Microsoft Teams Chat
The Chat icon is the second one from the top in the side Menu.
Starting a Chat
To start a chat, you can click on the small icon to the left of the search box and type someone’s email address or name, you can right-click the Chat icon in the side Menu and select “New chat” and type someone’s email or name, or you can search someone’s name or email address in the Search Bar, click on them and a chat log will open up. To send a chat all you have to do is type a message in the box at the bottom of the Staging Area and hit “Enter.”
Group Chats
You can chat with up to 25 people at once and you can start a group chat the same way you start a chat between you can one person by simply typing more names into the “To:” box at the top of the Staging Area. You can also add people to existing chats.
To do this, you click on the icon at the very top right of the Staging Area that looks like people and a plus sign. Once you click it will open a box that says “Add” and all you have to do is type a name(s) or email address(es) and hit add.
*NOTICE*
When you add a person/people to a 1-on-1 chat you have with someone, it will create an entirely new chat log. This is because 1-on-1 chats are considered private chats and therefore the chat history cannot be shared. When you already have a group chat created, and you want to add more people to that group chat, you will now have the option to share chat history with that new person/people. You will have the options to share none of the chat history, some of the chat history based on a number of days or all of the chat history.
You can name group chats to help organize them by clicking on the pencil icon next to everyone’s names at the top of the Staging Area, then simply type a Group name and click “Save.”
Chat Functionalities
Within a chat log you have many different options when it comes to sending chat messages. The row of icons at the bottom of the Staging Area will allow you to do a number of things in the chat such as:
- Format the message
- Attach and send files
- You can choose to upload files from your personal computer or from OneDrive. Once you choose a file(s) to upload you will see the file name(s) appear in the chat box and there will be a green bar that will load directly underneath the file, once this bar has loaded fully and disappeared then you will be able to send the file(s) by pressing “Enter.”
- Send emojis
- Send gifs
- Send stickers
- Quick invite to a Teams meeting
- You can quickly set up a Teams Meeting with the person/group you are chatting with
Mentions
You can direct a message to someone specific in Teams by using the “@” symbol and typing the person’s name. This is called “Mentioning,” Teams will populate names as you type, and you can choose the person from that list. You will notice that the person’s name is now a purple color. Once you send the message the person will get a notification that someone has Mentioned them and they will know the message is directed to them.
Pinning Chats
In the content list on the side you will see at the top below the bolded word that says “Chat” you will see a small “Recent” above the chats that you’ve sent. By default, MS Teams sorts chats from most recent to least recent, but if you feel like there are chats that are more important than others, or chats that you need to stay on top of you have the ability to pin chats to the top of the Content List area. You can do this by clicking the three dots that appear when you hover your mouse over a chat in the Content List and selecting “Pin.”
Quick Collaboration in Chat
In the top right of the Staging Area you will see three purple icons if you are using the desktop version, and two purple icons if you are using the web version. These icons are a quick way to video conference, audio conference, and share your screen, with a person/people in a chat. The first icon, the camera, if you click it, will start a video conference with the person/people in the chat. The second icon, the phone, will start an audio Teams call with the person/people in the chat. The third icon, available only in the desktop version, is the icon that will start a video conference session in which you will have the ability to share your screen.
If you video, audio or screen share call with someone or someone calls you all these calls can be answered in all versions of Teams. You can answer a Teams audio or video call in the web or mobile versions of Teams no matter what version of Teams that the call originated from.