What is Teams?
Teams is a collaboration tool provided by Microsoft. The College has an agreement with Microsoft, which gives us private use of Teams, allowing us to communicate with each other securely and directly, using the contacts from our College email address book.
Why should we use Teams?
Teams provides easy to use methods for communicating with each other and for working on files with each other. Features of this system include:
- It can be used from any internet-connected computer or smart phone
- Teams can be used to make audio and/or video calls
- You can hold a meeting and make notes of the meeting on screen
- You can share a desktop or a single file
- People in different locations can work on the same file at the same time
Accessing Teams
Teams can be accessed in two ways, either by the desktop application installed on your computer or using the web version.
- To open the desktop version, click on the Start button and find Microsoft Teams in the start menu (either by scrolling or by typing to search). If Teams is not installed on your computer, you can download it from here and install it.
- To open the web version, either type the URL or click this link to be taking straight to the website: https://teams.microsoft.com
Your account name is your CRSid (CRSid@cam.ac.uk), followed by your password, followed by your two-factor authentication.
How to use Teams
Below is a list of links to instructional videos showing how to use the main Teams functions.
Using Teams to collaborate on a document
Inviting an outsider to a Teams meeting
Getting Help
Most of what can be done with Teams is covered by short videos in the above section. If you want any further advice, the IT Help Desk are happy to provide assistance.
Glossary of Terms
Some of the commonly used terminology are as follows:
- Chat: refers to both text messaging and voice/video meetings. Chat groups can be created and used for regular meetings. The comments in a meeting are kept and can be used as a record.
- Team: a group of people; we have set up a Team for every staff department in the College.
- Channel: a Team can be made up of channels, which are the conversations you have with your teammates. Each channel is usually dedicated to a specific topic or project.
- Assignments: ways of assigning tasks to individuals and are used most commonly in an educational (teacher/student) context.
- Calendar: The calendar in Teams is linked to the calendar from your Outlook account.
- Calls: Voice or video calls to and from any given user.
- Files: Data that is stored within the channels in Teams. These are linked to documents held within 4th Court.