Use Microsoft Teams

Owned by Violet Cozzarin
Last updated: Oct 11, 2024 by Campus Wellness Tech Support
5 min read

Install on your personal device

Teams for Laptop 

  1. Click this link to go to Microsoft's site.

  2. Click the button Download for Desktop or Download for Mac.

Teams for Mobile

Download the Microsoft Teams mobile app (search in the app store) and log in with your UWaterloo email (NOT your friendly address) e.g. vcozzari@uwaterloo.ca not violet.cozzarin@uwaterloo.ca.

Once complete, you might be redirected to the main Microsoft 365 page. Click the Teams button.

Logging into Teams

Click the MS Teams icon on your UW computer’s desktop and it should automatically sign you in. If not, login with your userid@uwaterloo.ca address and not your friendly address of firstname.lastname@uwaterloo.ca

OR

Log in directly to Teams from your desktop browser at https://teams.microsoft.com/ with your userid@uwaterloo.ca address and not your friendly address of firstname.lastname@uwaterloo.ca

OR 

  1. Navigate to portal.office.com and enter your UWaterloo email address

  2. Click Next and you will be redirected to a University of Waterloo sign in page.

    1. Ensure your login address is still userid@uwaterloo.ca.

    2. Use your WatIAM password.

  3. Once complete, you will be redirected to the main Microsoft 365 page. Click the Teams button.

Creating Teams and Channels

Creating Teams

Please do not create a team yourself through IST—we would like to keep note of all of the Teams in Campus Wellness.

Submit a ticket to the Tech Team with:

  • The name of the team to create (e.g., Counselling Services)

  • The members of the team.

  • The owner(s) of the team.

Creating Channels

Channels are dedicated sections within a team to keep conversations organized by specific topics, projects, etc.

You can create private channels which can be used to limit conversations to a subset of people within a team.

For example:

  • Creating a separate work space for a group or project (e.g., a private channel for IT staff within your department's team)

  • Creating a separate chat space for users to discuss sensitive information (e.g., budgeting)

In order to create Channels within the team you must be assigned as one of the owners of the team.

Standard Channel

  1. Click the 3 dots next to the title of your team.

  2. Click Add channel.


  3. Enter the following:

    1. Name of the channel.

    2. Description (optional).

    3. Leave the privacy to Standard.

    4. Check Automatically show this channel in everyone's list.

  4. Click Add.


  5. It should now be visible beneath your team's name.

All members of the team have access to this channel.

Private Channel

  1. Click the 3 dots next to the title of your team.

  2. Click Add channel.

  3. Enter:

    1. Name of the channel.

    2. Description (optional).

    3. Under Privacy, click the drop-down and select Private.

  4. Click Next.


  5. Add in members of your team that you'd like to be in this private channel—you cannot add people who are not already added as members into the channel.

  6. A lock icon will be next to your channel's name indicating it's a private channel. Only members of private channels can see and participate in private channels that they are added to.

Adding Members to your Team

A team can hold up to 5000 people.

  1. If you're a team owner, go to the team name in the teams list and click the 3 dots More options 

  2. Click Add member.


  3. Start typing a name to add to your team. You can also add people outside your organization as guests by typing their email addresses.

  4. When you're done adding members, click Add.

  5. Click Close. People you add to a team will receive an email letting them know they are now a member of your team and the team will show up in their teams list.

Virtual Meetings

There are a few methods to start meetings:

Method 1

  1. When you are in Posts in your channel, beneath the text box to chat there is a Meet Now option (video camera icon).

     

  2. Click it and it will ask you to enter in a subject, whether you want your video on or off, and the option to either Meet Now or Schedule a Meeting.

     

  3. This meeting will only be with the members of the channel. Members will see a video icon beside the channel showing that a meeting is going on, they will also get a message of the meeting post and can easily join. You can also @mention the channel or people in the chat to get them to see it as well.

  4. If you decide to schedule the meeting instead, it will open a meeting details window where you can enter in the information for the meeting (similar to Outlook calendar meetings).

     

  5. Then it will send out an invitation through Outlook where the invitees can click Join Microsoft Teams Meeting.

     

  6.  You can also create Teams meeting when creating a new meeting in Outlook.

Method 2

  1. Start a new chat (or an existing chat).

     

  2. Enter in all of the members you'd like in the meeting.

  3. Click the Video Call option or Audio Call option.