✨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...

Tricks to Save Time Writing Emails

Most people are going to think we're referring to AI but that is not what today's tips and tricks are about. Although using AI to draft complex emails is a GREAT strategy as well. On average, professionals spend 30 minutes drafting more complex emails like proposals or in-depth responses and most professionals draft a few of these per week.  Just think if we were able to cut this time down how much time you could save?!?! 

I've got 2 tricks for you to try!!

Trick #1: My Templates (formerly Quick Parts)

Why do I want to Use My Templates and How Can it Save Me Time?

My Templates (formerly Quick Parts) allows you to Save commonly used chunks of text and/or graphics/pics so you can re-use them and not have to find them to copy or re-type them.

Most of us have phrases or paragraphs of text we use over and over in emails. This could be a short bio about us, a summary of what our organization does or a product it sells, a response to a frequently recei...

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 Chat Tab Changes from Files to Shared 

In a chat, there used to be a Files tab which showed you the shared files. This has been renamed to the Shared tab. It now includes any file that has been shared but also includes any links (which is SUPER helpful). As I noted last week, the longer you have used Teams, the longer your chats are - so any easy way to find things is a TIME SAVER! 

Shared Tab

1. Select any chat.

2. Click on the Shared tab. It shows all the files and links shared in your chat as well as who shared them and the date they were shared. Additionally, (especially if the list is long) you can filter by files, recent or links. It is also searchable using Filter by keywords.  

3. When you select a file or link, you will see a ribbon with additional opens like, Copy link, Download, or Open. 

4. You could also hover over the chat bubble and click to go back to that spot in the chat.