Tuesday's Tip #87: 4 Tips for Using Teams Channels

One of the things that is unique to Teams is Channels.  Part of the Teams app is being a part of Teams. I'm learning as I work with many organizations, that so many people are not sure how many Teams to create and what channels to use.  The tricky part - there is no RIGHT answer but let me give you a couple of tips.

Let's start by looking at the definition of a channel. 

Teams are made up of channels.  Channels are built around topics. Channels are where you hold meetings, have conversations, and collaborate around files together. For example, if your team represents a department, then a channel could be a project within that department or it could be an initiative for that department.  You don't want too many channels but you also don't want too few channels.  Keep in mind you can hide channels and create private channels. 

1. Pin Channels.
   If your are members of a lot of Teams and those teams have a lot of channels, pinning is a really great and easy way to keep your eyes on active or important channels.
   
   
2. Channel Notifications.
   Depending on how active your channels are, sometimes the notifications can be too much. Setting custom channel notifications is a great way to get notified about the channels you care about but to limit the "noise" of the channels you don't need to keep a pulse on.
   
   
3. Private Channels.
   Private channels allow you to create a channel with a subset of people on a Team. The nice thing about this - it can keep you from creating another team. Also, private channels are not visible to anyone except the people that are part of them.
   
   
4. Channel Calendar.
   The channel calendar is a tab you can add within a channel where you can view all the meetings for that channel. When you create a meeting you can simply add a channel and everyone will see it in their calendar.
      

Interested in Teams training for your organization?  Reach out and let's chat.