WebEx Teams guide
Download and Install
In a browser, go to https://www.webex.com/downloads.html
On the right, click “Download for Windows/mac”
Download and install Webex Teams
First Time Setup
Opening WebEx Teams for the first time will first ask for you work email address
Use “your UW username”@uwaterloo.ca and it will redirect you to a dual authentication sign in
Again enter “your UW username” @uwaterloo.ca then click next and enter your UW password
You should now see the WebEx Teams main page
Navigation Bar
Once signed in, you can access the different windows of the program with the Navigation Bar on the left
By default, you start on the Spaces window.
Before getting into what spaces are and how to use them, first you’ll want to set up your profile
Edit Your Profile
You can access your profile by clicking the “Profile information” button which either contains your initials or profile picture.
This opens a menu where you can change your Profile Pic, change Availability status, and customize your experience in Settings
Settings
General – Account settings like sign in options, spell check, show statuses, download location, etc
Audio – Select your devices for microphone, speakers, and ringtone speaker
Video – Select device and test webcam
Calls – Enable your webcam to be automatically enabled when answering an incoming call
Notifications – Choose what types of messages cause notifications (all messages vs @mentions), when you’re notified for scheduled meetings, and the sounds for your ringtones
Appearance – choose a colour theme for the application and other display options for the list of spaces
Devices – Connection options for external cisco WebEx devices
WebEx Meetings – allows you to connect your WebEx Meetings personal room to WebEx Teams (for more info, see Calendar, pg 17)
This is all a preference, but a couple recommendations are:
Under Calls, uncheck “Start calls with video on for incoming calls” – lets you choose if and when you enable your webcam
Under Appearance, check “Show Favorites on top” and check “Show separate tabs for People and Spaces” – makes your spaces easier to navigate
Availability Statuses
When you click on Availability, you can set “Do Not Disturb” for a given amount of time. This and other automatic statuses will be displayed to others through your profile picture as follows:
Green Outline – Active | Camera – Currently in a meeting |
Clock – Inactive | Windows – Currently screen sharing |
Phone – Currently on call | Moon – Do not disturb |
Spaces
Spaces are where all your work takes place. They’re a way to communicate and collaborate with colleagues and coworkers through messages, calls, screensharing, and whiteboards. Each space you’re in has its own set of options, activities and a sophisticated messaging system. There are three different types of spaces, Group Spaces, Direct Messages (1-on-1 space), and Team Spaces.
Create a Space
Group Space
a) Webex Teams automatically opens with the “Create a space” page on the right
b) You can also go to Spaces in the navigation bar, click the Plus icon and select Create a spaceName the space and type the names of contacts you’d like to add below
Click Create when ready to create the space
Direct Message
Click the Plus icon and select Contact a person
Type in their name and click on the contact to open the space
Team Space
A Team is a collection of related Group Spaces for larger scale collaboration and group projects. Any Group Space that is in a Team is known as a Team Space. For information on creating and using Team Space, see Teams
Space List
The Space List is the list of every space you belong to and is accessed by clicking the chat bubble icon in the Navigation Bar
Tabs
If you followed the recommended Appearance changes under Settings there will be tabs that can separate your list by “All”, “People” (Direct Messages), and “Spaces” (Group & Team Spaces).
