Microsoft Teams

What is Microsoft Teams?

Microsoft Teams (AKA Teams) is a workspace for real-time collaboration and communication, meetings, file and app sharing, and more. Teams builds on the functionality of Groups. When you create a Team, you are also creating a Group. Keep reading for a comparison of Teams and Groups.

Who can use it?

Teams is available for free for all UH faculty, staff and students as part of the Microsoft 365 Suite.

Features and benefits:

Create Teams and channels for tracking projects, conversations, files, and meetings
Chat with text, audio, video, and file sharing
Store all your files, docs, and more in one place
Schedule meetings that automatically integrate with your existing Outlook calendar
Meet with up to 250 people at the same time
Share your desktop, applications, or a whiteboard during meetings
Automatically record and upload video, audio, and shared content from meetings to Microsoft Stream
Presence indication based on each person’s Teams activity, manual status settings, and Outlook calendar
Integrate your favorite apps—Planner, Trello, GitHub, and many more

Why should I use Teams?

One of the best reasons is the cost, UIT has already paid for your Teams license, and there are no additional costs to the user or department. Here are a few examples that show how your department could use Teams.

Note: Teams is just one option in our list of communication and collaboration tools along with SharePoint, Zoom, Microsoft 365 Groups, and more.

	If you...	You could create a Team to...
Easy Meeting Recordings	record meetings using Zoom and send out or upload the recording to a shared space afterwards	schedule meetings that will record and automatically upload to the team space as well as Microsoft Stream
Document Collaboration	send a group email with an attachment asking for feedback	upload a document to edit directly in Teams and collect feedback in the comment section
Calendar Coordination	have a group calendar that each person adds to their Outlook	schedule meetings that will show up both in the Teams calendar and on each member’s Outlook calendar
Communication Hub	have an inbox overflowing with quick email exchanges	use the chat area for internal communication and leave email for more important tasks
Shared File Storage	have a shared drive for your department or a cross-departmental group	store and share files securely in the cloud with everyone in the Team
Project Management	have frequent meetings with your team to update on work	give updates in the chat space, or use the Planner feature to keep track of tasks and due dates
Organization	already use other Microsoft 365 apps like Outlook, OneDrive, Notebook, Planner, or Skype for Business	keep all your 365 content organized in one place

How do I start using Teams?

Any actively enrolled student or currently employed staff or faculty member can create their own Teams. To get started:

Download Teams for your desktop, iOS, or Android, or just use Teams on the web.
Sign in with your Cougarnet ID and password (make sure to append @cougarnet.uh.edu after your username).

Training Resources

Teams resources from Microsoft:

Faculty and staff also have access to Teams video training from LinkedIn Learning (choose "Sign in with your organization account” when prompted to login):

What is the difference between Groups and Teams?

Task	Groups	Teams
Communication
Group email address	x	x
Internal and external communication (guest access)	x	x
Create channels (sub-groups)		x
Start a chat with individuals or groups		x
Turn a chat into a call		x
Share a file with people in a chat		x
Share a file with offline participants		x
Add emoji		x
And GIFs and memes		x
Threaded and persistent conversations		x
@mention, #tag, and like conversations		x
Search for files, content, and people		x
File Sharing
Group file storage	x	x
Restricted access to files (files are public by default)	x	x
Document collaboration (real-time in Edge only)	x	x
Meetings
Shared calendar	x	x
Schedule a meeting from Outlook	x	x
Record meetings		x
Automatically share meeting recordings with group		x
Share desktop or app		x
In-meeting access to chat and files		x
Persistent chat before, during, and after the meeting		x
Calls
Make, forward, and transfer calls		x
Make calls outside the university		x
Mobile
Chat, call, and meet from your device		x