10 Microsoft Teams Channels Best Practices
When you set up a new channel in Microsoft Teams, what do you communicate to members?
What the channel is for? Guidelines for this specific channel? Often, we create new channels in Microsoft Teams and hit the ground running. We share a document, we message colleagues, and everyday life continues.
Fast forward to the end of the week, and everything is a mess. Nobody can remember what that channel is for, you’ve got message threads all over the place, and does anybody know where we saved that doc?
In this case, we either struggle through cursing that nobody is using the channel the way we’d like, or we just create a new team entirely.
What we should have done at the very beginning is explain the purpose of the channel and how we’d like it to be used. For new users, this is crucial for adoption. If it becomes a mess, people will stop using the channel or even Teams altogether.
In this post, we list 10 best practices when using Microsoft Teams channels.
What is the difference between a channel and a team in Microsoft Teams?
The team and channel hierarchy is simple.
- A team houses up to 200 channels.
- A channel houses day-to-day activities like conversations, files, threads, etc.
To create a channel, you must first have created a team. Channels can’t exist without associated teams.
Here are the key differences between channels and teams in Microsoft Teams:
| Teams in Microsoft Teams | Channels in Microsoft Teams |
| Houses up to 200 channels. | Standalone group areas within a team. |
| Every team has a General channel by default. | Each channel serves a different purpose. |
| Admin controls include Manage team, Add channel, Add member, Leave the team, Edit team, Get link to team, Manage tags, Delete the team. | Admin controls include Channel notifications, Pin, Hide, Manage Channel, Get email address, Get link to channel, Edit this channel, Connectors, Delete this channel. |
| Contains channels only. | Contains tabs for Posts, Wiki, Files, and any integrations you wish to add. |
| If deleted, underlying channels get deleted too. | If deleted, conversations and files stored in the channel get removed. Will remain on SharePoint until deleted or your retention policy allows for automatic deletion. |
| Contains channels only. | Carry out day-to-day tasks like chat, document collaboration, building workflows. |
Here are your options for administering a team.
Here are your options for administering a channel.
In the example below, you can see that there is a team named Modality Content Marketing – External.
Included within this team are channels for specific products that the content marketing team is tasked with supporting: OneConsultation, OneMeeting, and Teamwork Analytics.
While the team (content marketing) has a common interest, different channels have been created so different projects are organized together.
Without channels, everything would be in the General channel. This would make tracking conversations and collaboration untidy and hard to follow.
What do channels do in Microsoft Teams?
Each channel in Microsoft Teams may have its own purpose but should be related to the team it is created in.
For example, a finance team accessible to everyone in the finance department. But each channel will have a specific function like budgeting, invoicing, accounts payable, etc.
Inside those channels, members of the channels will collaborate on projects and conversations relating to that specific element of finance.
Functionality included in channels rather than teams includes:
- Conversations
- GIFs, emojis, reactions
- Message threads
- File sharing
- Document collaboration
- Document storage (front-end)
- Wiki creation
- Tab connections
Channels are different from group chats too: Microsoft Teams Group Chats vs Channels
When should you create a channel in a team?
You can create up to 200 channels over the life of a team. But that doesn’t mean every team needs that many.
If you have a team that is rarely used and doesn’t have any spin-off projects, you may be okay using the General channel only. For informal topics or if you’re setting up teams to be for announcements (one-way comms) then it’s unlikely you need filtering for separate topics.
If you create a team for a large department, or a small department with lots of ongoing or one-off projects, it’s best practice to create a channel for these. Without channels in this case, all the conversations would be in your feed constantly jumping around your screen.
Create a channel in a team when you have a new project, department, or core conversation topic.
It might be in the sales team where you create:
- Partner-sales
- Direct-sales
- Affiliate sales
- Referrals
- Comission-queries
- Sales-documentation
It could be the HR team where you create:
- Payroll
- Complaints
- Pay-reviews
- Training
- Budget
Don’t forget, you’ll have a General channel by default. Use this for general conversations that don’t belong to a specific channel.
How do you use Microsoft Teams channels effectively?
Appropriate use of Microsoft Teams channels can increase productivity. The opposite is also true. When you don’t use Teams correctly (or the same way as everyone else in your business), collaboration becomes hard and adoption dwindles.
When someone posts in the wrong channel all the time or creates teams that look out of place, productivity suffers and people start to use other apps in their workplace silos.
Read on for Microsoft Teams channel best practices you should communicate to your teams from day one.
Best practices for Microsoft Teams channels
1 – Use standardized naming conventions
There is no right or wrong way to name a channel (or a team) in Microsoft Teams. But do make sure you stick to the conventions adopted throughout the rest of your company. Otherwise, channels look out of place and people may avoid them.
According to LEAN Six Sigma principles (5S), keeping everything in order leads to higher productivity and ongoing value creation.
- Sort
- Straighten
- Shine
- Standardize
- Sustain
While it may seem novel to apply to a collaboration app, think about the “tidy desk, tidy mind” mantra. When everything is tidy and accessible, productivity rates skyrocket.
Keeping both team and channel names short is advisable too. For mobile users, space on screen is a premium. There’s no need to make a channel name long by including words like “discussions” or “chats”. This is obvious because it’s happening in Microsoft Teams.
Examples of standardized naming conventions for channels include:
IT-Support
- Laptop-refresh
- Mobile-rollout
- Support-tickets
- Training-courses
But it might also look like this:
ContentMarketing
- BlogsInProgress
- eBooks
- DesignInspiration
- GraphicsInProgress
Some organizations replicate their SharePoint or standard document naming conventions. Keep things simple so you don’t confuse people.
