Microsoft Teams


Microsoft Teams is a single hub to collaborate in real-time on documents, chat, meet online and integrate with educational apps.


With Microsoft Teams on your PC, Mac, or mobile device, you can:

  • Pull together a team.
  • Use chat instead of email.
  • Securely edit files at the same time.
  • See likes, @mentions, and replies with just a single tap.
  • Customize it by adding notes, web sites, and apps.

Getting Started

Signing In

  1. Click the Sign In button above.
    • If you are currently logged into another Microsoft system using Microsoft Azure Active Directory, you will be directed to Microsoft Teams web experience.

      Safari Users:
        If you are using Safari, you will see the Teams preview in the web browser and it will urge you to download the app for the best experience.

      If you want to use Teams in Safari while Safari browser support is in preview, go to  Preferences > Privacy and uncheck the Prevent cross-site tracking setting. Then, close your browser and navigate back to teams.microsoft.com in Safari.
    • If you are not logged in to a system using Microsoft Azure Active Directory:
      1. At the Microsoft Sign in page, enter you SMU email address. For example, cuser@smu.edu.
      2. Click Next.
      3. You will be redirected to the Microsoft Azure Active Directory page. Enter your SMU email address for your Username and your SMU password.
      4. Click Login.
      5. Duo logon is required for Microsoft Azure Active Directory. When you get the push notification on your device, accept it.
      6. You can then choose to stay signed in. Click the "Don't show this again" checkbox if you would like Microsoft to remember you. Do not do this on publicly accessable computers. Choose Yes or No.
      7. You will be redirected to the Microsoft Teams web experience.

Obtaining the Microsoft Teams Client

While Microsoft Teams is accessible anywhere using a web browser, a desktop client is also available for download. Clients are available for Mac, PC, iOS, and Android!

Download Now


What is Microsoft Teams?

Microsoft provides a ten-part training series that allows you to immediately dive into all Teams has to offer.


Documentation and Training

Microsoft Teams Guides

Video Tutorials

Training


Frequently Asked Questions

No. All members of a Team can see all channels. Chats can be private among some members, however.

The best way to notify a Team member of new content would be to tag that team member with an @ symbol.

Guest accounts have some limitations within Teams.

No. Many of the voice features within Teams requires Skype Online, which is not currently licensed for the SMU tenant. Enterprise Voice features are coming, utilizing Skype for Business on premises via the Phone Replacement Project.

Microsoft Teams in Office365 shares the smu.edu namespace with other campus services, including email. The prefix is required to differentiate Office365 Groups (which is the foundation for Teams) from security and distribution groups, as well as to avoid conflicts with campus user email addresses.

Microsoft accepts submissions via UserVoice. Here you can submit suggestions, and upvote existing recommendations for product enhancements.

Microsoft provides publically available video training for MS Teams users.

See this link for a summary of Team creation options for SMU’s EDU tenant.

This link is updated by Microsoft with a list of known issues for MS Teams.

Here’s how you change your team’s privacy setting:

  1. Click the ellipses next to the team name and choose “Edit Team”.
  2. A pop up box will appear and there will be a drop-down menu labeled “Privacy.”
  3. Then you can select Private or Public for the team’s discoverability setting.

This link provides a list of what’s new in MS Teams.

MS Teams (and Groups) at SMU have a one-year expiration policy. Teams owners have an option to renew Teams, and will receive an email notification 30, 15 and 1 day(s) prior to expiration. Once a Team expires, owners have an additional 30 days to recover deleted items. Please contact the OIT Help Desk for assistance with recovery.

Files shared in private chats are stored in the OneDrive belonging to the user who shared the file. Files uploaded to the Teams channels are stored in the corresponding Group’s SharePoint instance. When a Team is deleted, users will have access to the content they shared in private chat (via OneDrive), but not the channel content.

No. You can invite an outside party into Teams, and Teams will bring them in as guests. Guests have almost the same access as SMU members of a Team. They can add files, comment, chat, and work on other integrations in your Team.

Currently, our account termination process removes membership of on-premises security and distribution groups, but does not do the same for Office 365 Groups and Teams. If a member of your Office 365 has changed roles or ended employment, you must manually remove them as a Team member.