let’s take a closer look at the Files tab for this channel, and talk a little bit about file management.

Anyone in a team can upload files, create folders, and create new files in a channel – and any files and folders uploaded to a channel are accessible to everyone in the team.

Creating folders/files

We can easily create a new folder or file right from the Files tab. Let’s see how to do this.

• First, to switch to the Files tab, in the tabs list near the top of the screen, click on Files.
• In the Files tab, in the command bar located underneath the tabs list, click New.
• A drop-down menu will display, showing a list of items to choose from, including creating a new folder, Word document, Excel workbook, PowerPoint presentation, OneNote notebook, and Forms for Excel. For today, I’m going to create a new folder, so I’ll click on Folder.
• The Create a Folder dialog box will appear, asking us to enter a name for the new folder. In the Enter your folder name field, I’ll type in the name for my folder – I’ll call it Premiere Rush workshop planning, and click the Create button to finish creating the new folder.
• Teams will create the new folder, and we’ll see it appear in the list of files and folders on the Files tab.
• The process for creating a new file is similar – simply select the type of file you want to create from the New drop-down menu, give the file a name, and click the Create Teams will load a simplified version of the Office app used for editing that file type – for example, if you created a Word document, a simplified version of Word will open right inside Teams.
• I’ll close the file I just made, since I won’t be editing it right now – we’ll see more about editing files a little later on.

Uploading files

Next, let’s upload a file to this team. I have a file named Getting Started – Premiere Rush.docx that I’d like to upload. There are two ways we can do this – we can either use the Upload menu in the command bar, or press and drag the file into the Teams window.

• I’ll start by using the Upload menu.
  • To upload a file using the Upload menu, in the Command bar, click Upload.
  • A drop-down menu will appear – from here, choose whether you’d like to upload files or a folder. I’ll select Files here by clicking on it. The File Upload dialog box will open.
  • Next, navigate to the file you want to upload. I’ll navigate to the folder where Getting Started – Premiere Rush.docx is located.
  • Click the file to select it, then in the bottom right corner of the File Upload dialog box, click the Open
  • Once the file is uploaded, a pop-up will appear indicating that a file has been uploaded to the channel, and will show the file’s name and size.

Moving files

Now that I’ve uploaded the Premiere Rush document, I want to move it to the Premiere Rush workshop planning folder. Let’s see how to do this.

• To start, right-click the file or folder you wish to move, or click Show actions (…) to the right of the file’s name. In the menu that appears, click Move.
• The Move to dialog box will appear. Navigate to the folder you want to move the file to, then in the lower right corner of the dialog box, click the Move button. The file will be moved to the new location.
• The process for moving a folder is exactly the same as it is for moving a file.

Editing files

One of the benefits of teams is the ability to edit some Microsoft Office files right inside of Teams – specifically Word, PowerPoint, and Excel files.

• To start editing an Office document, in Teams, double-click the file you want to edit. I’ll double-click on Interactive panels.docx.
• The file will open in a simplified version of the Office program used for editing the file – in my case, it opens a simplified version of Word. I can make edits here, and any changes I make will automatically be saved.
• Additionally, I can work on this file with others on my team. As you can see, another team member has this file open on their computer and is making edits – a colored cursor will appear where they’re making edits, and if I hover over it, I can see the other user’s name – in this case, Abby Abernathy is also working on the Interactive panels document.
• If you prefer to work in the full version of the Office app, you can click on Open in Desktop App above the ribbon, and Teams will open the appropriate Office application for you. You can still collaborate with others in the full desktop app, as you can see here.
• If you want to edit files that aren’t Word, Excel, or PowerPoint files, you’ll need to follow a different process. I’ll demonstrate this with an Adobe Illustrator document that’s stored in this team, IT Training Avatar.ai.
  • The first step in the process is to download the file – I’ll do this by right-clicking the file, and in the menu that appears, I’ll click Download.
  • If you’re using the browser-based version of Teams, depending on what browser you’re using and your specific settings, you may be asked where to save the file, or your browser may automatically save the file to your Downloads folder. I’m using Chrome today, and it automatically saved my file to my Downloads folder for me. If you’re using the desktop version of Teams, the file will automatically be saved to your Downloads folder.
  • Next, I’ll go ahead and open the file and make some edits to it, then save the edits when I’m done. [speed this up during the recording]
  • Finally, I’ll go back to Teams and upload the edited file. To do this, first, we’ll need to deselect the file we downloaded and edited. We can do this by clicking in an empty area of the Teams interface – I’ll click in the empty space underneath the Command bar, but you can click in any empty area you want.
  • s – then I’ll navigate to the file I edited and double-click on it to select it and upload the file.
  • At this point, a pop-up will appear in Teams and display an error message that says “1 item wasn’t uploaded to General. A file with this name already exists. Would you like to replace the existing one?” Since I do want to replace the file, in the bottom of the pop-up, I’ll click the Replace button. Teams will replace the old version of the file with the new one.

Sharing files

One of the benefits of using Microsoft Teams is that all files uploaded to a team are automatically available to all members of the team, so you don’t have to worry about manually sharing files with your fellow team members.

