How to use Microsoft Teams - Basic and advanced tutorials - Android

How to use Microsoft Teams: Basic tutorials

Learning how to use Microsoft Teams isn’t too difficult. If you’ve ever used a competitor like Slack it should feel relatively familiar. Even the layout is nearly identical, with all of the important icons displayed on the left side of your screen.

To help you get started, here are a few basic Microsoft Teams tutorials for everyday tasks, including getting set up, chatting, and starting meetings. We’ve also included more advanced tutorials below so feel free to skip ahead if you’ve already got some experience with the platform under your belt.

Note that these Microsoft Teams tutorials are written with the web version in mind, but the steps are similar or identical on the mobile and desktop apps, as well.

How to download the Microsoft Teams app

Although you don’t need to download the desktop or mobile apps to use Microsoft Teams, it’s a convenient way to stay connected. To get it, click here and select the right option for you. You can also download the mobile apps directly from the Google Play Store or App Store by clicking below.

How to create a Team

The first thing you need to do (unless you’re joining an existing team) is to create a team. Even if you are just joining a company team, you may want to create another one to chat with groups of friends.

Here’s what you need to do:

1. Open the Teams tab on the left-hand side.
2. Click Join or Create a team at the bottom of the screen.
3. Choose whether to Build a team from scratch or pull in contacts from an existing group or team.
4. Select privacy settings: Private, Public, or Org-wide.
5. Enter a name and description.
6. Click Create team.

Once in the team, you’ll see the main team chat with a list of channels below. Channels are basically group chats around a single theme. You can also have private chats with individuals or groups, which is what we’re looking at next.

How to start and pop out a chat

Channels are great for sharing information with your entire team, but for quick questions to colleagues, chats are the better option. They’re private, easy to keep organized, and much more likely to get a response than a channel post!

Here’s how to start a Microsoft Teams chat:

1. Open the Chat tab on the left-hand side.
2. Click New Chat at the top of the screen.
3. Enter the person’s name and write your message.
4. Hit the send arrow.

The steps for creating a group chat are virtually identical. Just click the small arrow on the right-hand side to give the group a name, then enter all participants in the To field. You can also add more people to a one-to-one or group chat by clicking the Add People button. You can even choose whether or not to include the chat history.

There are a few other things you can do to make chats even more convenient. The first is pinning them by mousing over the chat, clicking the more options icon, then Pin. This will make sure it’s always at the top of the list.

Another useful thing to learn is how to pop out a chat in Microsoft Teams. This gives that chat its own window, so you can have more than one chat open at a time. Like above, just click the more options icon, then Pop-out chat.

How to create a meeting

Chatting is great for quick messages, but sometimes a face-to-face conversation is a better