ARCHIVED: Set up Microsoft Teams at IU for your class

This content has been archived, and is no longer maintained by Indiana University. Information here may no longer be accurate, and links may no longer be available or reliable.

On this page:


Overview

Microsoft Teams at IU is a collaboration tool that gives Indiana University students, faculty, staff, and external users the ability to work together and share information in a common space. Included among its features are real-time collaboration, one-on-one chat, and file sharing.

This module describes how to access and set up a private team with a live meeting room for your course.

Important:
  • Microsoft Teams at IU has a much steeper learning curve than other live meeting and collaboration solutions available at IU. If you don't already have experience with Microsoft Teams, UITS recommends using other supported solutions (Zoom or Google Meet) unless they are unavailable for some reason.
  • Microsoft Teams at IU is not currently approved for meetings containing any type of protected health information (PHI). For meetings involving PHI, you must use a Zoom Health account.
  • Microsoft Teams at IU is not currently configured for telephony support or Microsoft Exchange Presence integration.

Microsoft Teams terms and concepts

Before you start working with Microsoft Teams, you'll need to know a few basic terms and concepts that will be used throughout this documentation.

  • Team: A team is a private or public workspace with tools for asynchronous and synchronous collaboration and communication.
  • Channel: A channel is a space for live and asynchronous interaction (chat) and collaboration within a team. A team can have multiple channels and typically each channel focuses on a different topic. Instructors can control general channel permissions and restrict access to specific channels.
  • Meeting: A meeting is a live audio- or videoconference with screen sharing, file sharing, chat, and many other capabilities. Anyone can start a live meeting in Microsoft Teams. Instructors can set up a persistent meeting channel and room for their class.
  • Apps: Apps are third-party tools and applications that are integrated with and extend the functionality of Microsoft Teams.
  • @mentions: The "@mention" feature allows you to call members out or invite them to participate in a channel or thread by name. To use it, type the @ symbol followed by the person's name. Autocomplete will help you find the right person as you type. To get the attention of all members of a channel, enter @channel followed by your channel announcements.

Access Microsoft Teams

Access Microsoft Teams from a browser

If you have not yet downloaded the Microsoft Teams client app, you can access Microsoft Teams at IU in a web browser:

  1. In either of the fully supported browsers (Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge), go to Microsoft 365 at IU .
    Important:

    Microsoft Edge Legacy support ended on March 9, 2021. If you still have Edge Legacy, UITS recommends installing the new Chromium-based Microsoft Edge by running Windows Update.

  2. You will land on your home page, which includes icons for launching various Office apps. Click Teams to launch the Microsoft Teams app.

Access Microsoft Teams from a desktop or mobile client

To get the most out of Microsoft Teams, download and install the client app for your desktop or mobile device:

  • To download the client to a desktop device, go to Download Microsoft Teams, click Download, and install the download package.
  • To download to a mobile device, go to the Google Play Store or iOS App Store, locate the Microsoft Teams app, and install.

After launching the app, you will be prompted to sign in. Follow steps 3-5 in Access Microsoft Teams from a browser. After a successful login, the app will open, providing access to all the teams to which you belong as well as the ability to create new teams.

In Microsoft Teams, it's possible to generate direct URLs to a specific team as well as specific resources within a team.

If you click a deep Microsoft Teams link/URL in a fully supported browser, you'll be given the options to:

  • Continue in the current browser
  • Continue in the appropriate client app (if installed)
  • Download the client app (if not installed)

If you click a Microsoft Teams link/URL in an unsupported browser, you'll be given the options to:

  • Continue in the appropriate client app (if installed)
  • Download the client app (if not installed)

Create and set up a private team for your class

Before you can use Microsoft Teams with your class, you'll need to create a private team for the class, generate a join code, and set up a read-only channel with a persistent link to a live meeting room.

Note:
Some of the features required for team setup are not available in the Microsoft Teams mobile clients. To complete the steps in this section, use a desktop computer.

Create a private team for your class

To create a new team in Microsoft Teams for your class:

  1. Log into Microsoft Teams with a fully supported browser or the app as described in Access Microsoft Teams.
  2. Click the Teams icon (to the left in desktop browsers and clients; at the bottom in mobile clients).
  3. Click the Join or Create Team icon ( Join or Create Team button ) and select Create a team.
  4. You'll be prompted to select a team type. Choose Class. This type is private by default.
  5. In the "Create team" window, enter a name and optional description for the team. Give your team a name that includes both the course and section number (for example, SP20-BL-ENG-W131-12345, ENG-W131-12345, or ENG-W131: section 12345) so you and your students can easily see which teams go with which classes. Then click Next.
  6. In the "Add people to [channelname]" window, you'll be prompted to enroll students and teachers into the team. Don't bother adding students. In the next section, you'll learn about a much more efficient way to get your students enrolled. If you want to add additional teachers:
    1. Click Teachers.
    2. Search for the teacher by name or username.
    3. Select the correct user from the search results and click Add.
  7. Click Skip or Close to close the "Create Team" dialog. You should now be in your new team.