If you want to share files with others outside of the team, you can either add the person you want to share files with to the team, or follow the instructions located in the recorded session of Getting Started with Institutional Storage.

Conversations in Teams

We’ve explored some file management techniques – now, let’s shift gears and look at how to use the Posts tab in a channel for conversations.

In Teams, conversations are done in a threaded format, which might be a little different than what you’re used to if you’ve used more traditional instant messaging apps. Conversations posted in the Posts tab can be replied to individually, keeping all related messages together. You can even add a file to a message if you want – any files uploaded to a conversation will be added to that channel’s Files tab.

Let’s see how to start a conversation in the General channel. I’ll demonstrate this by having Carol Cape share a photo. Carol will also notify one of her team members, Abby Abernathy, that she uploaded the picture.

• First, I’ll make sure I’m on the Posts From here, to start a conversation, near the bottom of the screen, I’ll click the New Conversation button.
• A text entry field labeled “Start a new conversation. Type @ to mention someone.” appears at the bottom of the screen, replacing the New Conversation button. I’ll type a message into this field – for demo purposes, I’ll type “Here is the classroom photo I mentioned I would share.”
• To mention someone, I’ll start by typing the at symbol, then start typing the username of the team member I want to mention. A pop-up list of team members will appear as you type – when you see the name of the person you want to mention, click on their name to select it. Their name will be added to the message.
• Before sending the message, I’ll attach the photo I mentioned in the message. To start the process of attaching a file, in the Actions menu below the text entry field, I’ll click on the Attach button.
• A menu will pop up, asking where I want to look for the file I want to upload. It’s on my computer, so I’ll choose Upload from my computer.
• The File Upload dialog box will open – from here, I’ll navigate to the file I want to upload – it’s named sb015.jpg – and double-click it to select it.
• Once the file is uploaded, to post the new conversation, on the right side of the Actions menu, click the Send button. The conversation will be posted, and anyone mentioned in the conversation will be notified.
• To reply to a message, underneath the message you want to reply to, click Reply. A text entry field like we saw when starting a new conversation will appear, and you can type your message into the Reply field and when you’re ready, click the Send button to send your response.

Meetings in Teams

In Teams, you can host a meeting in any channel in your team. You can start a meeting immediately by clicking on the Meet button, or schedule a meeting by clicking on the More options dropdown next to the Meet button and choosing Schedule meeting.

• As a heads-up, in order to join a meeting from a web browser, you’ll need to use either Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge.

Let’s take a quick look at the meeting interface and explore the features available. For this part of the demonstration, I’ll be switching to the desktop version of Teams to point out the different parts of the meeting interface, then I’ll show the differences in the meeting interface between the desktop and browser-based versions of Teams.

• I’ll start a new meeting by going to the upper right corner of the Teams interface and clicking the Meet button. The meeting window will open.
  • If you’re joining a meeting that’s already in progress, the Posts tab will display a notification showing that a meeting is in progress – to join the meeting, click the Join button.
• When first starting or joining a meeting, you’ll have the opportunity to choose your audio and video settings before you actually join the session. You can turn your webcam on or off, and choose what audio device to use. When you’re ready to join a meeting, near the lower right side of the window, click the Join Now button.
• Once you’ve joined a meeting, you’ll see the video feeds for everyone in the meeting.
• You can chat in a team meeting, and any messages posted to the chat will be kept in the Posts tab for that channel. Additionally, any files shared in the chat for a meeting will also be added to that channel’s files. To open the chat for a meeting, at the top of the meeting window, click on the Show Conversation button - it looks like a little speech bubble.
• Meetings can be recorded in Teams – to start recording, click on the More Actions, or three-dots button, and in the menu that appears, click on Start Recording. To stop recording, go back to the More Actions menu, and click on Stop Recording. When a recording is stopped, Teams will process the file and when it’s done, place an .mp4 file of the recording in the Recordings folder for the channel.
• To leave a meeting, in the upper right corner of the meeting window, click the Leave button. The meeting window will close.
• If you’re using a web browser, the meeting interface will look and behave a little differently. First, the new meeting will open right inside the Teams browser tab instead of opening in a new window. Additionally, the elements of the meeting interface that are typically located at the top of the screen in the desktop meeting interface are located in the bottom middle of your screen, over the video feeds. After a few moments of not moving your mouse, these controls will disappear – to make them reappear, simply move your mouse.

At this point, I’ll switch back to using the browser-based version of Teams, and demonstrate how to schedule a meeting.