Types of Spaces
Group Spaces are displayed as the space name
Direct Messages are shown as the contact’s name
Team Spaces display the team name below the space name
Filters
Clicking “Filter by” allows you to filter which spaces are shown to you in the space list
Show full list – all your spaces
Notifications – Spaces that you have notifications from
Unread – Spaces with unread messages
Hidden – Spaces you’ve hidden (right click space and click “Hide space”)
@Mentions to me – Spaces you’ve been @Mentioned in
@Mentions to all – Spaces with an @Mention to all (more on @Mentions, pg 10)
Threads – Spaces where you’re a part of a message thread
Flags – Spaces with messages you’ve flagged
Drafts – Spaces where you’ve typed a message but haven’t sent it yet
At the bottom there is another option to enable the recommended Appearance changes that are also in the Settings (“Show Favorites on top” and “Separate People and Spaces”)
Notifications
When a space has unseen content, the name of the space will become bolded and there will be a blue icon on the right indicating the type of notification
The icon means there are unread messages in that space
The icon means you have recently been added into that space
You can access a space without removing the notification and without sending read receipts to the other participants by right clicking the space and clicking “Peek in Space”
Search
You can use the search bar at the top of the space list to search for people, spaces, messages, and files. You can also click on “Refine your search” at the bottom to make the search more specific
Connect to a Device
Connecting to an external Cisco WebEx device should happen automatically if you left the Devices options in the Settings as default but you can also click on “Connect to a device” at the bottom of the Space List to search and connect to them.
A Space
When you enter a space, it will appear to the right of the Space List. Each space has a “Space Information” area with space settings, some activities on the right, and messaging options at the bottom. These differ slightly between Direct Messages, Group Spaces, and Team Spaces.
Space Information
Clicking on the Space Information button open a menu options for your space. The following are for a Group Space
Edit space settings – opens a window to edit the space’s picture and name
Notifications – Lets you choose what types of messages give notifications
Add apps – links Cisco’s webpage for installing supported third-party apps
View space policy – lists your organization’s (UW) policy for spaces
Add this space to a team – lets you choose an existing Team to add the current space to
Moderate space – Turns space in a Moderated Space, making you the moderator (more on Moderated Spaces below, pg 11)
Meeting capabilities – Displays available advanced options for those with a paid Meetings plan
Leave space – you leave the space and must get added back in to access any of its content
When in a Direct Message space there are not as many options
These are all the same as Group Spaces except for Mute notifications which only lets you mute all notifications from the space.
Team Spaces also have an additional option (for more information, see Team Spaces below, pg 14)
Favorites
You can add a space to Favorites by clicking the icon.
When a team is favorited, the icon becomes
The space will now appear at the top of your Space list or under the Favorites filter.
Space Activities
On the right are activities that can be done within in the space
Search – Clicking allows you to search for messages or files within that space
Screen Share – Only in Direct Messages, clicking lets you start actively sharing your screen or other application to the other person
Calling – Clicking the call icon opens a window where you can start a meeting with members of that space (for Group Spaces)
Here you can choose which devices are active for your microphone, webcam and speaker
You can choose if you want to have your microphone and webcam initially disabled when the meeting starts
When you’re ready to begin, click “Start Meeting”
Others receive the following notification when you click “Start Meeting”:
Clicking in Direct Messages brings down a menu where you can choose between Audio Call and a Video Call.
The only difference is a Video Call starts the call with your webcam enabled, otherwise the in-call interface is the exact same
When you send a call through Direct Message, the recipient gets the following notification:
Calling/Meeting Interface
During a Direct Message call or Group Space meeting, there are the following control buttons along the bottom
Mutes/unmutes microphone
Enables/disables webcam
Share content window – lets you screenshare applications, webpages or your entire screen
Displays a list of current members in the meeting (not in Direct Message calls)
Opens the space’s messages on the right of the meeting window
Brings up a window with two additional options
Add someone to the meeting (doesn’t have to be in the space
Bring up a blank whiteboard to share and annotate on
End or leave the meetings
Activities List
Clicking in the top right will open a list of space Activities
Message – Already open by default, allows you to send messages and chat in the space
Whiteboard – Lets you create and collaborate on a whiteboard and shows a list of previous whiteboards shared in the space
Schedule – Allows you to schedule and invite people to a space meeting using Microsoft Outlook or Google Calendar
People – Shows a list of space members and allows you to add new people to that space
Files – Displays a list of all files shared in the space
My Threads – shows all message threads you’re a part of
Links – Lists all links shared in the space
Messaging Options
When typing something to a space, there are options above the text box for enhancing the message
Attachment: Lets you attach and share a file with the message
Screen Capture: Opens screen capture mode to take, crop and attach a photo of your screen to the message
Format Texts: Gives aesthetic options for your message such as bold, numbered lists, and headings
Emojis: lets you add emojis to the message
GIF: You can search for and attach an animated GIF to your message
@Mentions: Places an @ in your message to search for and directly tag someone from the space
This is a good way of notifying someone in a busy space of something important.
