Chats and Channels

You can start a new chat with the whole team or a person/group

To start a conversation with the whole team:

1. Click Teams on the side bar, pick a team and a channel
2. Write your message in the box where you start a conversation and click Send
3. The message will be sent to the whole team in the post

To start a new chat with a person or group:

1. At the top of the app, click New Chat
2. In the To field, type the name of the person or people you want to create a private chat with
3. In the box where you type your message, write your text and click Send

Click here for more information on Chat and Share in Teams 

Click here to watch a video on managing classroom conversations in Teams

Every team gets a General channel. However, you might want to create channels that are more specific for your department, project, and/or topic for example. Creating channels are great for specific announcements and information that a subsection of a team needs. Channels are where the work essentially gets done. You can have texts, audio and video conversations, share files and include apps 

1. Select Teams on the sidebar > Select the team you are interested in  
2. Select More options through the three dots icon on the top right corner of the team
3. Select Add channel 
4. Enter your preferred name and description of the channel
5. Select Automatically show this channel in everyone’s channel list if you want this channel to be public and automatically visible to everyone’s channel list
6. Select add

Click here to watch a video on getting your team up and running

Conversations in Channels are organised by date and thread. Replies in the thread are organised under the initial post. This makes it easier for you to follow multiple conversations at once. This appears on your Activity feed.

1. Find the conversation thread you want to reply to
2. Click Reply at the bottom of the thread, type your message, and click Send

For more information click here

Posts on channels can be formatted with different style texts, bullet points, links, and images. These can resemble announcements or regular posts. 

1. Type a message in the text box 
2. Select the Format icon below the text box - the text box will transform to allow you to format the message 
3. You can pre-select the style you want: Announcement or New Conversation. To select an announcement, select post type > Announcement
4. You can type the headline of the post, and add a colour scheme or background image to the headline
5. You can also format and customize your post by adding a subject, bold words, bulleted lists, inserting links
6. Once you have formatted the post, select the Send icon
7. You can also change who can reply to the post. Select Everyonecan reply to let anyone respond to your post. Alternatively, select Youand moderators can reply to restrict responses to just you and the moderators
8. You can also make a post that appears in multiple channels. Select Post in multiple channels > Select Channels. You can then choose which channels to cross-post to.

For more information click here

An @mention is a way to get your colleague’s attention in a channel conversation or a chat. They will be notified of the mention in their Activity Feed. 

1. When you are typing your message in the box, type @ followed by the first few letters of the persons’ name 
2. You can also @mention entire teams and channels
3. Select the person/team/channel you want
4. This can be repeated for as many people/teams/channels you want to @mention
5. Those that are @mentioned will get a red circle next to their Activity Feed in the sidebar They can check the Activity Feed to see if they have been @mentioned 

For more information click here

Click to watch the video

If you are a team owner, you can automatically favourite up to 10 channels for the whole team, making them show up automatically in everyone’s channel list. Individuals can also set up favourite channels themselves. 

1. When creating a new channel, select Automaticallyfavourite thischannel for the whole team below the description box
2. Alternatively, when you go to the team name, click Moreoptions through the three dots icon, and select Manage team
3. Open the Channels tab and select the channel you want to favourite
4. Click the box Auto-favourite – there will be a message that appears saying Automatically favourite this channel for the whole team

Click here for more information

If you want to make sure your team pays attention to your post in a channel or chat, the best thing to do is to mark it as important. 

1. Enter the expanded compose box by selecting the A icon on bottom of the text box and select the ! icon on the end of the formatting pane
2. This will add a red exclamation point next to your message and the word Important 

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If you are multitasking but would like to access the one-to-one or group chat in a separate window, you can do this by popping out the chat. You can then resize, reposition, or close the window. This is particularly helpful when you are in a meeting or in a call.

1. From the Chat list, you can select Chat on the side bar and find the name of the chat that you want
2. Select More options through the three dots icon, and select Pop out chat 
3. Double-click on the chat name and you will see the new pop out chat window
4. Hover over a chat and see the option for the icon to popout chat – selecting this will create a new pop out chat window
5. From the chat itself, go to the top right corner of the chat and select the pop out chat icon

For more information click here