« Previous Next »

---

---

Style

Just like Slack, you will spend a significant amount of time in Teams. Making it feel like your own workspace is the first step to being productive in it.

Themes and Appearance

Teams offers three built-in themes:

• Default: Light background, standard Microsoft look.
• Dark: Easier on the eyes for long sessions.
• High Contrast: Accessibility-focused with strong colour boundaries.

Configure these from Settings → Appearance and accessibility. If your organization supports it, Teams may also follow your OS-level dark mode preference.

Teams Hierarchy

Understanding how Teams organises conversations is essential before diving into daily use.

Teams vs. Channels vs. Tabs

Concept	Purpose	Example
Team	A group of people working toward a shared goal	Engineering, Marketing
Channel	A topic-specific conversation space within a team	#deployments, #code-reviews
Tab	A pinned app or document at the top of a channel	A Wiki page, a Planner board, a shared spreadsheet

Think of Teams as the building, Channels as rooms, and Tabs as the whiteboards on each room’s wall.

Channel Types

1. Standard: Visible and accessible to all team members.
2. Private: Restricted to a specific subset of team members. Use for sensitive discussions like HR reviews or security incidents.
3. Shared: Accessible by people across different teams or even different organisations. Useful for cross-company collaboration.

Recommended Channel Structure

If you are setting up a new team from scratch:

1. General (default): Announcements and important links.
2. Operations
   • Standups: Daily syncs
   • Announcements: Team-wide updates
   • Social: Non-work conversations
3. Technical
   • Architecture: Design discussions
   • Reviews: Code and document reviews
   • Deployments: Release coordination
4. Support
   • Help: General questions
   • On-Call: Escalation and incident support

Tags and Mentions

Tags

Tags let you mention a subset of people inside a team without creating a separate team or channel. Common tag examples:

• @Frontend: All front-end developers
• @On-Call: Current on-call engineers
• @Leads: Team leads

Create and manage tags from the team settings menu under Manage tags.

Mention Shortcuts

• @team-name: Notify everyone in the team.
• @channel-name: Notify everyone following the channel.
• @user: Notify a specific person.
• @tag: Notify everyone assigned to a tag.

Use broad mentions sparingly to avoid notification fatigue.

Notification Management

Teams generates a lot of notifications by default. Taming them is critical:

1. Channel-level settings: Right-click any channel and choose Channel notifications to control what triggers alerts.
2. Quiet hours: Set working hours under Settings → Notifications → Quiet time to mute after-hours pings.
3. Priority contacts: Mark key people (your manager, on-call buddy) so their messages always break through Do Not Disturb.
4. Banner vs. Feed: Choose which events get a pop-up banner and which silently appear in the Activity feed.

Pinning, Tabs, and Bookmarks

Pinning Messages

Pin important messages in any channel to keep them visible. Pinned messages work as a lightweight channel wiki. Good candidates:

• On-call schedule
• Team agreements or working norms
• Links to dashboards and runbooks

Tabs

Tabs sit at the top of every channel and can host:

• Files: Shared documents from SharePoint / OneDrive.
• Wiki / OneNote: Collaborative notes.
• Planner / Tasks: Kanban boards for the channel.
• Custom apps: Power BI dashboards, third-party integrations, websites.

Bookmarks

The Bookmarks bar (below the tabs) stores quick links (URLs, documents, or channel-specific resources) without taking up a full tab.

Status and Presence

Teams shows your availability automatically based on calendar events, but you can customise it:

• 🟢 Available: Ready to chat.
• 🟡 Away: Idle or stepped out.
• 🔴 Do not disturb: Only priority contacts can reach you.
• 🟣 In a meeting: Automatically set during calendar events.
• ⚫ Offline / Appear offline: Hidden from presence indicators.

Custom Status Messages

Set a custom status message with a duration for more context:

• 🥙 Lunch, back at 1pm
• 🏠 Working remotely today
• 🎧 Focus time, will reply after 3pm
• 🏖️ OOO until Monday

Search

KQL Modifiers

Teams search supports Keyword Query Language (KQL) modifiers:

from:<person>
in:<channel>
subject:<topic>
sent:2024-03-21
hasattachment:true

Combine them for precise results, for example from:jane in:deployments hasattachment:true.

Tips for Effective Search

• Use quotation marks for exact phrases: "deployment failed".
• Filter by message, file, or person using the tabs at the top of search results.
• Star or bookmark messages you know you will need again.

Meetings

Teams’ meeting features go beyond basic video calls.

Key Features

• Together Mode: Places participants in a shared virtual background, reducing video-call fatigue.
• Breakout Rooms: Split attendees into smaller groups for workshops or brainstorming, then bring everyone back.
• Recording and Transcription: Record meetings and get auto-generated transcripts saved to SharePoint.
• Meeting Notes: Collaborative notes attached to the meeting, visible to all participants.
• Raise Hand: Signal that you want to speak without interrupting.
• Reactions: Quick emoji reactions (thumbs up, applause, heart) without unmuting.

Meeting Best Practices

1. Always set an agenda in the meeting invite body.
2. Start on time, end early: respect everyone’s calendar.
3. Record important meetings and share the transcript in the channel.
4. Use the chat for links and side questions so the conversation stays on track.

Best Practices

1. Threading
   • Reply in threads to keep channel conversations organised.
   • Use “Post in channel” only when the reply is relevant to everyone.
2. Governance
   • Archive inactive channels.
   • Review team membership quarterly.
   • Keep the General channel for announcements only.
3. File Management
   • Store shared files in the channel’s Files tab (backed by SharePoint) rather than sending them as chat attachments.
   • Use consistent naming conventions for uploaded documents.
4. Communication
   • Keep messages concise.
   • Use formatting (bold, lists, code blocks) for readability.
   • Prefer channels over group chats for discussions that others might need to search later.

« Previous Index Next »

Chapter 2 of 5