Teams - FAQs

The University does not back up your conversation chat messages.  As a chat-based platform, there are no controls provided to allow your conversations to be retained.   The behaviour is common to other chat platforms whereby older chat will drop out of sight as newer chat developes in the conversation, this is not negotiable.

Yes you can invite a guest to join your Team and Microsoft provides help about how you can do this in Teams.   Information Services has enabled data loss prevention which will notify you if any information you attempt to share is subject to The University terms of disclosure, GDPR or general communications compliance.

In Teams, anything you upload or share via your "Chat" space will be stored in your OneDrive for Business document library, this is your own workplace document repository and you can navigate via "Chat" -> "Files".  Anything you drag n drop, upload or share by invite via your "Teams" conversations will be stored in a SharePoint document library (automatically created for you with the same name as your Team).  Each conversation channel you have in Teams will appear as a folder in this document library.  This is a shared repository between you and members of your Team who can navigate via "Teams" -> "Files".  

Noteworthy facts:

You don't need to leave the Teams app to view, share or co-author documents which you have made part of your conversation in Teams. 

If you create a folder directly in your Teams SharePoint repository, it won't synchronise back to Teams Chat or conversation channels.  This is because Teams itself is a chat platform for participating in conversation and whilst it's possible to enrich our conversations with the use of various digital artefacts, Teams is not a document respository.

Important Notice:

Your use of digital records of any format is subject to University Records Management Policy.

Demographic.

Staff and Students at The University of Edinburgh only.  Guests can be invited but there are data loss prevention policies in force which might prevent you from sharing information containing terms which are subject to University terms of disclosure, GDPR or for general communications compliance.

Dial-in calls.

Dial in is not possible in Teams because we require a conferencing bridge and new telephones contract.   There may be a work around whereby you request a pin to use at the time of your meeting.

Web browsers.

Users trying to open the Microsoft Teams web client on Safari are directed to download the desktop client. Microsoft is looking into Safari support and will share updates on the Teams Roadmap.Use supported web browsers, which include: Internet Explorer 11+, Microsoft Edge 12+, Chrome 51.0+, and Firefox 47.0+.

There are downloadable apps for PC, Mac and Mobile device.

Feature Limits (maximum values). 

Teams and channels

Storage limits. 

Storage - 25Tb per site collection/ group

File Upload - 15Gb

Messaging Limits. 

Message size - 25Kb

File Attachments - 10

Inline image attachments - 50

See https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/known-issues

Microsoft Teams is evolving on a regular basis—new features and functionality are added frequently. Please monitor the following resources to stay up-to-date:

• Follow the Teams Blog.
• Read the Teams Roadmap.
• Learn about the latest released features in the Release Notes.
• Participate in the Microsoft Teams technical community to get your feature questions answered.