Get people to join you in Microsoft Teams

They send us an email, we respond in Teams. They send us a chat, we respond in Teams. They stop by our desk, we respond in Teams… The last one was a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the point: always bring it back to Teams. Soon, it’ll be a habit, and people will realize that Teams is the best way to reach you.

If you type @ followed by someone’s name, they’ll get a notification that you’re trying to reach them. When they come to Teams, they'll see your message and their own name lit up in bold. Most people on our team like to see their names in lights, so we use a lot of @mentions.

Watch this video for more on @mentions.

One of the biggest benefits of Teams is that it's a central place for your team to talk things through and get things done. Channels are one of the main places that happens. But what do you do when something's being worked out (or has been worked out) in a channel, and someone's asking for the details? Send them a link to the channel, of course!

To get the link, click More options > Get link to channel.

Teams is our workplace. It’s where everything happens: meetings, files, day-to-day conversations, project planning… all of it. When people realize that Teams is where the action is, they want to be a part of it, too.

There are a few ways you can make Teams the center of your team's universe:

• If you schedule your meetings in Outlook, select Teams Meeting in the Outlook toolbar to make sure participants can join in Teams. It's a good habit, especially if anyone's remote or sharing their screen.

• Share files in Teams. When you do, they'll show up in the Files tab of the chat or channel where you uploaded them. They'll also be listed when you select Files on the left side of Teams.

• Lots of apps you already use, like Adobe Creative Cloud, OneNote, and GitHub are in Teams, too. Instead of opening each one individually, bring them into Teams.

Select More options , then More apps on the left side of the app to find admin-approved apps you can use in Teams.

If you own a team in your organization, don't forget to add people to it. People in your org may stumble upon your team, but give them a nudge and add them yourself. Once you add them, they'll get a notification you added them, your team will show up when they log into Teams, and they'll see its activity in their activity feeds.

It's also a nice touch to post a welcome message to a new team member in the General channel, especially if you're trying to encourage participation. @ mention the newcomer and watch others chime in, too.

To invite people to join a team, look next to the team name in the list and select More options > Add members.