Microsoft Teams is a secure chat-based collaboration hub or platform for teamwork that allows you to conduct ad-hoc and schedule a meeting among people. This is one of the effective and best workspaces for real-time collaboration and communication. Inclusive of features and services such as meetings, file and app sharing, and even the occasional emoji. You can use this app on Android phones, iPhones, computers, smart displays, and tablets.

Are you in a search for the best video conference platform? A conference app well-suited for your team meetings? Do you want to learn about the safe platform with comfy meeting platform? This is it! Microsoft Teams. Curious to learn more? This post will definitely help you to learn about this application. Inclusive of instructions regarding how to use Microsoft Teams from downloading the app till making use of it.

You can even consider Microsoft Teams as your new best friend for group projects. It has features like collaborative live internally and externally, free and easily accessible across all devices. Adding to those, Microsoft teams stores all your files and allows you to download them too. This platform is comparatively much secured than other meeting apps like zoom, meet, and so on.

Well, you can say, Microsoft Team is all in one app. This app makes any team meetings effectively possible, files well organized, and have private chat and conversations.

Download Microsoft Teams App

You can enjoy your meetings, unlimited chats, audio, and video calls through the free flavor of the Microsoft team. You can easily get this app. Follow the instructions below.

You can simply download the Teams app for your desktop, iOS, or Android phones from the link. microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/microsoft-teams/download-app
Or you can use Teams on the web at teams.microsoft.com via your favorite web browser. You can use this method on your smartphones only if you open the browser with ‘Desktop mode’ on.

How to Sign Up for Microsoft Teams?

You need to sign up in Teams in order to use all in one service of Microsoft Teams. Here we have explained the easy way to sign up the process below in brief.

Note: To be able to use Microsoft Teams you either need to work from an organization having office 365 or you need to go to school account 365. You won’t be able to sign up in Teams using your Gmail account.

Method 1: Sign Up for Microsoft Teams via Online

This method is a very simple way of signing up for your Microsoft Team account. You can sign up online via a web browser needless of downloading the Teams app. Here are a few steps below that you need to consider to sign in.

Step 1: At first you need to open your browser and type teams.microsoft.com in the address bar. Hit the enter key then you will see the page as shown below.

Step 2: If you are joining an existing organization, click on the ‘Sign in’ button below to sign in. And a new screen will appear.

Here you just need to enter an email provided by your organization and then click the ‘Next’ button. On the next page, you have to enter the password provided by your school or your organization to sign in.

You can either open Teams app using web-based apps or using desktop apps.

Step 3: Create an Organization in Microsoft Teams.

Are you new to Microsoft Team? Don’t know about creating an Organization in Teams? Never mind. Don’t worry you can learn to create an organization here. Simply follow the steps explained below.

You can create an account for free if you don’t have an existing account. For this click on the ‘Sign Up For Free’ button and the web page will appear like this.

create an account to Microsoft Teams — Enter an email to create an account on Microsoft Teams.

Here you need to enter the email address and select the ‘Next’ button.
Enter your first and last name as well as the suggested name of your company or organization in the form like below.

Microsoft teams organization detail — Fill in the details of your organization.

Then, finally, click on ‘Set up Teams’. This will be done. Now you are welcome to Microsoft Teams.

Method 2: Microsoft Teams App Sign Up

In this method, you will need to download the Teams app which is free to download and use. As the name itself suggest, it is provided by Microsoft. Once you download the app you will get access to it literally, within your hands.

Step 1: For android phones open your play store on your smartphone. Then search for the Teams app and simply download the app. For iPhone or iPad, search and download Teams via App Store. For desktop or laptop open your browser and download the Teams app available for the computer.

Download Microsoft Teams on your device.

Step 2: Open the Teams app on your device. If you are using it for the first time, you will need to sign up.

Step 3: Here enter your existing email and password of Microsoft account.

Once you have signed in, you will be ready to explore your organization’s existing Teams infrastructure and start chatting with your colleagues, students, teams, and friends.

How to Create a New Team in Microsoft Teams?

Creating a team for a group conference and online classes are the best and topmost feature of Microsoft Teams. But don’t know how to create a new Team in Microsoft Teams? Not to worry anymore.

In order to create a new team, you should open the Teams app. After you sign in to your account all you have to do is just to simply follow the steps given below.

Step 1: If you are an admin, to create or find a team within Microsoft Teams is way too easy. All you need to do is click on the ‘Teams’ icon that is at the menu on the leftmost side of the page.

Step 2: Next step is to click the option ‘Join or create a team’ and then click ‘Create a new team’ button.

Step 3: Select ‘Build a team from scratch’ and choose if you want to make it private or not. And then you may invite others to join your team.

