How to use it
We strongly recommend using the Teams desktop app on your computer. All computers should already have Teams installed, but if yours doesn’t, please contact the IT team for assistance.
In the meantime, you can access MS Teams through your NHSmail account. Simply open the App Launcher and launch MS Teams on the web.
The instructions below apply to both the Teams desktop and web app!
These are the key tabs in Teams that you need to know about:
1️⃣ Activity
In the Activity tab you can quickly catch up on anything you may have missed. For example, you can see any new posts in your teams or channels, whether someone has @mentioned you somewhere, and any reactions or replies that you’ve had to your messages or posts.
2️⃣ Chat
Chats are the main way of communicating with your colleagues. You can have individual conversations or set-up group chats to collaborate with more people, and make calls / video calls off of chats. You can also pin your most important chats to the top of your Chat tab so that they don’t get lost.
Next to each persons profile picture on Chats there is a small coloured circle - this indicates their current status:
Green circle with tick - they’re currently available
Orange clock face - they’re away from their desk/Teams
Red circle - they’re in a scheduled meeting or on a call
Grey cross - they’re currently offline
3️⃣ Teams
Teams are a way of gathering and organising groups of people. For example, you may be part of a team for the site you work at e.g. Kingfisher Medical Centre, or for your job role e.g. Paramedics, Reception etc. We also have a team for all of Penrose Health, as you can see here ➡️
Teams are made up of channels, which are individual conversations dedicated to different topics. For example, you can see the Penrose Health team has a dedicated Social Channel 🥳 and Just for fun channel.
In general, day-to-day conversations should happen in Chats. Important announcements or conversations that may be important to a big group of colleagues should be posted on a channel.
4️⃣ Calendar
In the Calendar tab you can see all of the events you have scheduled. You can use the arrows in the top left corner of your calendar to navigate to different dates, and click ‘Today’ to return to the current date.
You can also schedule a new meeting using the ‘New meeting’ button in the top right corner of your calendar. You might want to use the scheduling assistant to help you find a time that is suitable for all your attendees.
You can use Teams or Outlook to schedule meetings - because you use the same NHSmail account for both tools, your calendar should be the same on Teams and Outlook. So, use whichever one is easier for you! It should be noted that meetings scheduled in Teams automatically have a Teams video call link included though.