Microsoft Teams has rapidly become a essential digital collaboration platform, providing a central hub for team members to communicate, share files, meet virtually and more regardless of location. For those new to Teams, the array of icons and symbols lining the interface may seem overwhelming at first. This handy guide will walk you through the various icons within Teams and how they allow accessing key features.
Introduction
Launched in 2017, Microsoft Teams takes core capabilities from Microsoft Office 365 and integrates them into a single portal for seamless teamwork. It brings together instant messaging, file sharing, calling, meeting scheduling and video conferencing under one roof. The intuitive interface centralizes multiple workflows to enable remote teams to coordinate projects, share knowledge, meet deadlines and bring products to market faster.
With over 270 million monthly active users as of 2022, Microsoft Teams is relied upon by organizations of all sizes for workplace communication and collaboration. Particularly since COVID-19 necessitated remote work, Teams has been pivotal for maintaining team cohesion virtually. It has competitive offerings similar to Slack and Zoom, but Microsoft Teams stands apart in its expanded feature set within an integrated environment.
As a core platform for digital teamwork, it‘s valuable to understand the icons and symbols within Microsoft Teams to navigate its communication and project management capabilities confidently. Whether you‘ve just onboarded onto Teams or have used it awhile without deep familiarity, this guide will empower you to recognize the icons and unlock the platform‘s full potential.
Teams Icon Bar
The Teams icon bar runs vertically along the left side of the interface, providing access to key sections with a single click. Understanding these icons allows easy navigation across Teams‘ features according to your needs.
Activity
The Activity icon is a bell-shaped graphic centered in a circle. Clicking on it displays your notifications feed spanning all recent interactions within Teams like mentions, reactions and comments. This offers a centralized place to catch up on what‘s transpired across your teams and channels while you‘ve been away. Unread notifications display a red dot on the icon, so you can conveniently monitor Activity.
Image source: Microsoft
Chat
The Chat icon contains a simple speech bubble shape. It houses your various ongoing chats allowing seamless conversations with individuals or groups. Within Chat, you can instantly exchange messages, links, documents and more in real-time while tracking message status. This makes Chat one of the most frequently used tools for quick coordination with colleagues.
Image source: Microsoft
Teams / Community
This icon depicts three persons‘ busts, representing the teams and communities you belong to on the platform. It consolidates all the teams you have joined into one section for easy access. Some common teams include project teams, departmental groups, office locations, social clubs etc. The content and conversations within each team are organized through channels.
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Image source: Microsoft
Calendar
True to its name, this icon features a calendar graphic for accessing your schedule. It reflects meetings scheduled across the Teams platform from different teams and channels. Calendar integrates with Outlook allowing you to manage your time commitments from one place. You can also schedule meetings directly within Teams using the Calendar.
Image source: Microsoft
Calling
The calling icon looks like an old-school telephone receiver, showing Microsoft Teams also enables voice communication. With Native Microsoft Teams calling, you can leverage business telephony capabilities without needing a separate phone system. This includes features like call transfer, voicemail and account assignment for manage calls as a unified communications solution.
Image source: Microsoft
Files
The file cabinet icon opens your Teams files library. All files shared across your Teams channels and chats automatically synchronize here for centralized access and searchability. You can also upload, organize and share files from the Files section. This allows you to reduce duplicating efforts accessing resources scattered across communication trails.
Image source: Microsoft
Meetings Section
At the top right of the Teams dashboard live icons specifically related to meetings and video calls. Let‘s explore what each one signifies.
Join
This icon features a hashtag symbol. Clicking on Join prompts entering a meeting code to directly access scheduled or impromptu meetings. All meetings generate specific codes participants can use to join regardless of whether they were invited or have the event on Calendar. This simplifies accessing meetings as needed.
Image source: Microsoft
Meet Now
The Meet Now icon depicts a video camera. It initiates an instant video meeting on the fly whenever needed. After starting the meeting, you can invite required participants with a few clicks either from your contacts or by sending a meeting link. Meet Now works best for spontaneous discussions rather than scheduled team meetings.
Image source: Microsoft
Schedule
This icon with a plus sign allows scheduling a meeting at a future date/time. You select attendees from your contacts list, set the duration, enable video if preferred and schedule on participant Calendars. This sends invites to internal or external participants containing a direct join link into the meeting at the scheduled time.
Image source: Microsoft
Chat and Channel Icons
When conversing inside a Team channel or 1-on1/group chat, you‘ll notice additional icons for enriching conversations.
Format
The format icon depicted by a pen permits styling your chat messages. You can modify font sizes, apply bolding, italics or text colors and more for highlighting information. This quickly calls attention to key points right within your ongoing chats.
Image source: Microsoft
Attach
This paperclip graphic allows attaching documents from your local device or cloud folders into Teams conversations. You can also drag-and-drop files directly into the chat/channel pane for quick sharing rather than needing to first upload to Teams. Attach enables you to share relevant resources, drafts or updates in real-time collaboration.
