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Microsoft Teams and Channels

Microsoft Teams and Channels

Students, faculty and staff can create teams in Microsoft Teams for specific tasks and projects. Within Teams, users create teams to have focused conversations and share files specific to a certain task.

Create a team

Visit the https://uconn.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/IKB/pages/26325975060 to learn how to create a new team in Microsoft Teams.

Teams and SharePoint are the same thing under the hood of the Teams app: creating a team creates a SharePoint site.

Create Channels

Within a team, you can create channels to discuss and share files about certain aspects of your task/project.

When you create a channel in a team, a new folder is created in the underlying SharePoint site. This folder holds all the files shared in the channel.

  1. Open Teams in the desktop client or on the web.

  2. Click on the Teams icon within Teams.

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    Note: if this button brings you directly to a team and it is not the desired team, click on < All teams in the top-left corner. Find the tile of the desired Team and click to open it.

  3. Click on the ellipsis next to your team name and then click on Add channel.

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  4. Give your new channel a new and, if necessary, a description.

  5. Decide if everyone in the team should be able to access the channel, or if it should be restricted to certain people.
    If the channel should be locked down, set the channel type to private. To learn more about Private channels, continue down this guide.

  6. Click Create.

You may now have conversations in this channel and share files. To view all of the shared files in this channel, click on the Files tab.
To view the files in SharePoint, click on the ellipsis and then click on Open in SharePoint.

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Create a Private Channel

If you would like to have a channel with restricted membership, you may create a Private Channel. Only Owners of the team will be able to add members to private channels, and only members of the channel can see its contents. To learn more about membership levels, visit: https://uconn.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/IKB/pages/26267060048.

Creating a Private Channel will actually create a separate SharePoint site in order to hold the files privately (separate from the team’s SharePoint site). This site will have its own membership settings; it is a full SharePoint site.

  1. Follow the steps in the above section and choose Private in Step 5.

  2. Add members to the channel by name or email address.

The private channel is now created! Treat it as a regular channel. To learn more about private channels, visit Overview of teams and channels in Microsoft Teams - Microsoft Teams.

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