Microsoft Teams has rapidly become an essential collaboration hub for remote teams. With its extensive feature set for messaging, file sharing, video calls and more, Teams can seem daunting for new users. Fortunately, its thoughtfully designed iconography makes navigating the platform intuitive once you understand the meaning behind the icons.
In this comprehensive 2500+ word guide, we’ll unpack the most prominent symbols and indicators within Teams from the perspective of a digital technology expert. We’ll cover what each icon represents, best practices for using them efficiently, and how Teams fits into the modern tech stack.
The Anatomy of Core Microsoft Teams Icons
Teams features a consistent design system across its desktop and mobile apps to help you intuitively navigate key functions. The icons provide visual shortcuts for managing notifications, chatting, meetings and more.
Let‘s break down the purpose of some of the main icons.
Monitoring Notifications and Mentions
The bell-shaped Activity icon consolidates notifications from multiple event types into one continuous stream. This saves you from checking several places to stay updated.
Based on my experience helping organizations adopt Teams, here are the most common notification triggers:
- Being @mentioned in a Teams conversation
- Receiving a new direct message
- Getting assigned to a task inside Channels
- Having another team member react to your messages with emoji
- Being sent an invitation to a Teams meeting
Teams will even notify you of important activity happening in Office 365, like document sharing from OneDrive or edits in a shared Excel sheet.
With so many collaboration touchpoints across Microsoft 365, centralizing alerts delivers huge time savings. Clicking the notification bell lets you rapidly triage what demands attention versus what can wait.
As per Mirosoft’s Microsoft Teams documentation, over 60 notification workflow rules can be configured from notifications settings. This flexibility allows customizing rules based on:
- Specific @mentions uses
- Reactions and emojis signaling importance
- Activity from executives demanding urgent handling
- Messages originating inside Priority channels
Establishing priorities prevents noise while still directing crucial updates to your attention.
Starting Chats and Checking Calendars
The speech bubble icon quickly moves conversations from emails or calls into streamlined Teams chats.
Chats promote transparency by keeping stakeholders aligned in the open instead of hidden in long email chains. Share questions and updates as they occur instead of batched status reports.
Integrating the calendar inside Teams provides a singular view of your schedule across work and personal accounts. Meetings also get created directly inside your Team channels to preserve context.
Launching Instant Video Meetings
The Meet Now icon allows starting impromptu video conferences in one click for quick collaboration.
Based on Microsoft’s research, 73% of Teams meetings now rely on video. Video meetings build engagement by capturing focus compared to wandering attention on conference calls.
The integrated meeting experience means you stay inside Teams instead of toggling between apps. Share screens to review presentations or documents collaboratively. Record sessions to share for future viewing.
Status Indicators and Presence Detection
While video provides face time, users still need to respect when teammates are concentrating versus open to chat.
Presence indicators display user availability:
Green signals active online status while yellow and red convey descending levels of interruptability.
As per Microsoft’s Top 10 ways to support hybrid work, 72% of workers want clearer visibility into coworker availability.
Presence markers indicate good times for questions versus saving non-urgent discussions for when colleagues surface from focused work. You can also update your own status like “In the Zone” for times when you are heads-down on writing or coding.
Coworkers can then Better respect when you are fully engaged versus open for collaboration based on your status beacon.
Deep Dive on Meetings Icons
Let‘s explore how Teams supports both scheduled and instant meetings with its various icons.
Joining Meetings via Short Codes
Click the icon showing ### to join meetings by entering a numeric meeting ID:
The meeting organizer sends out the ID to attendees. You may receive it directly or find it posted inside a Team channel.
By entering the code, you bypass needing an emailed invitation link. This provides more flexibility for accessing meetings on the go from mobile devices or temporary workstations without access to calendars.
Based on my consulting background, other instances where codes prove useful include:
- Allowing external partners to join without access to internal calendar systems
- Quickly rejoining meetings after connectivity troubles
- Accessing recurring meetings without checking emails each time
Codes place meeting access conveniently at your fingertips.
Scheduling Meetings
The calendar plus icon creates meetings for future dates. Define aspects like:
- Date/Time
- Attendees
- Recurrence cadence
- Audio and video calling options
Meetings then appear on attendees Outlook calendars allowing them to prepare in advance.
Based on Forrester Research, over 60% of knowledge workers split time between home and offices. Shared cloud calendars enable coordination across mixed remote and in-office workers.
You save time by scheduling meetings directly inside Teams instead of toggling between apps. Meetings also get created inside your Team channels preserving contextual backstory.
Impromptu Video Meetings
The video camera icon instantly starts Meet Now sessions to enable spur-of-the-moment video chats.
Meet Now works great for quick syncs eliminating the need to schedule a formal meeting. Just launch a video call then pull in the people you want to talk to.
Common examples I regularly use Meet Now for include:
- Impromptu design reviews when questions arise mid-development
- Quick status checks while waiting on assets from another department
- Inviting a guest speaker to provide an informal team talk
Think of Meet Now as the video call equivalent of popping by someone’s desk. No calendar invite needed!
