Setting up Microsoft Teams

Visit teams.microsoft.com to download Teams onto your laptop. You can also download it to your smartphone from your relevant App Store. Both these options offer the best user experience and excellent functionality. You can also access it through a web browser via this link.

Take a quick tour of Microsoft Teams here.

Use your LSE email address and password to sign in when you first open the app on your laptop or smartphone.

If you have problems logging in, please contact the DTS Service Desk at Tech.Support@lse.ac.uk or call 0207 107 5000.

Use the chat feature on any occasion where you might use texting, WhatsApp or Slack for work messaging and quick updates to a group or individual. You can use it to update colleagues when documents have been added or changed. Outlook will most likely remain the main tool for detailed communication. 

• Click the ‘Chat’ button on the left-hand sidebar.
• Select the New chat icon at the top of your chat list.
• Type in the surname of the person you’d like to chat to (you can add more than one person).
• Compose your message in the box at the bottom of the chat.
• When you're ready, select Send   and this starts the chat.

Watch this video to find out more about starting a chat and making calls in Microsoft Teams. 

• Click the ‘Chat’ button on the left-hand sidebar.
• Select the New chat icon at the top of your chat list.
• Type in the surname or surnames into the ‘To’ field at the top of your new chat.
• Then click ‘Video call’  or ‘Audio call’ to begin your call.

Watch this video to find out more about starting a chat and making calls in Microsoft Teams. 

Use Teams to schedule meetings everyone can attend virtually from any location using their internet connection and laptop or smartphone.

• Click into your calendar view on Outlook
• Click ‘New Teams Meeting’  in the toolbar. This will open a calendar invite. Fill this in as you usually would, creating a title and inviting attendees and sending the invite. 
• You’ll see a link at the bottom of your invite saying ‘Join Microsoft Teams Meeting’. You and your attendees will be able to click this link at the start of your meeting to join.
• You can also schedule and join meetings directly from your Teams app. Click ‘Calendar’ on the left-hand sidebar. Click on the meeting you want to join and select ‘Join’ in the top left-hand corner.

If you are joining a meeting:

• Choose your audio device with this guide.
• USB headset’s with 'noise-cancelling'​ are generally considered the best audio device for a Teams meeting but you can also use headphones with a microphone or use the microphone built into your laptop, although these will pick up more background noise.
• Mute your microphone before the meeting begins and when not speaking so your background noise isn’t picked up.
• Use the 'blur-background' ​feature (available on most devices) to conceal your background during a call.

Find out more about managing meetings in Teams with this video tutorial.

A team is a collection of people who gather together around a common goal. Channels are the collaboration spaces within a team where the actual work gets done.

Before requesting a new team always consider if you need one or can create a channel or a private channel within an existing team. It can create confusion if you are a member of too many teams.

• You can request a Team using this form. 

​How do I add members to my Team?

• If you are a Team owner go to the Team name in the Teams list and click  and select ‘Add Member’ from the pop-up menu.
• Type in the surname of the person you want to add and their name should appear.
• Click  and select ‘Manage Team’ from the drop down menu to remove members and create additional owners.

Check out this video to learn more about how Teams and Channels work. 

Each Team will always have a ‘General’ channel but owners can create additional channels. This helps to divide your Teams work into sub-teams, project groups or even to discuss a certain topic.

• Go to the team name and click , then select ‘Add Channel’ from the drop-down menu.
• Enter the name and description for the channel and click ‘Add’
• All members of the Team have access to the contents (conversations, files etc) for a channel. A "private channel" allows access to a specified subset of the Team.

To create a ‘Private Channel’ click ‘Private’ on the Privacy drop down menu. This should be below the Channel name and description areas. A private channel will have its own list of owners and members, managed by a private channel owner in same way that members are managed for a Team.

Click here to find out more about working in Channels.