Image source: Microsoft
Stickers
Similar to emojis but more graphical, stickers inject visual richness using images and illustrations. You can browse an extensive gallery of sticker options and insert relevant ones into your messages with a single click. It makes conversations more visually engaging.
Image source: Microsoft
Giphys
The Giphy icon integrates this popular GIF search engine into Microsoft Teams. You can easily lookup animated GIFs by keyword to insert relevant reactions, emotions or humor into your chats. This adds color to otherwise plain text-based conversations.
Image source: Microsoft
Polls
The vertical three bars of the Polls icon enable generating polls to survey team members, gather opinions or coordinate decisions. You can configure question and multiple choice options and share the poll into an ongoing chat or channel. Participants can quickly vote on polls so you can consolidate feedback in real-time.
Image source: Microsoft
Presence Indicators
Small icons next to each user profile pic indicate their current availability status on Teams. Recognizing them allows understanding if the contact is actively online before reaching out.
Green dot
A vibrant green dot signals the user is presently active on Teams platform. They would likely respond promptly to messages. This indicates a good time for instant coordination.
Image source: Microsoft
Yellow dot
This mellow yellow dot conveys the user has enabled a Do Not Disturb status manually or was inactive for a brief period. They may have stepped away momentarily but messages would still reach them.
Image source: Microsoft
Red dot
The red dot suggests the user is currently in a meeting or has set status to Busy intentionally. Unless urgent, it may be better waiting until they finish their current meeting or task before messaging. The red dot signals minimize interruptions.
Image source: Microsoft
These handy presence indicators allow assessing contacts‘ availability before initiating conversations for smooth coordination.
Settings Icons
At the absolute bottom of the Teams sidebar rest icons leading to your personal or organizational settings. Configuring these according to preferences enhances the Teams experience.
General
Represented by a gear icon, these contain options affecting your overall Teams functionality. It allows tweaking language, layouts, keyboard shortcuts and accessibility from one place. Set this up as desired for your usage style.
Image source: Microsoft
Account
The profile silhouette opens account management workflows. You can add/update personal details, link social media accounts, configure sign-in/security options and more. Maintaining your account here ensures changes sync across your Teams presence.
Image source: Microsoft
Organization
Depending on setup by your Teams administrator, this section may display configurations governing the wider organization or team‘s use of the platform. Access privileged settings or resources reserved for leadership roles from here.
Image source: Microsoft
Devices
The device icon provides controls focused specifically on the endpoint hardware accessing Teams, like desktops, mobiles and meeting room equipment. Manage permissions along with tweaking connection and display preferences per device here.
Image source: Microsoft
Privacy
The privacy icon resembling a padlock enters privacy management overseeing what personal data can be viewed by other users. Limit visibility of your status, profile details and sharing permissions for maintaining boundaries between work and personal.
Image source: Microsoft
Best Practices for Using Microsoft Teams
Now that you recognize all the main icons and their functions, let‘s cover some best practices for using Microsoft Teams effectively leveraging these features.
Organize Channel Structure
Channels segment conversations within teams thematically, so strategic channel creation is key. Ideally create channels grouping major projects, initiatives or organizational areas rather than having one crowded catch-all channel. Descriptive names clearly convey intended channel purpose at a glance. Balance having enough channels for segmentation while avoiding channel sprawl.
Streamline Communication Flows
Structure communication flows to signal context and priority. Use @mentions to flag specific individuals for input while broadcasting updates openly to the whole team. Limit using @channel or @team mentions to announcements with wide relevance.
For discussions only relevant to certain members, switch to private chats instead of having scattered side conversations inside crowded channels. Use chat features like urgent messages, read receipts and priority notifications to call attention to important information based on context.
Customize Notifications
With numerous conversations across channels and chats, it‘s easy to miss important messages. Set notification priority for events like @mentions, urgent chats or channel activity alerts. Disable low-value notifications that generate distracting noise. Adjust during Do Not Disturb hours to eliminate off-hour interruptions so you stay focused when it matters most.
Key Takeaways
Microsoft Teams removes proximity restraints for teams through dedicated collaboration capabilities woven into a single intuitive interface. Taking time exploring the various icons helps unlock these features to coordinate, share and allocate team efforts seamlessly online.
Leverage the icon bar for jumping between key workflows like Chat, Calendar and Files without losing context. Recognize icons when composing messages for enriching conversations with visuals, polls and documents. Monitor presence indicators to respect colleagues‘ availability before messaging. Finally, configure notifications and channels aligned to team processes for cutting through the noise to enable meaningful interactions.
With the above guide to the symbols and icons empowering Microsoft Teams, you are now ready to hit the ground running on this versatile teamwork platform!