Similarly, @All can be used to get everyone’s attention.
This can also be done by simply typing the “@” itself
Not available in Direct Messaging
My Personal Room Invite – Pastes link of your Webex Meetings Personal Room into message
Only available if you’ve connected them through Settings
More on Personal Rooms, see Calendar, pg 17
Message Response Options
When hovering over a message in a space (either from you or someone else), a few options for interacting with that message will appear
Edit Message: Only for your own message; allows you to edit the contents of your message
Start a Thread: Lets you reply directly to a message
The responses are then posted directly below and connected to the first message
The thread can be continually replied to keep a conversation together
It can be easily found later through My Threads under Activities
Add a Reaction: Lets you attach the following emojis to someone’s message:
Quote Message: Copies that message as a quote into your next message
Forward Message: Brings up a search bar to find a contact or space to forward the message to
Flag Message: Marks the message as important, can be found by filtering the Space List for Flags
Delete Message: Only for your own message (unless you’re a moderator of a Moderated Space)
Deletes the message from the space
Moderated Spaces
If you recall earlier, you can turn a Group Space into a moderated space under the Space Information menu. When a space is moderated, the following features become exclusive to the moderators:
Editing space settings (name and picture)
Adding or removing people to the space
Assigning others as moderators
Delete other people’s messages
There is also the addition of “Moderator Settings” to the Space Information menu
Announcement Mode – this changes the space so only moderators can post content, start calls, schedule meetings, or use the whiteboards
Remove Moderators – Returns the space back to an unmoderated space
Teams
A team is for projects that have outgrown or are bigger than a single space. It is a way to have a group of related spaces put together under a common theme.
You can access your Teams by clicking on the Teams symbol in the navigation bar on the left.
Create a Team
On the team page, click the plus icon to create a team
It will then prompt you to name the team and optionally give it a description
Click create and you’ll be taken to the Team’s page
A Team’s Page
Team Moderators
When you create a Team, you automatically become a moderator for the team.
Team Moderators only have the following privileges:
Adding or removing Team Members
Editing the Team name and description
Moderating the Team’s General Space (more on General Space below)
Adding or removing Team Moderators
Archiving the Team
Team Members
Anyone that has been added into the team (including moderators) is a Team Member.
Team Members have the following abilities:
Create Team Spaces
Adding or removing people from Team Spaces*
Joining or leaving any Team Space
Archiving a Team Space
Utilizing any of the spaces’ activities (calls, whiteboards, etc)
*Team Members can add people into a Team Space without adding them into the Team. These people do not have access to the Team Page or the other Team Spaces
Team Spaces
Teams have two types of spaces. Each team has one General Space by default and any other space added in or created for the team is a Team Space
General Space
The General Space is a Team’s primary space that contains every Team Member (adding people into the space will add them into the team).
It is the only Team Space that can be moderated and is done so by the Team Moderators
It is also the only Team Space that cannot be archived
Team Space
A team space is any space that has been added into or created within a Team
You can Create a Team Space in two way
Click “New Space” on the Team Page and type in a name for the space
On a pre-existing team, go under Space Information
and click “Add this space to a team”
Team Spaces can not be moderated so any member of the team can join, leave and edit the information for that space
Other than moderating, Team Spaces are the exact same as Group Spaces in terms of messaging, scheduling meetings, and engaging with activities (whiteboards, etc)