First things to know about teams in Microsoft Teams

Teams have channels

Teams are made up of channels, which are the conversations you have with your teammates. Each channel is dedicated to a specific topic, department, or project.

Channels are where the work gets done. They are where text, audio, and video conversations open to the whole team happen, where files are shared, and where apps are added.

Channel conversations are public; chats are between you and someone else (or a group of people). Think of them like instant messages in Skype for Business or other messaging apps.

Teams can be public or private

• Public teams are visible to everyone in an organization.

• Private teams require the team owner's permission to join.

For more details, see Make a public team private. 

If you're working in Teams offline, or on a low-bandwidth network, you'll be able to switch between chats and channels and keep working. You'll see everything from the last time we were able to sync to your network, and we'll trickle messages in as bandwidth allows. 

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