But do beware that the name you give a channel on the front end (Teams) will be replicated on the back end too (SharePoint, OneDrive).
2 – Set a definitive channel description
Often missed by lots of people, the channel description box in Microsoft Teams is stored under the i icon in the top right-hand corner of a channel.
Here, you have the option to include a channel description in the “About” section.
For people looking for the right channel to join, providing a description makes it clear if they should be in the channel or if what they need to discuss belongs here.
Microsoft Teams channel descriptions examples
The example above is the support channel for Mio’s customers using a particular product. To make it clear to other members of the business, we’ve added a channel description.
You could make your channel descriptions even clearer. And you could point people in the right direction for commonly confused channels.
3 – Pin a post with guidelines for the channel
Pinning posts in Teams allows for important conversations to be displayed in their own section.
To encourage Microsoft Teams channel best practices throughout your business, consider pinning guidelines for channel usage.
To pin a post, click the … next to the post you wish to pin and click Pin.
Your post will now be displayed in the pinned posts section.
Note: In one-to-one chats, pinned messages are displayed at the top of your chat instead of having a pinned section.
4 – Make relevant channels private
Not every channel needs to be accessible to everyone. Consider it a best practice to make channels with sensitive information private.
It could be a channel in the HR team where payroll or complaints are managed. It might be a channel where an upcoming merger or acquisition is being discussed. Until the deal is complete, public knowledge of the process needs to be kept under lock and key.
To create a private channel in a team, choose Private from the drop-down menu in the creation flow.
5 – Allow access to external contributors
If you use Microsoft Teams with external users, they need access to the channels you work in.
It’s one thing chatting with them (you can allow federation for direct messages) but for true collaboration, everyone needs to see what’s happening in teams and channels.
Below, you can see external access is provided to a guest of the Modality tenant.
To grant access to external collaborators, your organization must allow either guest access to the tenant or (when available) use Microsoft’s shared channels option, Teams Connect.
6 – Enable cross-platform chat with Webex
Some people you need to collaborate with may not be users of Microsoft Teams. Historically, this meant you had to email them or only collaborate when you joined a call together.
Using Mio’s message interoperability tool, you can install an app that enables you to send cross-platform messages to Webex users.
Once you’ve synced the channels you wish to share access to, you can send messages as you would any ordinary Teams user.
Once you’ve used Mio to sync your channels, you can send channel messages. The following features are supported cross-platform:
- Cross-platform messages
- Edits and deletions
- GIFs
- File uploads
- Emojis and reactjis
- Security and admin features for enterprise customers
- Message threads
7 – Enable cross-platform chat with Slack
Like the above scenario, you may also need to collaborate with users who prefer Slack.
While migrating from Slack to Teams is a long process, you could share access to your Teams channels with Slack users.
Your Teams users can stay in Teams and send messages to colleagues on Slack. There’s no difference to the UI other than a Slack icon to let everyone know which platform they’re using.
Once you’ve used Mio to sync your channels, you can send channel messages. The following features are supported cross-platform:
- Cross-platform messages
- Edits and deletions
- GIFs
- File uploads
- Emojis and reactjis
- Security and admin features for enterprise customers
- Message threads
8 – Enable cross-platform chat with Zoom
In an ideal world, everybody would be using Teams and management would be simple. But during the pandemic, and even before, there have been instances of Zoom in enterprises and small businesses.
This leads to multiple platforms needing support from IT. While there’s direct guest join for using Teams and Zoom video together, there’s no native support for sending messages between the two.
Zoom Team Chat is the collaboration area built into Zoom. With channels of its own, it’s important to enable cross-platform messages so your business doesn’t develop Teams-only or Zoom-only communication.
Mio has teamed up with Zoom to develop chat interop with Microsoft Teams.
This means you can send channel messages from Teams to users on Zoom Team Chat.
Sign up for Teams interop with Zoom Team Chat here.
9 – Pin important channels
When some channels are more important than others, you need to be able to find them quickly.
By pinning a channel, you push it to the top of your teams menu. In the example below, you can see the “Existing Channel” and “Marketing” channels have been pinned.
Instead of expanding teams and searching manually for important channels, they are stored at the top of your teams menu.
To pin a channel, click the … next to the channel name and select Pin.
10 – Hide or archive unused channels and teams
The final Microsoft Teams channels best practice is the one everybody forgets.
What happens when a channel no longer serves a purpose?
You should archive it or delete it. But, in reality, lots of unused channels get left to rot. By rot, we mean they stay in Teams but clutter the place.
For temporary projects or when people leave and their teams are no longer used, opt to archive the team. While you can’t archive a channel, you can archive a team.
Standard users can’t archive or delete teams so your Teams administrator will need to do this.
What happens when you archive a channel in Microsoft Teams?
When you archive a channel in Teams, all activity (conversations, file uploads, etc.) will stop. The team will remain on your SharePoint and OneDrive sites but no longer appear on the Teams app.
When you’re ready to delete the team (having saved or moved any important data or documentation), you can remove the entire team (and associated back end) by deleting it.
This activity is final and you can’t reverse it so consult your Teams admin to make this change for you.
If you’re not sure whether you’ll need a channel in the future, you can hide it so at least it’s out of your way. While you can’t hide specific channels in Teams, you do have the option to hide a team.
To hide a team, click the … next to the channel name and choose Hide.
We’ve intentionally ended our Microsoft Teams channels best practices with the end of the team.
But that doesn’t mean you should stop here.
Read over the best practices highlighted in this post to make sure you’re in the best position possible.
Don’t forget the most important part of making any changes in Teams: communication!
Share this post with your colleagues or pin it to your channels so it’s easily accessible.