Messaging

Overview

There are two main options for sending/receiving messages within Microsoft Teams:

Post messages within a Team Channel. (Note: You must be a member of a team in order to post to one of its channels.)
Participate in one-on-one and group chats outside of an existing Team.

Messages within a Team’s Channel are called Posts and can be viewed by anyone in the Channel.

Creating a New Post

Click Teams in the left sidebar.
Find the team that you would like to interact with in the left-hand Teams menu and click on the Channel where you would like to post.
Make sure the Posts tab is selected at the top of the Channel window.
Use the text box at the bottom of the window to prepare a new message. When you are ready, click Send (). If you’d like to tag someone in your message, simply type the @ symbol and their name (e.g. @JohnJumbo) then select them from the popup menu.

Responding to a Post

To respond to someone else’s post, you can simply create a new post using the directions described above. You can also move your mouse over a post and use one of the available emojis or additional options.

reacting to a post using one of the emoji options

Threads

If you wish to respond to someone’s post while creating a separate thread within the conversation, click the Reply option under their post and compose your message.

Replying to a post to create a new thread

As people continue to reply to each other within the thread, it creates a side conversation. The main conversation and any other threads can still continue on as usual. To hide this side conversation, click the Collapse all button.

Sample thread with Collapse all option called out

Chatting Outside of a Team

Finding an Existing Chat

Select Chat from the left sidebar.
Click on one of the existing chats in the left-hand Chat menu to view it. This list will include one-on-one and group chats outside of your Teams, as well as chat logs from virtual meetings.

Starting a New Chat

Select Chat from the left sidebar.
Click the pencil icon () toward the top of the Teams window.
A new message page will load. In the To field, type the name of a person you’d like to chat with. Suggestions will appear from the Tufts Directory. Multiple people can be added this way.
Use the text box at the bottom of the chat window to prepare a new message. If you’d like to tag someone in your message, simply type the @ symbol and their name (e.g. @JohnJumbo) then select them from the popup menu.
When you are ready, click Send ().

Responding to a Chat

To respond to someone else’s chat, you can simply create a new message using the directions described above. You can also move your mouse over a message and use one of the available emojis or additional options.