Step 4: Next, you need to enter the suggested team name and description in the field provided.

Step 5: Now you can add people, groups, by just typing their names, selecting Add and then Close.

Step 6: Finally, you have created a company-wide team. When people you invited would enter this team, they will see your message.

How to Create a Channel in Microsoft Teams?

You will get a general channel after you have created a team. This is the best place where you can post the information and share it among everyone within the team. Find the instructions below to simply create a channel.

Step 1: Click on the Team option and find the team you have created.

Step 2: Then click on the ‘More Options’ and tap on the ‘Add channel’.

Step 3: Or, you can also click ‘Manage Team’ and add a channel in the ‘Channel tab’.

Step 4: Provide a descriptive name of a channel so that the users can understand the purpose of the channel.

Step 5: Now you may also want to select Automatically show this channel in everyone’s channel on the team. When done, you can click on Add. If you want to pin tabs to channel in order to add tools, such as OneNote, links to webpages, and other content then you can do it easily.

Step 6: Even if you are not an admin, you can also add your private channels within an existing team.

Now you have learned how to create channels so that you can share information and ideas on particular topics. This is perfect for online classes and business purpose.

How to Invite People to Your Organization?

It’s very easy to invite someone to your organization using the Teams application.

You just need to select the ‘Teams’ option from the menubar at the left panel.
Then click on ‘Invite people’.
Or you can just copy and share the link that you got after the sign up using ‘Copy the link’ button.

How to Join Teams?

In order to join the teams as users, you need to go through the below steps.

Open the Teams app in your phones or on the laptop.
Follow the sign-in procedure. Once you are signed in, tap the ‘Teams’ options and select ‘Join or create a team’.
Here you need to join a team entering a code provided by your organization.

How to Manage a Team?

After you have successfully created a team and channel, you are free to manage it. You can even add a team owner noting the following points.

Select the team you created and then click more options.
Choose ‘Manage Team’ and go to the Members tab.
Select people whom you want to make as a team owner and click ‘Owner’ under the role.

You can even manage your team by selecting ‘Manage team’ to find members or participants, channels, settings and apps.

Furthermore, you can manage your team by selecting Settings and click on ‘Team Picture’ so that you can add a display picture for that team.

How to Customize a Team?

You can even customize a Team in different ways.

1. Apply a Dark Theme

This is the first way to customize your team with a dark theme. For this, it would be easy if you follow this process.

At the very first, tap on the profile icon of your Teams window.
After that click on the ‘Settings’ option and open the ‘General’ tab.
Now you can choose the theme option as dark and it will turn your background from white to dark colour.

2. Tweak your Notification

You can customize your notification which you receive one and can even clear them. You can control, customize your messages, mentions, highlights and activity.

First, tap on your profile icon and click the ‘Settings’ option.
Then click on notifications that include a banner, email notifications, messages, replies, likes and followed channels.
You can also create notifications for a specific person by clicking the ‘Manage notifications’ button at the bottom of the settings page. It will let you know a person’s status and you will be notified whenever they appear available or offline.

3. Read Receipts

This will be turned on by default on Microsoft teams. Via the name ‘Read receipts’, you can also understand that you will get a checkmark on your message when it is sent successfully. Then when another participant sees the message then it will change into an eye icon.

You can configure this read receipts with the following process.

Initially, tap on your profile icon that is at the top right corner of the screen.
Then click ‘Settings’ and choose ‘Privacy’.
Now you will see a switch for a read receipt. If your admin has allowed it on, you can also toggle the switch to off. Not only that, if you send a message to someone who has read receipts turned off, and you still have the feature to turn on but you won’t see read receipts from that participants.

4. Add some Apps

You can add apps to Teams if your admin has allowed.

For this, you need to choose the apps from the left sidebar of Teams. Search for your app to add and you will see that app in the sidebar.
Or you can add apps to a tab in a channel of chat. To do this you need to go to channel, group chat or one-on-one conversation. Click ‘Add’, a tab that shows + icon then search for or select app that you want.
Likewise, you can add apps from the messaging area as a Bot that allows you to enter content directly into your Team messages. You can also type out ‘@’ and then click Get bots in order to find some and choose more apps.

Browse and add apps in Teams — Browse and add apps in the Microsoft Teams.

Tips to use Menu

The calendar icon at the left side enables us to notify upcoming events or events happening.
You can use the ‘Files’ tab to add documents for everyone to see.
You can call individual participants or can make group calls using call icon in the teams and communicate with one another using a chat option.
You can even share your screen at the time of meetings so that meetings are more effective and clear to the viewers.

The additional features of using Team apps is that you can record the meeting and can watch it later whenever you are free.