Microsoft Teams For Dummies. Rosemarie Withee

      IN THIS CHAPTER

      

Finding Microsoft Teams on the Internet

      

Figuring out where to sign up and sign in

      

Gaining a general understanding of Teams

      

Getting familiar with basic Teams terminology

      I admit that when I first heard about Microsoft Teams, I was not very impressed. The market was already filled with chat programs. Microsoft even purchased the most popular one, Skype! So why did Microsoft decide to create more software that was redundant? Well, that was a few years ago, and since then, I have experienced firsthand the vision Microsoft had for Teams, what it has become, and why it has surpassed SharePoint as the fastest growing product in Microsoft’s history.

      In this chapter, you see what makes Teams so special and why it’s become the fastest growing product in Microsoft history. First, you get up and running with the Teams app in a quick tutorial that helps you find the Teams app online. You then find out how to sign up and sign in. After that, you take a quick spin around the Teams interface and learn some of the basic Teams terminology.

Getting Started with the Teams App

Microsoft Teams is available either as a free, stand-alone app that you can download from the Internet, or as part of a bundle of software, such as Microsoft 365 and Office 365. The free, no-commitment version of Teams offers such features as unlimited messages and search capabilities, 10GB of shared storage across the app, and audio and video calls between members. The more robust version of Teams is available through a subscription to Microsoft 365 or Office 365 and provides all of those features as well as a whole host of other. They would include 1TB of storage per organization, Exchange email hosting, access to OneDrive, SharePoint, and other Office 365 services, enhanced security features, and 24/7 phone and web support among other administrative tools. You can find details about the differences between the various Teams versions at https://products.office.com/microsoft-teams (see Figure 1-1).

      

Microsoft 365 and Office 365 are similar umbrella marketing terms for a bundle of subscription services. Office 365 is focused on Office products, while Microsoft 365 includes additional subscriptions such as Windows and Microsoft’s cloud-based mobile device management service called Intune. The Office 365 subscription includes services like SharePoint, Word, Excel, Teams, and many others. The Microsoft 365 subscription is a bigger umbrella that includes these Office 365 products and other products like Windows, Intune, and more.

      FIGURE 1-1: The differences between the free version and paid version of Microsoft Teams.

      Getting Teams for free

      You can sign up for Teams for free without buying the Microsoft 365 or Office 365 bundle. You won’t get all the integrations and benefits Microsoft 365 and Office 365 provide, but you will get Teams.

To sign up for the free version of Microsoft Teams, follow these steps:

      1 Open your favorite web browser and go to https://products.office.com/microsoft-teams.

      2 Click the Sign Up For Free button.

      3 Enter your email address and either sign in with your existing Microsoft account or create a new one.If this is the first time you are using a Microsoft service, you will be asked to verify your email address. A code will be sent to your email address and you will be asked to enter that code.Once you verify your account (or sign in with your existing account), you will be asked to either download the Teams app to your local computer or use the web-based version as shown in Figure 1-2. For this example, I chose the web version.FIGURE 1-2: Choosing the option to use the web-based version of Teams.

      4 Click the option to use the web-based version.Your web browser will refresh and sign you in to the main Teams web application located at https://teams.microsoft.com.A message will then display letting you know how to invite people to join your team, as shown in Figure 1-3.

      5 Click Got It to then be taken to your new Teams workspace in your web browser, as shown in Figure 1-4.Congratulations! You are now using Microsoft Teams for free.

      FIGURE 1-3: Loading the web-based version of Teams for the first time after verifying your email address.

      FIGURE 1-4: The main Teams app running in a web browser.

When you invite guest users to your Teams channel, they will go through a very similar process as you just went through to sign in to Teams. However, instead of having to navigate to the Microsoft Teams website, they will get an email inviting them to join your Teams channel. External access is a popular topic; I cover it in depth in Chapter 7.

      

I have found the value of Teams comes from how it integrates and works with other Microsoft software, such as Office. For this reason, I recommend using Teams with Microsoft 365 or Office 365 instead of as a stand-alone free chat app. I talk about accessing Teams through these subscription-based services next.

      Getting Teams through Office 365

      You can sign up for Teams by signing up for Office 365. Office 365 offers a free trial, so you can get started with it without having to pay up front. Here's how:

      1 Open your favorite web browser and navigate to www.office.com.

      2 Click the Get Office button, as shown in Figure 1-5.To get Teams, you will need a business plan subscription. (The personal plans do not include Teams.)FIGURE 1-5: The main office.com landing page.

      3 Click the For Business tab to see the available business plans, as shown in Figure 1-6.You can choose between the Office 365 Business Essentials plan or the Office 365 Business Premium plan, which includes the latest Office clients like Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint. For this example, I chose the Office 365 Business Premium plan.

      4 Scroll to the bottom of the page and click the “Try free for 1 month” link under the Office 365 Business Premium plan.

      5 Provide