Tips and Tricks Using Microsoft Teams for Project Collaboration

By Cindy Foellmer posted 02-15-2022 12:34

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By: Cindy Foellmer - Sidley Austin LLP, Parita Kanevskiy - Eversheds Sutherland (US) LLP and Dawn Sheridan - Thompson Coburn LLP

1. Think about your project before you create the Team. What channels are needed? Will any of them need to be
private?

a. Example: you cannot set a General channel to private. If you have internal conversations in the General channel and then later need to add a
third party (e.g., vendor), they will be able to see the prior discussions. If you know you need a private channel, create that in the beginning so
you don't have to create additional channels.

2. Create conversations with subject lines. With heavy usage, posts will run together if subject lines are not utilized. It is easier to absorb content and search posts when using subject lines.

a. Click New conversation.

b. Click the Format

button
c. Enter a subject line that is a good description of the post.
d. Create the body of the message.
e. Don’t forget to click

Send. (Enter will not post the message from format.)

3. Make sure everyone on the team knows how to reply to a conversation and not start another one.

4. Teams’ changes so much, make sure everyone knows how to access the What’s New portion of Help.

5. There are many different levels of tags. Typing “@” will allow you to tag a person, a Team, a channel, or a custom tag. Since you don’t know how everyone has set up their notifications; tags allow you to draw their attention to your post by using the tag. Tags are helpful when there are different functional groups on a project (e.g., Business Office, HR, IS).

To create a custom tag:
a. Click the ellipses next to the Team name.
b. Click Manage
c. Click Create
d. Provide a tag name, a description, and add the people for the tag.

6. Change the picture for your Team. It may sound minor, but if you preface your Teams with "Project - ," it becomes difficult to locate the Team. Using a picture helps it stand out when scrolling.

a. Click the ellipses next to the Team name.
b. Click Manage
c. Click
d. Expand Team picture and upload the picture of your choosing.

7. When utilizing the chat feature, the group is unable to create subject lines and headers like they can in posts; therefore, it becomes difficult to know what someone is responding to, if time has elapsed. To counteract that, right-click the chat that you want to respond to and choose Reply. A snippet of the chat will display in a new chat so it is clear to the group what the message is referring to.

8. Easy to join a meeting via Teams instead of switching to Outlook. Go to Calendar in MS Teams

a. There may be time when you want to Join a meeting on two devices. For instance, I frequently join meetings on my iPad. When I need to share

my screen, I can add a device. The audio and video stay on my iPad while allowing to share options via my desktop.

9. Bring some fun into work, brighten up the day, and build team culture by using GIFs. Click on GIF icon and add it to a conversation or chat. Remember to keep it professional. Your organization’s Teams’ admin can enable this setting.