Mastering Microsoft Teams: Creating a Hub for Successful Teamwork in Office 365

By Christina Wheeler and Johnny Lopez

Get the most out of Microsoft Teams with this comprehensive and insightful resource 

Mastering Microsoft Teams: Creating a Hub for Successful Teamwork in Office 365 shows readers how to communicate intelligently and effectively within Microsoft’s powerful Office 365.  This book covers all the topics required for a full and comprehensive understanding of collaborating within the Microsoft suite of software, including: 

• Architecture  
• Implementing Teams  
• Teams and Channels  
• Chats, Calls and Meetings  
• Extending Teams with Custom Apps  
• Conferencing  
• Security and Compliance  
• Best Practices for Organizational Success 

Written for IT administrators, managers, supervisors, and team members who participate or want to participate in a Microsoft Teams environment, Mastering Microsoft Teams introduces readers to the architecture and structure of the software before showing, in a straightforward and simple way, how to optimize the collaboration experience.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wiley
• Release date: Jul 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9781119698036

Book preview

Mastering Microsoft® Teams®

Creating a Hub for Successful Teamwork in Office 365

Christina Wheeler, Microsoft® MVP

Johnny Lopez, Microsoft® MVP

Logo: Wiley

Copyright © 2022 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

ISBN: 978-1-119-69788-6

ISBN: 978-1-119-69806-7 (ebk.)

ISBN: 978-1-119-69803-6 (ebk.)

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Trademarks: WILEY, the Wiley logo, and the Sybex logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its affiliates, in the United States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission. Microsoft and Teams are trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. Mastering Microsoft® Teams® is an independent publication and is neither affiliated with, nor authorized, sponsored, or approved by, Microsoft Corporation.

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2022936104

Cover image: © fizkes/Shutterstock

Cover design: Wiley

This book is dedicated to my amazing daughter, Kiana. You are the most wonderful blessing to ever come into my life. I love you so much and am extremely proud of the amazing woman you have grown to become.

—Christina Wheeler

Acknowledgments

When I was first approached about writing a Teams book, I was hesitant. My biggest concern was that Teams is always changing. The entire Microsoft 365 suite and cloud products in general are ever-changing and evolving. Then it was pointed out that while features change, the concepts remain the same. I thought about it and decided to take it on. This is the first time I've written a book myself, which ended up being challenging due to the current times we are living in. I was thrown a lot of life curve balls and am grateful for Johnny Lopez stepping in to help get this book to the finish line. Speaking of finish line, my biggest thank you goes to my Development Editor, Adaobi Obi Tulton. Adaobi has been my partner through this entire project. She's been my rock, and there's no way I could have done this without her. I really appreciate the patience and hard work she's provided throughout the content and development of this project.

Thank you to my Technical Editor, Jon Buhagiar, for bringing his great perspective and for taking time out of his busy schedule to provide valuable technical feedback on all the chapters. I also want to thank Kenyon Brown, Acquisitions Editor, for reaching out on this proposal and for giving me the opportunity. I'm thankful for his patience and understanding as I went through life challenges that affected the timing of this project. I also want to thank the rest of the Sybex team for making this book possible: Christine O'Connor, Managing Editor; Saravanan Dakshinamurthy, Production Editor; Kim Cofer, Copyeditor; and the Compositors at Sybex.

About the Authors

Photograph of Christina Wheeler.

Christina Wheeler (Microsoft® MVP) is currently a Director of Innovation at Core BTS. Prior to joining Core, she was a Principal Solution Architect for Canviz Consulting. Christina has always had a passion for technology, which started at a young age. At age 11, she used a Texas Instruments TI-99 plugged into a tape deck to copy BASIC code out of a book for hours so she and her brother could play games. At 13, her father taught her how to build computers. Christina initially went to a technical college for graphic design and video production. She worked in the print and marketing world for a while and then shifted to software and web development. She started out as a classic ASP developer in e-commerce then made her way into the auto and mortgage finance industry as a .NET developer. Christina got into the Business Intelligence space when she started filling in for a database administrator role. That's when she started working with Business Objects 6.5 and Crystal Reports. Then came SharePoint and that changed everything. Christina's first SharePoint project was a SharePoint 2001 portal and she's been working with SharePoint ever since.