• First, move to the channel you want to schedule a meeting in. I’ll schedule a meeting through the Project planning channel.
• Next, near the upper right corner of the Teams interface, click on the More options drop-down next to the Meet button. In the menu that appears, click Schedule a meeting.
• The New Meeting view will display. I’ll start by giving my meeting a title in the Add Title field – I’ll title this meeting “Project planning check-in”.
• Next, I’ll choose who I want to send the meeting invite to. In the Add required attendees field, type an attendee’s name or username – I’m going to add Doris Daily to the list of attendees. Like previously, a pop-up will appear with name suggestions – click on the name of the person you want to add to the invitation to add them to the meeting invite. Repeat this as needed with other people you want to invite. I’ll also invite Abby Abernathy to this meeting by typing her username into the Add required attendees field, and click on her name when it shows up in the pop-up.
• Next, we’ll choose the date and time for the meeting by clicking on the Start Date and Start Time drop-down menus respectively, and set the end day and time by clicking on the End Date and End Time drop-down menus.
• If desired, you can change the recurrence of the meeting by clicking on the recurrence drop-down menu and choosing a recurrence option.
• Underneath that, you’ll see the channel where the meeting will be scheduled. If you need to change this, you can click in the field and browse through the list of teams you are a member of and find the right channel.
• If necessary, you can add a physical location for a meeting – we’ll skip past this for today, since this meeting will be held online via Teams.
• Finally, in the meeting details field, we can add more information about what the meeting will be about. I’ll type “Checking in on the progress of current projects.”
• When I’m finished, I’ll click the Send button in the upper right corner of the Teams interface to send the meeting invite. The meeting invite will be sent, and a post about the scheduled meeting will appear in the Posts tab for the channel the meeting was scheduled in.

Using Tasks by Planner and To Do

Let’s look at one of the project management tools available in Microsoft Teams: Tasks.

Tasks is an app that combines features of Microsoft Planner and Microsoft To-Do in order to help a team stay organized. As part of Tasks, you can create a plan as part of a channel and assign individual tasks to team members to complete.

As a heads-up, by default a team’s settings allow only team owners to create a new plan, but everyone in a team can add/edit tasks that are part of a plan. To learn more about how to create a new plan, watch the video Microsoft Teams at IU: Requesting and Managing a Team.

For today’s session, I’ll be working with an existing plan named Team Tasks.

Setting up a plan

If you’re familiar with Trello, a plan in Tasks is similar to a board in Trello. Individual tasks are represented as cards, and you can have multiple columns (referred to as buckets) to help further organize your tasks.

You can make as many buckets as you need in whatever configuration you want to keep things organized – one idea might be to group tasks by specific phases of a project, or by what section of the team is working on specific tasks. For demonstration purposes, I’ll create buckets for specific groups who are working on a project, then add tasks to those buckets so that group knows what to work on.

• In order to create tasks, you’ll need to create a bucket to contain them. By default, each plan has a To do bucket, but you can create additional buckets as needed.
  • To make a new bucket, to the right of an existing bucket – in my case, the To do bucket, click on Add new bucket.
  • In the Bucket name field, type the name for the bucket and press the Enter key on your keyboard. I’ll type the name “Blue Group” for this bucket. The new bucket will be created, and you can add tasks to it as desired.
  • Repeat these steps to add more buckets to your plan – I’ll go ahead and add Red Group and Green Group while I’m here.
• Next, let’s see how to create a new task.
  • To start, click Add Task under the heading of the bucket you want to add a task to. I’ll add mine to the To do bucket.
  • A card for the new task will appear. I’ll start by naming the task – in the Enter a task name field, I’ll type “Write workshop outline”.
  • Next, I’ll assign the task a due date by clicking on Set Due Date, then clicking on a date to select it. I’ll set the date to a week from today.
  • To assign a task to a team member, click on Assign, then type in the name of the team member you want to add to the task and click on their name when it appears in the drop-down list. I’ll assign this task to Diane Dell.
  • When you’re done, click the Add Task button at the bottom of the card to finish creating the task.
• You can also add more details to a task, if desired.
  • To do this, click on the task you just created, and Teams will display the full details of the task.
  • start and due date of a project, the priority level, and if the task is in progress or not. You can also add a checklist to a task if desired.
  • Also, you can attach a file to a task – I’ll add a Word document that’s already been uploaded to this team. To start, I’ll click on the Add attachment button, and in the menu that appears, I’ll click SharePoint. From here, I can navigate to the folder for the channel that holds my file – I’ll go to the General channel folder. Now, I’ll look for the file Presentation notes.docx and click on it to select it – finally, I’ll click on the Save button to add the file to the task.
  • As you make any changes to the task, they’re automatically saved – whenever you’re done editing the task, you can close it by clicking the Close button in the upper right corner of the task dialog box, or clicking anywhere outside of the task dialog box.
• If you want to move a task to a new bucket, you can do this by pressing and dragging the task from its current bucket to a different one. I’ll demo this by moving the task Write presentation outline from the To Do bucket to the Red Group bucket – as I press and drag to move the task from the old bucket to the new one, a grey rectangle will appear when I hover over the bucket I want to move the task to. When I see that bucket, I can let go of the mouse button and the task will move to the new bucket.
• If you want, you can change how tasks are grouped, and filter tasks as well – at the top right side of the window, you can switch between the different views by clicking on the view’s name. By default, the plan displays tasks in Board view, but you can view a simple list of tasks in List view, see an overall view of the progress of all tasks in the plan in Charts view, and see a calendar that displays all scheduled tasks in Schedule view.
• In addition to switching views, you can also filter tasks on a number of different criteria, including due date, category, priority, who it’s assigned to, and more.

If you’re interested in learning about how to create a new team, or how to manage a team, view the video Microsoft Teams at IU: Requesting and Managing a Team.