Allow others to join your team

In Microsoft Teams, team members can only be added one at a time, which can be very time consuming for teams consisting of more than a few members. The easiest way to add students is to give them a code that will allow them to join your team. To generate a team code:

  1. Log into Microsoft Teams and click the Teams icon (to the left in desktop browsers and clients; at the bottom in mobile clients).
  2. Locate the team you want to work with, open the More Options (...) menu, and select Manage Team.
  3. On the "Manage Team" screen, select Settings.
  4. Expand the Team Code setting, and then click Generate. Jot down or copy and paste the code, and store it in a safe place. Later, you'll send this code to your students so they can join the team.
  5. While you are on the "Settings" screen, review the other team settings and make changes if desired.

Create a dedicated channel and persistent URL for live meetings

Any team member can start a live meeting and invite other team members at any time by clicking the Meet Now icon in any channel. However, each time a meeting is initiated in this manner, the URL for the live meeting changes. This section describes how to create a persistent URL for class meetings. First you'll create a dedicated, read-only channel, and then you'll copy and paste a Meet Now link into the channel as an announcement. You can also paste the link and/or meeting URL into your syllabus or other course resources.

  1. Log into Microsoft Teams and navigate to the team for your class.
  2. Open the More Options (...) menu to the right of the team name and select Add Channel.
  3. In the "Create a channel" window, give the channel a meaningful name (for example, Live Class Meetings). Leave the privacy setting at Standard, check Automatically show this channel in everyone's channel list, and click Add. You'll be placed in the new channel as soon as it's created.
  4. At the upper right of the channel window (or to the right of the channel name in the channel list for the team), open the More Options (...) menu for the channel and select Manage Channel.
  5. On the "Manage Channel" screen, set "Channel moderation" to On and uncheck all team member permissions. This will prevent your students from posting to the channel.

    For more about creating and setting up channels for communication and collaboration, see Teams and Channels.

  6. Initiate an online meeting in the "General" channel so you can copy and paste the meeting link into your read-only channel:
    1. Use the channel list to navigate to the "General" channel in your team.
    2. Click the Meet Now icon (Meet now icon), add an optional title to the meeting (for example, Class Meeting Room), and click the Meet Now button to start the meeting. You should now be the only participant in a live meeting.
    3. A list of participants should appear at the right (you are the only participant). If you don't see it, click Show/Hide ParticipantsShow/Hide Participants button ).
    4. In the "People" panel, to the right of the "Invite Someone" field, click the Copy join info icon to copy the meeting invitation to the clipboard.
      Copy join info icon in participants window
    5. Click the Hang up button ( The Hang Up button ) to end the meeting.
  7. Use the channel list to return to the channel for live class meetings.
  8. Click the Format icon (Format icon) to open a large editor.
  9. At the upper left of the editor, change the post type from New Conversation to Announcement.
  10. Give the announcement a title like Live Meeting Room. If desired, add a subtitle.
  11. Place your cursor in the body of the announcement and paste the link you copied in step 6d above.
  12. Click the Send icon (Send icon) to post your announcement. Now you and your students can go directly to this announcement to initiate and participate in class meetings.

Copy and share your meeting URL in other places

Once you set up your live meeting room, you can copy the URL and paste it into other course resources, such as your syllabus. To copy the URL:

  1. Log into Microsoft Teams, navigate to the team for your class, and select your live meeting room channel.
  2. In your meetings announcement, right-click Join Microsoft Teams Meeting, and select Copy Link.

You can now paste the link into any document or web page.

Copy and share your team and channel URLs in other places

You can also copy and paste direct links to your class team and/or specific channels. To copy your team URL to the clipboard:

  1. Log into Microsoft Teams and click the Teams icon (to the left in desktop browsers and clients; at the bottom in mobile clients).
  2. Locate the team you want to work with, open the More Options (...) menu, and select Get link to team.
  3. In the "Get link to team" pop-up, click Copy.

You can now paste the link into other documents or web resources.

To copy and paste a channel URL to the clipboard:

  1. Log into Microsoft Teams, click the Teams icon (to the left in desktop browsers and clients; at the bottom in mobile clients), and select the desired channel from the channel list.
  2. At the upper right of the channel window (or to the right of the channel name in the channel list for the team), open the More Options (...) menu for the channel and select Get link to channel.
  3. In the "Get link to channel" pop-up, click Copy.

You can now paste the link into other documents or web resources.

Learn more and get help

After completing the basic setup above, you and your class can use the "General" channel in your team for live and asynchronous discussion and your live meeting channel for live lectures, discussion sessions, office hours, etc.

Teams has many additional features that aren't covered here. To learn more about them, see:

Important:
Calendar (with Outlook integration), Assignments, and Gradebook are not currently enabled at IU.

For help, contact your campus Support Center.

This is document bexc in the Knowledge Base.
Last modified on 2021-10-05 16:56:54.