Microsoft Teams

Griffith uses Microsoft Teams to foster collaboration and host online classes. You can use Teams in your browser (Microsoft Support) or download the app (Microsoft Support) to your desktop or mobile by logging in with your Griffith email address and Single Sign On.

For information on how to get the most out of Teams in your classes, see Teaching with Teams.

For more information on Teams, including setting up meetings and managing recordings, see:

• Preparing online classes
• Delivering online classes with Microsoft Teams
• Managing class recordings

Accessing Teams when you are both a student and staff member

If you are both a student and staff member at Griffith, you will have two Microsoft Teams accounts, one for each email address.

The different email address formats:

• Student email address: jane.doe@griffithuni.edu.au
• Staff email address: j.doe@griffith.edu.au

To switch between the two, you will need to fully logout of your Office365/Microsoft session. You may find it easier to have a dedicated space for each account, such as:

• Opening one account in the Microsoft Teams app (Microsoft Support), and the other in your browser
• Utilising separate browsers for the different accounts
• Setting up dedicated profiles within your browser. For guidance on setting these up, How to Use Browser Profiles (External).

Sharing Files and Recordings with Members of Teams

Files and meeting recordings are generally available to all members of a Team - but sometimes, they need to be shared manually.  For instructions on how to adjust sharing permissions, see Share SharePoint files or folders

Adding messages to the Team homepage

The homepage in your Team is a template of a SharePoint page. You could add a message to this page identifying the ways to communicate in the course and the purpose of the Class Team.

1. Open the Team in the Teams Desktop Application or your Teams in your browser
2. Click Home page
3. Click Edit
4. Click or tab to each web part in the template to edit or delete
5. Click and drag web parts to move them
6. To change the column format in a section:
   1. The template uses two columns for the main section
   2. To change to one column, select the section by tabbing or clicking on it
   3. Go to the Section menu to the left of the section
   4. Click Edit section
   5. In the right pane, choose the column format
   6. Click Close in the top right corner of the pane to close the Section pane
7. Click Republish, and Republish again, to save

Managing Teams communications and notifications

Many courses use a Class Team associated with the course’s Teams Meetings. Using a Class Team created in Canvas means:

• Canvas course enrolment and access to the course’s Teams Meetings are in sync; students enrolled in the course will be added as members of the Team and therefore able to join the Teams Meetings
• Recordings and Chat will be accessible to all Team members, therefore all students enrolled in the course

Using Teams sites in teaching means an increase in the number of notifications and emails that both staff and students will receive due to the nature of the tool as a collaboration platform. Some courses might use Teams Meetings for online sessions and Canvas Discussions for communication and collaboration. If so, reducing activity in the Class Team can make communications more manageable for staff and students.

Restricting students posting to the Teams site

Restrict posting in the General Channel

1. Click the More options (3 dots) menu to the right of the General channel
2. Choose Manage channel
3. Select Only owners can post messages

Restrict posting in other Channels

1. Click the More options (3 dots) menu to the right of the channel name
2. Choose Manage channel
3. Change Channel moderation to On
4. Leave Team member all permissions On

Minimising email responses to meeting invites

You can limit the number of emails you receive from students who accept Teams Meetings invites when they have been set up inside the Team or if using Teams Meetings in Canvas > Add Channel option.

On the Meetings Details page on the Teams site:

1. Click Response Options (potentially hidden behind the More options/3 dots menu depending on how the meeting was configured)
2. Untick Request Responses

Minimising Class Teams email correspondence

When users in a Class Team receive email correspondence and click ‘Reply' or 'Reply all’, these replies go to all users within the Class Team (who then may also click ‘Reply All’, and so on) resulting in what’s known as a ‘Reply Storm’.

In an effort to prevent these ‘Reply Storms’, a form has been created for Team Owners to request for group emailing functionality to be switched off for members of a specific Team. This means that group members will be unable to email the entire Team - including by clicking ‘Reply’ or ‘Reply all’

The following functionality will NOT be affected:

• It will NOT prevent members from participating in the Class Teams chat.
• It will NOT prevent calendar initiation / responses from being sent/received.
• It is ONLY for Canvas created Class Teams
• You MUST be an owner of the Canvas created Class Teams to request the setting be updated.

To allow only Team Owners to send emails to their Team, please fill out this form.

Filtering email notifications in your inbox

To reduce the visibility of the emails coming from your Canvas Team sites in Outlook, you can create an Inbox rule (Microsoft Support) to move the emails straight to a folder. Emails from Canvas-created Teams come from @lmsgroups.griffith.edu.au. Create an inbox rule based on Keywords > Sender address.

For more information on Teams, see:

• Preparing online classes
• Delivering online classes with Microsoft Teams
• Managing class recordings