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How To Create A Team In Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams is one of the most convenient communications solutions for organizations - especially remote organizations. If you use this platform, then the first thing you will need to know is how to create a team in Microsoft Teams.

A team is when you bring together a group of people on the platform to discuss a certain topic or project. If you have 200 people in your organization, imagine them all trying to communicate with each other on the same channel? That would be a nightmare.

Instead, you can create an organized space, called a team, to keep things organized. You can organize things even more within this Team by creating dedicated channels within the team.

In this guide, we’ll walk through how to create a team in Microsoft Teams.

Table of contents

How To Create A New Team In Microsoft Teams

Here is the step-by-step process to follow in order to create a Team in Microsoft Teams.

Creating A Team In Microsoft Teams On Desktop

Step 1: Select the Teams icon. This is found on the left side column of the app.

Microsoft Teams screenshot with an red arrow pointing to the Teams tab on the sidebar

Step 2: Select Join or create a team. This is found at the bottom of your teams list.

Microsoft Teams screenshot with an red arrow pointing to "Join or create a team" button

Step 3: Hold your pointer over the Create a team card. Then select the option Create team.

Microsoft Teams screenshot with an red arrow pointing to "Create a team" button

Step 4: You can now choose whether you want to create a team from an existing group or team, or from scratch. For creating a new team, select From scratch.

Microsoft Teams screenshot with an red arrow pointing to "From scratch" button

Step 5: Now you need to choose what type of team you will be creating.

You will have three options here:

  • Private: People will need special permission to join this type of team. This will limit the conversations and content shared within the team to a select group of people.
  • Public: Anyone within the organization can join this team. The conversation and content are made visible to everyone.
  • Org-wide: Everyone within the organization automatically joins this team once you create it.

Microsoft Teams screenshot with a modal

Step 5: Now give your team a name. You can also add an optional description to let people know what the team is about.

Microsoft Teams screenshot with a modal

Step 6: Finally, select Create, and you’re all done. Your team is created!

You are now the owner of the team. Once you have created the team, you can send out invites to join the team. You can also create channels.

All members of the team have a role and certain permissions. There are owners, members, and guests.

Owners have the most permissions. Among other things, they can set team permissions, change the team picture, and add or remove people from the team.

Creating A Team In Microsoft Teams On Mobile

Step 1: Tap on the Teams icon on the bottom bar of the app.

Step 2: Tap on the three dots in the top right corner. Microsoft Teams screenshot with on mobile

Step 3: Tap on Create new team. Microsoft Teams screenshot with on mobile

Step 4: Now you can add in your team name and an optional description explaining what your team is about. Microsoft Teams screenshot with on mobile

Step 5: Tap the tick icon and your team is created. You can now invite people to join the team. Microsoft Teams screenshot with on mobile

Who Can Create Teams?

Any member of Microsoft Teams has the ability to create a new team. This makes it easy for different departments and collaborators to set up their own communication channels.

However, it is possible to restrict team creation. This could be helpful for large organizations that struggle with many different teams popping up all the time that get in the way of the main teams that the organization uses.

Whoever creates a team becomes the team owner. It is their responsibility to invite members to the team.

What Are Channels In Microsoft Teams?

Within a team, you can have various channels. These are like subsections of the team, with each channel focused on a specific topic.

Depending on the purpose of the team, channels could be used for different projects, conversations, and disciplines.

For example, your organization might have a marketing team. Within this, you could have a channel for social media discussions, a channel for email marketing discussions, and a channel for paid ads discussions.

Members of a team can adjust their notification settings for each channel. So, if a member of the marketing department is only focused on social media, they could stop notifications from all other marketing channels.

Channels improve organization within a team, making it a lot easier for team members to find the information they need and keep conversations directed to the relevant people only.

How To Create A Channel In Microsoft Teams

When creating a channel in Microsoft Teams, you can make it private (restricted to certain people) or standard (accessible to everyone).

Here are the steps you need to take to do this:

Step 1: Select your team in the team list and click on the three dots next to the team name. A list of options will appear. Select Add channel.

Microsoft Teams screenshot with an red arrow pointing to "Add channel" button

*Note: after selecting the three dots, you could also select Manage team and then add a new channel in the Channels tab.

Step 2: Now you add in all of your channel information. Just like creating a team, this involves naming the channel and adding a description.

This is also where you select your privacy settings. You can restrict the channel and make it private or you can make it standard so that everyone on the team has access to it.

Microsoft Teams screenshot with a modal

Step 3: Click Add and your channel will be created. You can now invite members of the team to join the channel.

Conclusion

Microsoft Teams offers loads of opportunities for communication. It’s an excellent platform to organize conversations, projects, and file sharing within your organization.

Follow the steps above on how to create a team in Microsoft Teams, and you will be able to use the platform to streamline the way your business communicates.

Once you know how to add teams, you can start to make use of the platform’s chat and video functions, file sharing, integrations, and more!

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