Microsoft Teams Hints & Tips

Teams has allowed us all to bring the office to our homes, with it’s video conferencing and chat capabilities, however there is a lot more to Teams than meets the eye. No doubt you have started to use Teams and hopefully gotten to grips with the basic features. It is a very simple tool for communications when you get used to it. There are some great features that you might want to start exploring, that would help you:

Increase your productivity
Collaborate more efficiently
Organise your work
Have fun in Teams!

Please see Microsoft’s introductory Teams video at the bottom of the page for a more in depth look at the application.

Now here are some helpful hints and tips on how you can get the most out of your Teams experience!

1. Commands

You can easily and efficiently navigate your way through Microsoft Teams by using commands. These are shortcuts which allow you to quickly jump to certain actions or areas of Teams. This can be done by typing "/" into the search box at the top of the Microsoft Teams window, and it will display all the commands and shortcuts you could hope for!

2. Saving messages or attachments for later

Using the 'Save this message' feature in Teams can help you find frequently used information and bookmark messages or attachments for later reference. To do this, click the ellipses on a message in a chat, and select 'Save this message'. You can then find your saved messages and content by typing the command "/saved" in the Search bar at the top of your Teams window.

3. Marking messages as unread

If you receive a message, but aren't quite ready to see to it, Teams has the very feature to help. By clicking the ellipses on a message, you can find on the drop-down menu there is an option to 'Mark as unread'. This will treat the message like you haven't seen it before and will help you notice it when you return later. By going to the search bar at the top of the Teams interface, you can enter the command "/unread" to quickly access all your unread messages.

4. Sending a message to someone straight from the search bar

Send a message quickly and easily to someone without having to leave your current place! By entering '@' and the person's name in the search bar, and hitting enter, you can send a message to them straight from the search bar.

5. Message Formatting

There is more to the message field than meets the eye! From the 'Format' button on the message section of the Teams window you can add a variety of different formatting features to your messages, such as font sizes and colours, highlighting, bold and underline etc.

6. Tagging people in messages to alert them

By tagging people in messages, it alerts them by sending them a notification in their activity feed. This is especially useful in group messages and teams, where messages could go unnoticed or be lost in the crowd. This can be done by typing '@' followed by the person's name.

7. Easily sharing files within Teams

Files can easily be added to a channel in Teams, which makes it accessible to everyone in the channel to collaborate. This can be done in the 'Files' section in the side menu, or in a channel along the top menu:

8. Adding GIF's to inject some personality into your conversations.

To add a GIF to your reply, simply click the GIF button at the bottom of the conversation menu. Search for, or select, a GIF from the selection. Once found you're desired GIF, you can insert this into your message.

Microsoft Teams Hints & Tips