Teams Tab in Microsoft Teams

The easiest way to navigate around MS Teams is to use the following tabs:

• Activity - a summary of non-chat related activities of the various teams that you are a member of.

• Chat - a history of messages that you have sent/received. Your chats will be organized chronologically starting with most recent. 

• Teams - a library of the various teams you are a part of. See Teams Tab below for more details.

• Files - a chronological list of files that you have accessed and have access to as they have been added to MS Teams.

Within the Teams tab, conversations are separated based on the team and channel where they were started and files are separated to the team and channel where they were uploaded.

• If you click on titles with an ellipsis (...) next to it, it will expand/collapse a menu where you can find different channels associated to the Team.

• You can view the conversations specific to each channel team by clicking the appropriate Channel title (example: General, Protocol rewrite suggestions, Resupply) on the left and then on the Conversations tab. 

There are two different ways to send messages, so it is important to make sure you are sending your message the correct way.

• If you are responding to a specific conversation or topic within a channel, click on Reply before starting your message so your response stays with the original thread.

• If you are starting a new conversation, you can just type your message into the field at the bottom of the screen. If you want to bring your message to a specific person's attention, put an @ and then type in their name to tag them. That person will then receive an alert that a message mentioning them has been created. If you want to bring a message to all members of a channel's attention, put @team at the start of your post.

1. Click on the paper clip underneath the chat field. This will give you the options for where to upload your file from.  

2. After locating the file, click on it, then click Open.

3. The file you are uploading will appear in the chat field. If you wish to add any text to go along with your file, you can type it in at this point. Once you have finished, press enter or click on the button.

Uploading a file this way will also add it to your Files tab.

If you have received an e-mail that you want to send to everyone in a channel, Teams has an easier way than finding each person's e-mail address individually:

1. Select the channel you want to send the e-mail to, then click on the ellipsis at the top of the window and select Get email address

2. Click on the Copy button to add the channel's e-mail address to your clipboard

3. Paste the channel's e-mail address into your Outlook. After making any changes you want/need to make to the e-mail, click Send. 

Being a member of multiple teams can sometimes lead to you receiving a large number of notifications. This is how you can choose what notifications to receive:

1. Click on your profile picture, then choose settings from the menu.