Etiquette, security and shortcuts

In a thirty-minute meeting someone's dog barks, someone shares their screen with a banking tab open, and a stranger joins through a forwarded link. None of this is Teams' fault — it's all about habits. In this lesson you will learn meeting and chat etiquette, how to protect personal data and files, the difference between guests and external users, and shortcuts that speed up your work.

Meeting etiquette

• Add an agenda to the invitation and start on time.
• Mute your microphone when you're not speaking; turn your camera on if the group has agreed to.
• Use Raise hand instead of interrupting, and the meeting chat for links and side questions.
• If you join from home, blur your background or choose an image.
• After the meeting, post a short summary: decisions, who does what, deadlines.

Chat etiquette

Privacy and security

A guest is someone from outside your organization who has been added to a team; their name carries the label (Guest), and they see channels and files as far as the team's settings allow. External access lets you chat and call with people in other organizations without adding them to a team; they are marked (External) and have no access to your teams, channels or files. So before you post a file in a channel, check whether the team has guests.

Protect your meetings: in the meeting's Options, set Who can bypass the lobby to People who were invited or People in my org, so strangers with a forwarded link wait in the lobby, and limit Who can present as well. Treat links and files from external or unknown senders like suspicious emails: check the (External) label and never enter a password on a page opened from a chat.

Before you share your screen

1. 1
   Close what you don't need

   Close personal chats, banking and email tabs, and any files unrelated to the presentation.

2. 2
   Silence notifications

   Set your status to Do not disturb, or turn off Show notifications during calls and meetings in Settings › Notifications and activity, so that no unexpected message pops up on screen.

3. 3
   Share one window

   Select Share and pick only the window you need, or PowerPoint Live, rather than the whole screen.

4. 4
   Stop on time

   As soon as you've finished, select Stop sharing so that what you do next isn't seen by everyone.

Shortcuts that save time

Press Ctrl+. to see every shortcut in Teams. Practise the most useful ones below; the combinations the browser keeps for itself are listed separately.