How to Create a Team in Microsoft Teams

From the Teams App

To create a new Team from scratch within the Microsoft Teams app, follow these steps:

• Click the Teams tab on the leftmost panel.
• At the bottom of the panel that appears, click ‘Join or Create Team’.
• Options for creating a team will appear as cards in the main panel.
• Click the first option to create a new team.

You can create a team from a variety of templates, including from an existing team or Microsoft 365 Group.

Groups can be private (people need an invite to join), public (anyone can join) or organisation-wide (everyone in the organisation joins automatically).

From the Teams Admin Center

Teams administrators can create new Teams at any time without entering the Teams app by navigating to the Teams Admin Center in their browser.

The Teams Admin Center gives admins an overview of all created Teams and allows for bulk management, deletion and archiving, making this a useful option both when first setting up Teams and for quickly handling large tasks like adjusting Team privacy options and assigning member and guest permissions to multiple Teams at once.

To create a new Team from the Teams Admin Center, follow these steps:

• Teams
• Manage Teams
• Add

Setup from the Teams Admin Center is a little different than when creating a Team from within the app.  In-app creation automatically assigns the creator as the group’s owner.  When creating a Team from the Admin Center, administrators can set multiple Team owners and exclude themselves from this list.

 

Why Can’t I Create a Team?

Administrators can impose restrictions on who can create a team.  If you find yourself unable to create a new team, your Teams admin has probably blocked these permissions for you and others in your assigned role.

Since this is roles & permissions-based, you’ll need to contact your administrator and ask them for the required permissions to create a team or ask them to create the new team themselves.

 

How To Generate a Team Code

To generate a code and share it with colleagues so they can join your Team (you can also invite members manually), click through the following from the Teams panel in your Microsoft Teams app:

• Ellipsis icon next to Team name
• Manage Team
• Settings
• Team Code
• Generate

 

The Difference Between Teams and Groups

Since Teams exists as a subsidiary element of Microsoft 365, it’s helpful to understand what happens within 365 when you create a new Team and how the two Admin Centers intersect.

First, for a Team to exist, a corresponding Group must exist within 365.  You’ll notice that when you create a new Team, whether it be from within the app or from the Teams Admin Center, a new Group of the same name is created in 365 automatically.

While Teams function specifically within the Microsoft Teams app, Groups operate on a broader scale.  Any Team actually exists within the umbrella of its larger Microsoft 365 Group.  In other words, all Teams are Groups, but not all Groups are Teams.

Members of a Group will all, for example, receive emails sent to the collective email for the group (these email addresses are created for the group automatically when you create a new Team).  Members also have shared access to other services including a shared calendar and shared files.

When creating a Group, you can specify that you want to add Microsoft Teams to it, but, as a prerequisite, all owners of the Group must have a license that includes Microsoft Teams.

 

Adding Guests to Your Team

You can add people to a Team from outside your organization by adding a member and typing their email address into the invite field (as opposed to their Teams username).

The guest will receive an email alerting them that they have been invited as a guest to your Team.  Crucially, though not a member of your organization, this person must be a part of some other organization with Teams.  If they are not an existing Teams user, they won’t be able to become a guest member of your Team.

 

Meetings and Phone Calls with External Parties

Enabling telephony within Teams is a tricky subject that we’ve spent a lot of time dissecting.

The short of it is that the most cost-effective business solution consists of a third-party Direct Routing service for Teams, rather than using Microsoft’s own expensive calling plans and under-featured phone system.

Luckily, we provide our very own Direct Routing solution offering more inclusive calling plans than Teams (with unlimited minutes to the UK and 54 other countries), more features and easier phone system configuration and management too.  All of this at a better price than Microsoft’s own solutions too.