IT and Library Services

Teams FAQ

Answers to your frequently asked questions about Microsoft Teams.

If you have a question about Teams which isn't shown here, then please get in touch with us via the IT Service Desk.

Joining a Teams Meeting - How do I log in and join?

Students, Staff and Affiliates must use their university log-in details to join a Teams meeting. If you have previously logged in with an alternative email address, please log out of Teams and re-join using your username@gre.ac.uk to make sure you can join the meeting.

If your meeting is going to be recorded you may contact the meeting organiser before the meeting and ask to remain anonymous. Further information on Teams Anonymity and Opting-Out is available on our webpages.

Guests and visitors may join the Teams meeting by selecting Join Microsoft Teams Meeting in the calendar invitation or clicking on the link provided.

Joining a Teams Meeting - My Meeting Link Doesn't Work

Teams does not support older web browsers like Safari or some versions of Internet Explorer. If your meeting link does not work please try using Chrome or the new Microsoft Edge.

How do I access Teams training and support?

Up to date training videos and support documents are available from Microsoft Teams Support including:

  • Microsoft Teams training
  • Guidance from the people who design and build Teams
  • What's New
  • Tips, Quick Starts and Cheat Sheets

Is there any university specific support for Teams?

The university Microsoft 365 webpages include a dedicated Teams support page, with information on installing and using Teams, chat, meeting and conference guidance as well as good practice, governance and information on using Teams for Education.

During term time, Staff and Students can visit the Teams Launch Support Team, which offers a space to experiment and find out about features in Microsoft Teams. This is supported by Information & Library Services (ILS) and Greenwich Learning & Teaching (GLT).

All staff can share tips for using Teams via #TopTips for #Teams on Yammer. If you have a tip to share please head over to Yammer and join in the conversation.

Can I store university data in Teams?

Following additional infrastructure and system changes made by ILS to make university governed cloud storage even more stable and secure, the Data Storage under Data Classification table has been updated, and university data may now be stored in Microsoft 365, including Teams and OneDrive for Business.

Non-university storage such as Google Drive or DropBox must not be used to store university data.

Data security is important to us all at Greenwich, and IT system security improvements have reduced the risk of data security breaches. However, data security is everyone's responsibility, see our Information Security pages for steps you can take to protect yourself, your devices and your data.

Can I add members to a Team/Channel using lists?

You can add groups of individuals to a Team or a Channel using distribution lists or contact groups. However, the membership of the Team will not update automatically if the distribution list or contact group membership is updated once the Team has been created. However, Team members are only automatically removed when their university access is removed at the end of their employment or studies at the university.

For example, you use a university generated distribution list set up for your department to create a Department Team. The Team is created and a new starter joins your department. The new starter will need to be manually added to the Team. Similarly, when someone leaves your department to move to another area of the university they will need to be manually removed from the Team.

I'm a group owner, how does that fit in Microsoft 365?

If you manage a group or distribution list, where you are the group owner and regularly add and remove members, you may wish to set this up as a Team so that you can manage and communicate more effectively with your group and to take advantage of the range of collaboration opportunities within Teams.

What do the different levels of Privacy for Teams mean?

When you create a Team you can select its Privacy level, either Public or Private:

  • Public - Anyone in your organisation can join.
  • Private - Only team owners can add members.

Public Teams

Staff, Students and some Affiliates can access all Public groups within the university Office 365 environment, so it is important to make sure that Public Teams are only created when all of the data held within the team should be shared with everyone.

Private Teams

Membership of Private Teams are controlled by the Team owner(s). Private Teams can be made up of a mix of Staff, Students and Affiliates, as well as Guests,

Remember:

  • check the privacy status and membership of a Team before you share any sensitive information in the Team.
  • double check the identify of individuals before adding them to a Team.
  • manage membership of teams for student members of staff carefully, use their student User ID for teaching and student support related teams, and use their staff User ID for staff Teams.

Teams Meeting - How do I change Meeting Options?

Once you have created the meeting, you can change participant settings for a Teams meeting via Meeting Options. We recommend that you set the meeting options to "People in my organisation" to ensure university staff and students can access the meeting directly using their university account, and any external attendees wait in the lobby until they are approved to join the meeting.

Meeting Videos: How do I change who can view my recording?

You can change who can view and edit your Stream video. It is important to note that if you select Allow everyone in your company to view this video, all staff and students will be able to view your recording.

Just like our other documents, Teams Meetings recordings must be stored with the correct level of protection, by following our data classification policy.

Meeting Videos: Why aren't Transcripts showing on my recordings?

Automatic captions and transcripts will be created for your Microsoft Stream videos if your language is set to "US English" see these instructions on how to generate automatic captions and a transcript for your Microsoft Stream videos.