Christina became a technical trainer when she started teaching for Mindsharp. She taught Todd Bleeker's custom SharePoint Development and SharePoint Web Content Management courses. During her time as an independent consultant, she specialized in Web Content Management (WCM) and built public-facing SharePoint publishing websites for customers. Christina was very good at making SharePoint not look like SharePoint. She also worked as a contracted trainer for Critical Path Training as an on-site and remote instructor for Ted Pattison's SharePoint, Power Apps, Power Automate, and Power BI courses. As a trainer, Christina brings her real-world experience to the classroom. Her publications include contributions as the technical editor of SharePoint 2007 Developer's Guide to Business Data Catalog (www.amazon.com/SharePoint-Developers-Guide-Business-Catalog/dp/1933988819), co-author of the SharePoint 2010 Field Guide (www.amazon.com/SharePoint-2010-Field-Guide-Steven/dp/1118105052), co-author of SharePoint 2013 Inside Out (www.amazon.com/Microsoft-SharePoint-2013-Inside-Out/dp/0735666997), and co-author to Office 365 for IT Pros.

Before COVID-19, Christina traveled an average of 90,000 miles a year speaking at technology conferences around the world. Her last international speaking engagement was in March 2020 at TechDays Finland. She got into paddleboarding and VR fitness as her natural therapy during the pandemic, and her dogs are her constant companions.

Photograph of Johnny Lopez.

Johnny Lopez (Microsoft® MVP) is a Microsoft Certified Trainer and a Principal Consultant at Core BTS on the Modern Workplace team. He is a passionate evangelist who delivers his professional experiences, technical expertise, and real-world Microsoft 365 content services and Power Platform experience to the technology communities. Johnny has been working in the SharePoint community for the last 10+ years. He served 10 years in the U.S. Navy serving on two aircraft carriers (USS Eisenhower and USS Nimitz) as an Electrical Work Center Supervisor. He graduated from the University of Phoenix of Houston in 2011 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Information Systems.

About the Technical Editor

Jon Buhagiar (Network+, A+, CCNA, MCSA, MCSE, BS/ITM) is an information technology professional with two decades of experience in higher education. During the past 22 years he has been responsible for Network Operations at Pittsburgh Technical College and led several projects, such as virtualization (server and desktop), VoIP, Microsoft 365, and many other projects supporting the quality of education at the college. He has achieved several certifications from Cisco, CompTIA, and Microsoft, and has taught many of the certification paths. He is the author of several books, including Sybex's CompTIA Network+ Review Guide: Exam N10-008 2021 and CCNA Certification Practice Tests: Exam 200-301 2020.

Introduction

Microsoft Teams has become the hub for many organizations, and it has come a long way from when Microsoft launched the product on March 14, 2017. Teams primarily competes with a similar service, Slack, offering workspaces for chat, audio and video calls, file storage, and application integration with other services. While this book won't transform you into a Teams expert, it will help you understand basic features up to tenant-level admin features. This book begins by providing an overview of Teams and then goes into more details of the features broken down by chapter. First up is understanding how to create and manage teams, and then you'll learn about channels, chats, and apps functionality. Next, you will learn about the features and functionality for successful meetings and conferencing in Teams. Then you will learn options to extend Teams by integrating third-party and custom apps. You will also learn about the Teams admin center, which is geared toward those who want to understand what settings can be configured by the Teams tenant-level administrator. Even if you're not an administrator, it is helpful to understand what can be done. Lastly, the final chapter focuses on understanding settings at the admin tenant level for applying security, compliance, and governance policies.

The Mastering Series

The Mastering series from Wiley provides outstanding instruction for readers with intermediate and advanced skills, in the form of top-notch training and development for those already working in their field and clear, serious education for those aspiring to become pros. Every Mastering book features the