Microsoft Teams: Working as a Team Online
In Microsoft Teams, you can create different spaces (called “teams”) to collaborate with others or to organize part of your online teaching. When you create an online team, you must invite the appropriate people to join it. A team offers a variety of features:
- A group chat, chats in different channels
- Phone or video conferences with up to 250 participants (screen sharing available)
- Collaborating on Files
External individuals and students can also collaborate on a team. Prerequisite: a Microsoft account.
- Full-time staff and adjunct faculty members at the University of Bamberg (automatically, without the need to apply), with the exception of staff at affiliated institutes such as LIfBi, ifb, etc.
- All students at the University of Bamberg (automatically, without having to apply), regardless of whether they use Office 365 or the alternative email system
- Part-time employees, ifb staff, and doctoral candidates can activate access to Microsoft Teams on their own via the IAM portal (log-in required)
- External users can be invited using their email address, but they need a Microsoft account to access the service
Microsoft Teams is suitable for both teaching and collaboration within and across organizational units.
- A seminar can be held as a videoconference in which students give presentations, followed by a discussion involving all participants.
- Similarly, within a seminar, participants can engage in collaborative discussions—via text, audio, and video—in smaller groups within individual channels of a team. The results from each group can then be presented and discussed together in a “plenary” session.
- Consultations with individuals or entire groups can be held within Microsoft Teams.
- Microsoft Teams is also an excellent complement to the Virtual Campus, providing a way to hold “Q&A sessions” for pre-recorded lectures.
A number of features are not included in the University of Bamberg’s Teams license or are currently unavailable for technical reasons. Some of these features would require all staff and student accounts to be fully migrated to Office 365. However, staff email accounts are to remain on the local Exchange server at the university’s IT Service. Work is ongoing to expand the capabilities of Microsoft Teams, but this requires technical adjustments to the existing infrastructure.
The following are currently not available in Microsoft Teams at the University of Bamberg:
- Live events: Not included in the University of Bamberg's license; there are currently no plans to acquire such a license. Please use OpenCast live streaming feature.
- Calendar tab in Teams: Requires adjustments to the university's local Exchange Server; work is currently underway.
- Updating Your Profile Picture: Unfortunately, this cannot be done directly due to technical limitations, as staff email accounts are hosted locally and this feature requires an Office 365 mailbox. However, you can sign in using the Teams app on your smartphone and update your profile picture there. It may take some time for the update to become visible everywhere. Please respect copyright laws.
- Phone dial-in for audio conferences: Requires additional licensing and activation. A campus license is too expensive, and distributing individual licenses is too cumbersome.
- File uploads in chat: This requires additional licensing for staff, which unfortunately is not currently available. File sharing within a team is unrestricted; only direct chat is affected.
Use Microsoft Teams Without Installing It
The Microsoft Teams web client at https://teams.microsoft.com is a full-featured client that offers nearly the same functionality as the respective installed applications. An example of a feature available only in the Teams desktop client is “Mute background noise.” The web client supports calls and meetings using WebRTC, so no plug-in or download is required to run Teams in a web browser. The browser must be configured to allow third-party cookies.
Recommended browsers: Google Chrome (version 72 or later); Microsoft Edge (Chrome-based version)
| Browser | Calls – Audio, Video, and Sharing | Conferences – Audio, Video, and Sharing |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Edge | Fully supported | Fully supported |
| Instructions for Using MS Teams via the Edge browser | ||
| Google Chrome | Fully supported | Fully supported |
Install Microsoft Teams on a computer, tablet, or smartphone
You can find the Microsoft Teams app for Android in the Google Play Store or by scanning the QR code, which you can open with a compatible app on your Android smartphone or tablet.
Note: Microsoft's official support is limited to the four most recent major versions of Android. When a new major version of Android is released, the new version and the three previous versions are officially supported.
You can find the Microsoft Teams app for iOS/iPadOS in the Apple App Store, or you can open the link using the QR code below directly through the device's built-in Camera app on your iPhone or iPad.
Note: Microsoft's official support is limited to the two most recent major versions of iOS. When a new major version of iOS is released, the new version and the two previous versions are officially supported.
Microsoft Teams is available for macOS (version OS Sequoia 15 and later).
Microsoft Teams is no longer supported by Microsoft and can only be used via the web interface:
Windows computers installed and managed centrally by the IT department
Install NewTeams from Microsoft via the Softwarecenter.
Windows computers not centrally managed by the IT department
Microsoft's official MS Teams downloadpage (Teams for Work, School, and College)
More Information About Microsoft Teams
Saving and Deleting Files in Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams accesses the SharePoint folder in M365.
Files that you share in a channel are saved in your team's SharePoint folder. You can find these files under the Files tab at the top of each channel. You can also delete files from there (all team members have permission to do so).
Files you share in a private or group chat are only shared with the people in that conversation. You can find these files on the Files tab at the top of the chat. A file can be deleted by the person who shared it in the chat.
Prevent participants from starting a video meeting
You can prevent people with the Member role in a channel from starting a meeting (in this case, members cannot create chat messages, but they can reply to them). This prevents participants from starting a video meeting—which would assign them the role of Organizer—and forces instructors to first designate them as Moderators so they can present course content.
The settings for this vary depending on the type of channel:
- General Channel: Under Manage Channel, select the option Only owners can post messages.
- Dedicated channel for the synchronous session: For example, create a channel named “_Lecture” and, under Manage Channel, select the On option under Channel Moderation.
Transcription Feature in Microsoft Teams
To use the transcription feature, please note the following:
- The transcription language must be changed again for each meeting. By default, it is set to English and cannot be changed at the administrative level for our organization.
- When you start a recording, the transcription also begins at the same time. If you only want to record, you must stop the transcription after the recording has started.
- You can download the transcript in scheduled meetings. For spontaneous, ad hoc meetings, the download link is removed once the meeting ends. In these cases, be sure to save the transcript before ending the meeting.
- The finished transcript cannot be viewed directly in Teams; it can only be viewed live during the meeting or via the downloaded file.
As a participant, you can hide your identity in the transcript by disabling the corresponding option under “Subtitles and Transcripts” in the client settings. You will then appear as “Speaker 1,” etc., instead of your actual name.
Background in Corporate Design for Meetings
To protect your privacy, you can use a background in Microsoft Teams or Zoom.
Save the background you want by right-clicking on one of the images below and saving the file to your computer. Then select the background in the program.
