Office 365

Microsoft Teams

What is Microsoft Teams?

Microsoft Teams is Microsoft's new enterprise communication tool. Teams combines persistent chat rooms, video/voice, file sharing, meetings, and many other features into one application. Teams is a great solution for a group of any size, allowing you to take the conversation anywhere you go. 

When can we use it?

Microsoft Teams is now available. Read below for instructions to login.

Note: Microsoft Teams is available to all customers with an Office 365 (@usf.edu) mailbox. This is not yet available for students.

How do I access Microsoft Teams?

Microsoft Teams is accessible via your web browser, Android or iOS device, or desktop client available on both Windows and Mac operating systems. We recommend testing out all available options to determine the method that best suits your productivity requirements.

Training for Microsoft Teams

You have several options for self-paced training available for Microsoft Teams.

Web Browser

To access Teams in your web browser, visit https://teams.microsoft.com and sign in with your USF email address.

Desktop/Mobile Client

Visit https://aka.ms/getteams and select the version that works for your device.

Sign in using your full @usf.edu email address and associated password.

Guest Experience

Click here for documentation of the Guest Teams experience.

What can I do with Teams?

Teams is extremely capable, serving as a neat one-stop-shop for your productivity requirements.

Chat

Teams at it's core is a persistent chat service. You can create channels for specific conversations or projects within your team. Chat records will stay there for review later, or to allow people to respond without requiring an immediate reply. You can break off into one-on-one conversations with co-workers, and people within other groups and teams.

You can enhance your chat with emojis and visual responses.

Click here for more information on chat.

Note: When you create a Team, it will end with 'GRP' by design. This is a required naming convention.

If your team name causes any technical conflict, USF IT reserves the right to change the name.

Tabs

Microsoft Teams uses tabs at the top of each Team. This allows you to integrate with many of Microsoft's cloud offerings like Excel, Word, Planner, and Power BI.

Click here  for more information on Tabs.

File Sharing and Collaboration

Microsoft Teams comes with a group OneDrive to store, share, and edit your files. You can also post documents and files to the channel like a Word document, and the entire team can edit it in real time within the Teams app, creating a much more collaborative and interactive workspace.

Click here for more information on File Collaboration.

You can also add other cloud storage providers like Box to Teams. Click here for more information.

Meetings

You can create ad-hoc meetings with your Team, or even schedule them all within the Teams app. Starting a meeting is easy - you just open the channel you want to meet with, and select the meeting notification icon at the bottom of your screen. It opens up to a video chat where you and your team can collaborate, share files, present your desktop, and meet no matter where your team is. 

To schedule a meeting, select the "Meetings" tab from the left, and select "Schedule Meeting". 

For more information on the Meet Now feature, click here. For meeting scheduling assistance, click here.

Audio Conferencing

USF IT offers Audio Conferencing for your Teams meetings. With audio conferencing, a phone number and meeting pin is attached to your meeting invites. This allows remote and external personnel connect with just a phone call and work within the meeting. The phone number is attached automatically to your meetings - no need for you to take any action.

You are also able to dial out from a meeting to invite a participant or conference phone number. Review the documentation here for more information.

Apps, bots, and other integrations

Microsoft Teams supports a wealth of external applications, bots, and other integrations to enable you to be more productive.

Some examples include Asana, Box, PagerDuty, and others. Additionally, there are bots that can automate repeat tasks or alerts that your Team depends on.

Review the full list of integration instructions here.

Note: USF IT does not have every app enabled. For a list of every available application, click here.

If you have an application you want please submit a ticket to help@usf.edu

Security and Compliance

If you are planning on storing data considered highly sensitive or restricted, contact the Security Operations Team so that additional protective measures can be placed around the data.

Review USF ISSP-0001 here for more information.

Known Limitations
  1. Chat deletion is not available. This will be made available as a feature in a future update.