Microsoft Teams
Create a virtual environment that allows people to collaborate synchronously or asynchronously for projects, courses, or departmental activities.
Microsoft Teams is a collaborative virtual workspace that allows users to communicate with each other through chat, voice, and video calls. It also allows users to store secured files in a common area so they can be easily retrieved.
For instructors, Microsoft Teams can be used to create a learning environment beyond a physical space. Students and instructors can ask questions and pose new ideas in virtual channels or through private chats. For administrative or project units, Microsoft Teams can be used for quick and easy group communication, as well as file collaboration and storage.
How can I use Microsoft Teams?
Communication
Interact directly with other Team members in channels or direct messaging.
Collaboration
Teams allows users to work together directly and simultaneously on documents. It also allows you to share the documents directly with other Team members.
Video Conferencing
Connect with others using Teams-integrated video conferencing, which allows users to schedule meetings that are integrated with Microsoft Outlook, share their screen, and record calls.
Key Features
- Online video conference meetings can host up to 300 participants
- Document collaboration allows multiple users to work on the same file simultaneously, with real-time updates
- Access Microsoft Teams via mobile app, browser, or the Teams desktop app
- Integrated with Microsoft Outlook, so meetings can be scheduled in Teams and appear instantly in your Outlook calendar with the appropriate statuses
- Direct access to Microsoft OneDrive storage for easy sharing with customizable access permissions
- Create public or private channels and add members to organize conversations and projects
Getting Started
All active UBC employees have emails in the format Firstname.Lastname@ubc.ca. You will need to use it to login to Microsoft Teams using this email and your UBC CWL password. If you are not able to login with these credentials, please contact us.
Best Practices
- Make sure each team and channel has at least two owners in case one owner is unavailable.
- Decide early if channels are by function and/or group, so there is a standard.
- Advise users that private chats are only saved for 90 days, but messages and files in channels are stored indefinitely.
- If a private channel is deleted, it counts for 30 days towards the limit. It is important to consider this when choosing to either rename or delete a private channel.
- Archive course teams instead of deleting them to preserve content for future reference or grade challenges.
I would like to learn…
- Click Teams from the left menu
- Select the more options (the 3 horizontal dots) next to the team name
- Click Manage team
- Click the Settings tab, select Team code, and click Generate
- Click Copy and share this code with your students or other invitees in a secure way
- Click Teams from the left menu
- Select the more options (the 3 horizontal dots) next to the team name
- Select Add channel from the drop-down menu
- Name the channel. We recommend naming it based on function, so it is easy to locate especially when there are multiple channels created
- Choose a privacy setting (Note: This setting cannot be changed after the channel has been created):
- Standard: Accessible to everyone on the team
- Private: Accessible only to people who have been added to the channel
- Click Add to add the channel to the team
Microsoft’s resource on Limits and specifications for Microsoft Teams includes the latest information about:
- Maximum number of users in a team
- Maximum number of public/private channels per team
- Maximum number of users in a channel
- Maximum number of users in a chat
- Maximum number of users in a video call
- Maximum size for individual file attachments
- Maximum size for file storage per team
- System requirements
Since MS Teams is not connected to SIS, it is not bound to the Canvas/term end dates. This currently gives instructors more flexibility to decide how long they want to keep the MS Teams instance active. Courses need to be manually archived or deleted:
Our recommendation is to archive the course, so that content is preserved and can be accessed again in the future. Archiving makes the course go into a read-only state and can be reversed. Course files would also be accessible in OneDrive.