CSU Top Tips for using Channels in Teams

• Channels play a big part in using Teams effectively but are often overlooked, meaning staff end up creating multiple Teams with a single channel where a single Team each with multiple channels would be more effective (we have over 1,000 Teams already!).  Please read on…
• In each Team you can create 200 standard channels visible to all Team members, and 30 private channels visible only to Team members you choose to add to the channel.  For example, consider a College department/team/area using a single Team with multiple channels for shared topics and a separate private channel for each sub-team or working group that needs keep information restricted to only members of the channel (e.g. for confidentiality or GDPR compliance).

• Use the General channel for Team-wide announcements, and use other channels for topic-related channel posts & files. This ensures everyone can see announcements easily without them getting lost in other chat (a Microsoft best practice recommendation).  
• You can @mention a channel by name in the same way you @mention a Team member or @mention the whole Team by name.  Members of the channel will receive a notification.  If it’s a standard channel, other Team members will still be able to browse to the post if they wish but they won't be notified unnecessarily. 
• When composing a channel post you can you change the post type from 'New Conversion' to 'Announcement' to really make it pop out.  Click in ‘Start a new conversion’ then click ‘A’ below it (Format option) and click the ‘New Conversation’ pulldown to change it to ‘Announcement’ (don’t forget to @mention in it too).
• When replying to a post, click Reply on the post you wish to reply to. If you click ‘Start a new conversation’ at the bottom posts window instead you will start a new separate conversation for each reply which makes channel posts a lot harder to follow (this is very common mistake).
• When creating a new meeting for Team members, make sure you use the Add channel option to select the channel relevant to the meeting.  A post will be automatically added to the channel with meeting information, included meeting chat, meeting notes (another feature) and attendees present.  You can easily find the meeting post in the channel to check chat, notes, remind yourself if you attended, and more.  If a meeting is set to repeat, the same post will be updated each time.

• An existing channel can't be changed between standard to private later, so if you think you will need to restrict the channel later, create it as private now and remove individual members later if needed.