Do your one-on-ones in Microsoft Teams

Use Microsoft Teams to conduct one-on-one meetings with reports and colleagues. Whether you meet online or face-to-face, Teams can help keep things organized. Your first impulse might be to create a team for each of your one-on-one meetings, but that can get unwieldy over time. Individual teams are really meant for groups of three or more people.

So, how should you structure your one-on-ones in Teams? The answer is chat.

Chat holds all the files that you’ve shared with people in Teams chats and meetings.
You can add important files, websites, and apps to the top of your chat for easy review.
If you meet virtually, either person can kick off a call right from your chat.

First, add the chat to Favorites

Add a chat to Favorites so it stays at the top of the chats and channels area. That way, you don’t have to track it down. Add a chat for each person you meet in a one-on-one.

To add a chat to Favorites, drag the chat into the order you want in the Favorites list. Now all your frequent chats are within reach.

: The Favorites section in Teams is available as part of the public preview program and might undergo further changes before being released publicly. To get access to this and other upcoming features, switch to Teams public preview.

: The ability to create favorites is currently only available in Public Preview. If you leave public preview, you'll go back to seeing a pinned section. To see your favorites again, you'll need to re-add them after switching back into Public Preview.

Next, put important stuff in tabs at the top of your chat

Let’s say you’ve got a file or a link that you regularly review together during your one-on-one time. To keep it front and center, add it to the Shared tab at the top of your chat.

Your chat with a person catalogs the files you and that person share with each other in Teams—all there on the Files tab. Whether it’s a living document that you’re developing together or a one-off review, if it’s been shared in your chat, you can get it in the Files tab.

Sharing files

To share a file, select the Shared tab at the top of the chat.
Select Upload, and then choose Attach cloud files or Upload from this device.

The file appears under the Files tab.

Any files you share in messages for this chat also appear on the Files tab. See Send a file, picture, or link in Microsoft Teams to learn more about attaching files to messages.