Microsoft Teams is a communication and collaboration application that helps you stay connected with your coworkers, project teams, and communities, even if you are working across departments, locations, or time zones. Whether you are chatting, meeting, sharing files, or working together on documents, Teams makes it easy to get things done. Teams integrates with a variety of other Microsoft 365 applications to enhance your productivity:

• Outlook: Schedule and join Teams meetings directly from your calendar.
• SharePoint: Access team sites and shared document libraries.
• Planner: Create and manage tasks within Teams channels.
• OneNote: Take and share meeting notes collaboratively.
• Loop: Collaborate in real-time with portable components across Teams and other Microsoft applications.

Why Use Teams?

• Chat anytime: Send messages to individuals or groups.
• Meet virtually: Join video or audio meetings with screen sharing and recording options.
• Work together: Share files and collaborate on Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents in real time.
• Stay organized: Use channels to keep conversations and files grouped by topic or project.
• Access anywhere: Use Teams on your computer, tablet, or phone. At work or remotely, Teams allows you to stay connected wherever you are.

Common Tasks You Can Do in Teams

• Start a chat with a coworker or group.
• Schedule or join a meeting.
• Share and edit documents with your team.
• Create a team for a project or department.
• Use applications like Planner or OneNote directly within Teams.

 
Sensitive Data in Teams:

The Michigan Medicine instance of Microsoft 365, including Teams, was designed for high data sensitivity, including Protected Health Information (PHI). Messages within Teams are retained for a period of one year, after this period the messages will be deleted. This message retention policy applies to Chat Messages (Private and Group), Public Channels and Private Channels. See the U-M Safe Computing Sensitive Data Guide for more details.

Creating a New Team:

Effective September 22, 2025, Michigan Medicine will be using the process outline below to create a new Team or join an existing team.

Creating a Team in Microsoft Teams is simple and helps you organize people, conversations, and files around a shared purpose. To get started, open the Teams app and click on the Teams icon in the left-hand menu. At the bottom of the panel, select Join or create a team, then click Create team. You will be prompted to choose whether to build a team from a template or use an existing Microsoft 365 group. Next, select the privacy level, Private (invite-only) or Public (open to anyone in your organization). Give your team a name, add a description if you would like, and click Create. Once your team is set up, you can start adding members and creating channels to organize your work by topic, project, or department.

For a visual step-by-step guide, please visit: Create a team from a template in Microsoft Teams - Microsoft Support

For a step-by-step video, please visit: Create a team with team templates - Microsoft Support (Video)

Joining an Existing Team:

Joining an existing team in Microsoft Teams is quick and easy. Start by clicking the Teams icon in the left-hand menu of the application. At the bottom of the Teams panel, select Join or create a team. If your organization allows public teams, you will see a list of available teams you can browse and join. Just click Join team next to the one you want. If the team is private, you will need to enter a code provided by the team owner or request to be added. Once you have joined, you will have access to the team’s channels, conversations, files, and shared resources.

For a visual step-by-step guide, please visit: Find and join a team in Microsoft Teams - Microsoft Support

Invite External Users to a Meeting:

Invite users external to Michigan Medicine to join a Teams meeting via the Teams application. Simply add their email to the meeting invite via Teams and/or Outlook or share the meeting link with them. External users will not be admitted to the meeting automatically and will be held in a waiting room until admitted. Limitations of external users are the following:

• External users can only message while the meeting is still active. Once the meeting has ended or the external user has left the meeting, the external users will not be able to use the chat functionality. 
• External users cannot request to control your device.
• External users cannot view the transcript if transcription was used during the meeting.

To learn more about Teams and how to use it for personal productivity and team collaboration, please visit our M365 Learning Center

Microsoft Teams (M365) - New Features/Permissions