✨Custom Tabs in Teams 📁➕ and Why They're a Game Changer!

Teams is so much more than chats and meetings—it’s your ultimate work dashboard! Many of my clients tell me they’re missing out on its full potential. Today’s Kari’s Tips & Tricks #111 shows you how to create 💥 Custom Tabs ➕ for files, 📑 sites, and more in Teams. Let’s pin your go-to resources for one-click access!

🎥 Video Is Back! 

You asked - I listened - videos can be suer helpful! 

💥Create Custom Tabs ➕  -  think Spreadsheets,📊SharePoint sites📑,  and more - in Teams...AND WHY?

Time to Read: ~2 min

Got a million links and files scattered across Teams? Have sites and libraries you need to always reference but it's so much clicking to get to it? Or - even remember where it is?  Add a custom tab to pin your go-to resources instantly! Here’s how to Create a Custom Tab in Teams in a snap: 

Why Custom Tabs in Teams? 

Before we know how - this one is important to know WHY?

Teams is your all-in-one hub for collaboration, w...

Confused by Copilot? You're not alone!

I'm sure you've noticed that copilot is everywhere in Microsoft right now. If you're like me - you know it's AI but not exactly sure how it's different than the other tools and how can it help you? We're not going to do a deep dive here yet, but one of the first things you need to know is that there is a FREE and a LICENSED(paid) version.

Free vs. Licensed

First off, if you haven't looked too much into it yet, you may not even know this but there is a free and licensed version of Copilot.  

FREE VERSION - The free version of Copilot is a chat.  It's similar to other AI chat apps you've likely used like Chat GPT or GROK. Copilot is considered the most robust free access to AI, but it does have a Microsoft lens. It can also be accessed at https://copilot.microsoft.com/ 

PAID VERSION - The paid version of Copilot is fully integrated into your M365 apps. There are multiple types of subscriptions available which I won't get into. 

Which Version D...

How to Retire a Team

Teams are meant to be fluid and not necessarily all permanent. Although you will likely have the long-standing teams like your department teams, you will likely have some teams that run their course.  What do you do when you have a team you no longer need anymore? Maybe it's a project, maybe it's a conference that's over or something that's no longer relevant. You have some choices when you want to retire a team.

You have 3 choices.

1. Hide the team.You can keep the team if you think you may want to refer back to it or it may be relevant again, in that case you can Hide it.
2. Archive the team. In the case where you don't need it anymore, you can archive it. You can still get it back if you need, but it's not just hidden, it would need to be restored. 
3. Delete the team. If you don't ever need access to it again, you should delete it. If you delete it, it's gone once it's out of the deleted items folder.  

1. Hide a Team

When you hide a team, it's only for you...

The New Teams Calendar

The NEW Teams calendar rolled out in January, 2025. The new calendar integrates the feature of the Outlook calendar into Teams, for more consistentency across the apps. 

Enable the New Calendar View

Go to your calendar in Teams and toggle on the New Calendar. 

A Couple of Key Features 

Updated Views 

• Month View - especially useful for users with sparse calendars.
• Split View - when more than one calendar is selected, you can now split the calendar into two independent views.
• Time Scale - specify time scales or intervals for the calendar surface.
• Saved Views - save your current view for easy access later
• Weather Display: See your current location's weather in the calendar

Filtering

• Filter by type of events
  

View Shared Calendars 

View colleague calendars available in Outlook. Click on People's calendar to view other's calendars available in Outlook.

Improved Meeting Details

When viewing prior meetings, you will see recaps and additi...

Renaming the General Channel in Teams

In every team, there was always one default channel, named General.  This was intended to be the main place where conversations and activity took place. As Teams evolved, Microsoft realized that people used Teams so differently that General didn't always apply.  So now you can rename the General channel and give your main channel a more meaningful name making it more intuitive to organize and navigate in Teams. 

How to Rename the General Channel

1. Go to your Team and click on the General channel and hover next to it and click on the ... and select Edit channel.

2. In the window, type in a new name for the channel.

New Teams and First Channel

When you create a new team, you will be prompted to give the first channel a name, it won't automatically name it General anymore.

Teams: The Chat Details Pane

Since I'm in the business of learning - there are 2 ways you can learn this tip #1 - Read the step by steps with screenshots or #2 - watch the video (or #3 - both 😊)

Same Chat, More Deets

The Chat Details Pane is new as of October 2024. It's one of the more useful new features, honestly.  If you've been using Teams a while, some of your chats, like mine are REALLY REALLY long. Also, the nature of a chat is there are lots of short replies.  When you need to find something, it can be frustrating...and take a LOOONNNGGG time to scroll and find files or pinned messages. 

Enter...the Chat Details Pane

The Chat Details Pane is a small little icon in the upper right hand corner of your chat window.

Click on it...and ta-da...the Chat Details Pane shows up on the right side of your screen. It's a toggle so you can toggle it on and off as needed.

What's in the Chat Details Pane

• Files sent in the chat.
• Pinned messages.
• A place to search for content.
...

Using the New Whiteboard in Teams

Here's a great 1 minute video that shows you all the cool things you can do with the NEW Whiteboard. 

I case you have a problem playing it - you can also use this link.

There's a brand new interface for the Whiteboard in Teams. In my video you can see how to easily add a tab within your channel for the Whiteboard.

The whiteboard is also available in chats.

Add a Whiteboard to your Channel

1. Click in the channel, click the + across the top.
   
   
2. In the App window, select Whiteboard.
   
   
3. Name the Whiteboard with a unique name or use the default name of Whiteboard.
   
   
4. Add contents like notes, images or use one of the cool new templates to structure your content.

Microsoft has a great post about some of the other highlights.

Check it out here

Some of the things I love in the New Whiteboard

• 40+ New Templates
• Sticky Notes
• Insert Images
• New Drawing T

Using Teams to Take Meeting Notes

One of the awesome things about Teams is that it automatically saves you time by having everything all in one place.  Meeting Notes is another one these features that makes taking meeting notes, updating them, distributing and finding them later SO much easier.

How to Use Team's Meeting Notes 

1. Select a meeting in your Team's calendar and click on Chat with Participants.
   
   
   
2. In the Chat window, click Meeting Notes.
   
   

TEAMS NEW FEATURE: Reply to a Specific Text in a Chat

One thing that can be challenging about new subscription based software like Office 365 is that new features get rolled out and you don't even know it.  There are places you can look but most of us don't check it out. Sometimes these are backend things that don't make a big difference to users  - but this is kind of a cool one!

Let me set the scene.

When you're part of a chat with lots of activity, especially lots of chats all happening at the same time, sometimes it can be hard to know what people are replying to. This feature allows us to specifically reply to a message in a text.

You can click the ... after a message and choose Reply.

When you reply, it copies the message and displays it with your reply.

Do You Use Version History in Teams?

If you share files in teams - you need to know about version history. Version history allows you to roll back to a previous version of a document that's shared in a channel. It's turned on automatically - you just have to know it's there. And the secret? MOST users have no idea it even exists. So here's what you need to know.

What is Version History?

Version history is the automatic saved versions of the files stored within each channel.

Why is it AWESOME??

The biggest reason it's awesome is it's SO EASY and it's most likely AUTOMATIC.  By default this is already turned on and you just don't know about it. (Shameless plug for why training is important ;-) )It allows you to roll back to any prior version of a document so you can easily access and now lose work that may have been changed or deleted. This is probably one of the most asked question in my classes when we talk about collaborating. What if someone deletes or changes something and I wa...