Dnd tips
Get an email address for your channel
Once a channel a created you can post new messages into the channel Posts tab, directly from Outlook. For that you’ll need to locate your channel email address as following:
- Locate your channel and hit on the More Options button next to it.
- Hit Get email address.
- Copy the email address and add it as a Contact in Outlook
- Side notes:Teams Owners can determine whom can send emails to the channel (by clicking the Advanced Settings button). You can
Use Teams in Together Mode
A relatively new capability of Teams is to allow meetings in Together Mode. Instead of displaying all meeting participants’ camera feeds in the grid (gallery) view, you can show them side by side in a virtual setting (think classroom, library, movie theater etc’). To enable Together mode you’ll need to first update Teams (hit your avatar, then Check for Updates). Then hit your avatar and hit Settings. In the general tab, check the New experience box: Then in your meeting panel, hit the … button and select Together Mode. Note that if you work in a large cooperation, you might not be able to manually update Microsoft Teams on your own. You might need to discuss enabling Together Mode with your Information Technology admin.
Manually setting your online status to be always available / active
By default, your Teams online presence is synchronized with your Microsoft Outlook Calendar events and reflects the actual status of your operating system (whether it is used or idle). It is also set automatically to do not disturb when you share your screen or make a call. That says, Teams allows you to manually set your online status very easily and set it to available, busy, away or offline as needed. Here’s the tutorial for manually setting your Teams availability status.
Set your status (/dnd) , (/brb), (/available)
Want to manually set your status, so others know when to contact you. This can be done from the Teams settings, but as you gain more experience with Teams, you will start setting your status from the Search box. Simply use /dnd for Do not Disturb or /brb for Be Right Back and hit Enter. Your status will change. Just remember to reset your status as needed.
Use a custom virtual background
I guess you have noticed people joining Teams video calls using city or nature landscapes as backdrops for their video calls. You can use pretty much every picture as a custom background in Teams calls. Feel free to look into our simple guide on how to setup virtual Teams backgrounds for your call.
Set an Away message
Same as in Outlook, Teams allows you to compose an Out-of-the Office away message that will be sent if someone sends you a message in Teams or mentions you in a chat. Simply hit your Teams avatar, the hit the Set status Message, then write your message and specify the validity period. Hit Done and you’ll be all set.
Using Filters to find stuff quickly
Want to speed up finding specific Activities in your feed as well as specific Chats, Teams and Channels? Use the Teams filter (shown below) or use the Ctrl+Shift+F shortcut. The filter function allows to quickly find relevant entry by name; for Chats it also allow to quickly find muted, hidden and unread entries with ease.
Cancel read receipts
By default, every time you read a message in the Chat application, Teams places a small icon next to the message. This helps the sender acknowledge that you have read their message. You can cancel read receipts in the Privacy tab of your Teams Settings.
Leave a Team
If you see no benefit in being part of a team, you can easily exit. Hit the More Options button next to the team you would like to leave and pick Leave the Team.
Mute notifications from noisy channels
These days, we all seem to be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of incoming notifications from collaboration platforms and email. It’s often difficult to actually produce something meaningful beyond never ending chattiness . Luckily, Teams makes it relatively simple for us to calibrate the influx of notification alerts and sounds we get. Here’s a guide on how to mute Teams chat and meeting alerts.