Microsoft Teams

Teams are collections of people, content, and tools that center around different projects and jobs within an organization. In Microsoft Teams, team members can have conversations and share files, notes, and more.

As of August 2020, all new class teams are being created, and existing class teams updated, through an automated process based on credit course enrollment data. Instructors should see their class teams within 24 hours of being assigned to teach a class.

If you are an instructor and have been assigned to teach a course (according to Banner data) for at least 24 hours, you should see the class in your Teams client. If you do not, please contact IT to resolve the issue.

The instructor must activate the team before students can see and participate in it. This gives the instructor time to add content and make changes prior to letting the students in.

The instructor assigned to teach a class is an owner of the class team and can add and remove people. A manual addition (or removal) of members will not be reversed by the automation process so it would be better to wait for a newly registered student to be added by the automated process. This way the student can also be removed automatically if they drop the class.

There may be situations where the addition of other faculty or staff may be necessary and appropriate to assist a student or provide instruction in the class. Instructors are encouraged and empowered to give access to the class team where needed but also to ensure access is removed if no longer relevant.

This is also a way to combine sections into a single team if needed. Designate one of your course sections to use and add students from the other section(s) to it. Be sure to communicate to your students who end up in two teams which one to use, or remove the unused team.

The most likely reason for this is that the individual joined the meeting as a guest.

Students and employees may show up as guests if they do not log in to Teams with their College-provided account. They may not have logged in at all, instead joining via the web as a guest and simply typing in their name when prompted. They could also be using Teams connected to another school or work account, or may have logged in with their STLCC account but switched to another organization where they were invited to collaborate elsewhere.

Suggestions for how to join a meeting as a participant, making sure to use the STLCC-provided account in each case:

• Launch the meeting from the Calendar inside the Microsoft Teams app.
• Log on to Outlook on the Web, and click the meeting link from the calendar there.
• Open Microsoft Teams on the web, and join the meeting from the link in the calender there.

As the meeting organizer, you can determine whether guests are allowed to attend. By default, guests are allowed but go into the meeting lobby so that you can decide whether to admit them.

See the following links for additional information:

• Change participant settings for a Teams meeting
• YouTube: Microsoft Teams Tips - Meeting Lobby and Attendee Control
• YouTube: How to join a Microsoft Teams meeting, a demo tutorial

If someone joins a meeting using a dial-in number and conference ID, they are asked to state their name and that is what is shared when they enter the meeting. However, if someone has joined from their computer and selected the "Call Me" option, Microsoft calls the number they provide but they are not asked to record their name as they have already joined via the web browser or Teams app. We have confirmed with Microsoft this is expected behavior.

There are three ways to avoid this:

1. The individual can join using audio on their device. There are Teams clients for Windows, Mac OS, iOS and Android. This generally provides the best experience, though joining via the web after logging on with the STLCC-provided account can also be a good option.
2. The individual can dial in to the meeting using the phone number and conference ID provided in the meeting invitation. This allows them to record their name.
3. The meeting organizer can change the meeting options so that dial-in users are not announced.

See the following links for additional information:

• Change participant settings for a Teams meeting
• YouTube: Microsoft Teams Tips - Meeting Lobby and Attendee Control

Channels are dedicated sections within a team to keep conversations organized by specific topics, projects, disciplines--whatever works for your team! You can read more about Teams in Microsoft's documentation found here.

The Microsoft Teams app works in the following desktop browsers:

• Internet Explorer 11
• Microsoft Edge
• The latest version of Chrome
• The latest version of Firefox
• Safari is not currently supported (see more support information)

Team channels are places where everyone on the team can have open conversations. Private chats are only visible to those people in the chat.

You can choose to set the privacy setting for your team as either "public" or "private". In public teams, any user in the organization can join. With private teams, only team owners can add people to the teams.

Yes! A team owner in Microsoft Teams can add and manage guests in their teams via the web or desktop. Anyone with a business or consumer email accounts, such as Outlook, Gmail, or others, can participate as a guest in Teams with full access to team chats, meetings, and files. Only people who are outside of your organization, such as partners or consultants, can be added as guests. People from within your organization can join as regular team members. You can read more about guest membership in Microsoft's documentation found here.

Yes! If the owner of a team in another organization invites you to collaborate, you can participate at the level their organization's rules permit.

To switch the organization you are working in, click the organization to the left of your avatar (initials or photo you uploaded) in the upper-right corner of the Microsoft Teams client and select the one you want to use.

Be sure to switch back to the St. Louis Community College organization before joining a meeting in the STLCC organization, especially if you are the organizer. Joining an STLCC Teams meeting while you are signed in with a Microsoft "personal" account or collaborating as a guest at another organization may make you appear not to be a part of our community and you could go to the meeting lobby waiting for someone else to let you in.

Yes. Any member or guest can leave the team at any time via Teams web or desktop clients.

The best way is to @mention them. Type @ before someones name and they will get a notification.

To get the attention of an entire channel, type @channel before your message and the channel will receive notifications.

To get the attention of the entire team, type @team before your message and all your teammates will receive notifications.

Tabs allow team members to access services on a dedicated section within a channel or in a chat. Tabs acts as shortcuts for team members to work directly with tools and data and have conversations about them in the context of the channel or chat. Tabs can be added to help users easily access and manage the data they need or interact with the most.

Microsoft Teams is built on the Office 365 hyper-scale, enterprise-grade cloud, delivering the advanced security and compliance capabilities. Data is encrypted in transit and at rest.

Files are stored in SharePoint and are backed by SharePoint encryption. Notes are stored in OneNote and are backed by OneNote encryption. You can read more about security and compliance in Microsoft's documentation found here.

A deleted team can be restored by an Office 365 administrator up to fifteen (15) days after the team was deleted. If you need a team restored, please submit a ticket to IT HelpDesk.

Both Microsoft Teams and Skype for Business provide instant messaging, videoconferencing, and audio conferencing features. Microsoft is retiring Skype for Business and fully replacing it with Microsoft Teams in July 2021. However, STLCC will discontinue Skype for Business in January 2021. Your department can continue using it until then.

Users have been enabled to use both Teams and Skype for Business, but that means users must use both clients to be able to communicate with everyone. If someone is only using Skype for Business, you must use Skype for Business to send them an instant message. Instant message sent from Teams will only go to the other user's Teams client. When someone creates a Skype for Business meeting you will join it using the Skype client. Once Skype is discontinued at STLCC in January you will no longer need to sign in or use that client.