This is a quick overview of the different areas of the Microsoft Teams App. These areas are accessed using the icons down the left side of the application window.
Activity:
This is a record of your use history in Teams. You can use this timeline to review your interactions with other team members.
Chat:
You can use chats to have private text-based discussions or ask questions of one or more team members. To start a chat with a specific team member just type the '@' followed immediately by their name or email address. This will invite them to a new chat. You can switch your chat to a 'Call' by clicking the video or phone icon in the top right corner of the chat if you want to talk or have a face-to-face meeting.
Teams:
Teams are the collaboration hub of the Teams app. A team is made up of a group of people who are connected by a specific project or division within the organization. This is a place for discussion, sharing of files, host team meetings. All the activity in the Team is available to all the team members.
Channels:
Channels are sub-discussions or groups within a Team. This is a way to organize your collaboration efforts. If your team has been created for a specific event, your members will be assigned to complete different tasks for the event. You would create channels for these sub-groups to discuss their specific tasks so the team would not have to skip through all the discussion about the food and catering to find out the latest information and update on the speaking schedule.
Calendar:
The calendar is where you will find and schedule meetings with your teams and team members. This is integrated with your Outlook calendar as well. When you schedule a meeting and invite attendees the meeting will be added to your calendar and an invitation will be sent to everyone you have invited to the meeting. This makes it easy for attendees to join your meeting because they will get a notification from their calendar with a link to join the meeting. You can also click the meeting in the calendar to see the details of the meeting and there is a 'Join' button displayed in the top right corner to make it easy to join the meeting.
Calls:
Calls are video or audio calls with team members. Calls and chats are similar because they make it easy to talk and type during a call. When you call a team member you are initiating a one-on-one interaction but once the call has started you can invite other team members into the call as needed. You can also open a chat window to pass along information in a text message or to share a document with the team members on the call.