Customizing Notifications and Ringtones
With so many conversations happening in distributed teams, tweaking notifications prevents you from missing crucial updates.
Access settings by clicking your profile picture > Settings > Notifications. Flip toggles on or off per notification type:
Customizations you should consider:
- Urgent Messages to highlight timely replies
- Mentions and Reactions to show engagement
- Receipts to guarantee messages sent successfully
Mobile app alerts also help avoid missing activity when away from your desk. Up to 20 ringtones assign unique sounds to notification rules.
As an example, set the Steel Drum tone for any messages from your manager. This allows recognizing high priority posts even in noisy environments.
Accessibility Options in Microsoft Teams
Teams provides accommodations for users with vision, hearing, neurological disabilities and more covered under the company’s Accessibility Conformance Reports.
Common adjustments include:
Vision
- Screen reader support
- High contrast theme
- Magnifier tool
Hearing
- Captions and subtitles
- Notifications for mentions
- Transcriptions for voicemails
Motor
- Sticky keys for easier keyboard shortcuts
- Mouse pointer adjustments
Cognitive
- Turn off animations
- Focus mode to reduce distractions
- Headset support for ADHD
Expand the accessibility icon to evaluate options tailored your needs:
Building inclusive tools enables empowering every organization member.
Channels vs Groups: Organizing Team Discussions
Channels sort team conversations across topics, projects, disciplines etc. Each channel houses threaded discussions privately visible only to members.
By comparison, Microsoft Groups operate like mini communities for driving engagement through conversations. Users outside your teams can get invited to participate in Groups.
How should you decide whether a discussion belongs in Channels or Groups?
Use Channels for core team collaboration by:
- Creating client project channels
- Making channel streams for key products
- Adding channels divided by discipline like Design, Engineering etc
Use Groups for wider interest topic promotion:
- Start groups around diversity and inclusion
- Begin wellness groups for health tips or office perks
- Give groups for hobbies and affinity clubs
Channels = Critical work. Groups = Culture and community.
Positioning Microsoft Teams vs Top Competitors
How does Microsoft Teams compare to rival platforms like Slack and Zoom?
Slack specializes in persistent chat for fast conversations. However, its limited built-in support for meetings and video calls warrant supplements.
Comparatively, Teams bakes these collaborative capabilities natively avoiding the need to constantly switch apps. Teams also interoperates closely with other Microsoft productivity software like SharePoint, OneDrive, Outlook and Office apps.
According to Forrester Research, 75% of Teams customers leverage integrations with broader Microsoft cloud services. This positions Teams as an attractive platform for organizations invested into Microsoft 365 ecosystem.
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Zoom occupies a niche for simplified video meetings but has more limited messaging capabilities. Its singular focus can benefit organizations wanting robust video-first interactions across conference rooms and desktops.
Meanwhile, Teams rolls up expanded voice, chat and document sharing with integrated meetings avoiding the need to constantly switch apps. Its breadth caters to diverse team workflows.
Determining between Zoom vs Teams depends on which experiences you want to optimize for.
Integrations Expand Microsoft Teams Superpowers
OneDRIVER for Microsoft Teams proliferation comes from its ability to harness data from surrounding productivity tools thanks to tight integrations.
Out-of-the-box highlights include:
- Coauthoring Office docs stored in SharePoint from inside Teams channels
- Streaming Power BI analytics visualizations right inside conversations
- Piping emails from Exchange/Outlook directly into chat discussions
Teams also allows creating custom apps and bots using Azure backing. Tap machine learning for:
- Live captions and translations for global team meetings
- Virtual assistants to automate mundane tasks like scheduling
- Pulling relevant files from other systems into channel talks
According to Microsoft’s own research, over 800 apps and services actively integrate with Teams as it matures into a digital HQ for daily work.
This open and extensible platform underpins adapting Teams to specialized needs.
Microsoft Teams on Mobile: Stay Connected on the Go
Teams provides full-featured apps for Android and iOS to stay productive from anywhere.
Common mobile use cases include:
- Monitoring notifications
- Replying to urgent messages
- Joining meetings while out of office
- Reviewing shared documents and images
- Searching conversations and contacts
Apps download from the standard Apple App Store and Google Play Stores. Sign in with your existing work credentials.
Tap and hold icons to access tooltips explaining features. Adjust font sizes under Settings > General to improve readability on smaller screens.
Limitations do apply on mobile such as lack of support for a full desktop experience. Manage expectations if attempting complex tasks like editing Office files. Simple reviewing works great but intensive document authoring gets tricky on constrained form factors.
The main goal of mobile experiences focuses on staying connected versus power productivity. Receive updates promptly then delegate deeper work until you regain desktop access or return onsite.
Paid Plans Unlock Full Microsoft Teams Potential
Teams delivers a capable free version but paying unlocks additional capabilities for scaling teams.
Here is a high-level comparison of Free vs Premium Teams tiers:
Microsoft Teams Free
- Chat, audio and video meetings
- Share docs and co-author Office files
- 2GB cloud file storage per user
- Search 10K messages per team
- Guest accounts with restrictions
Microsoft Teams Paid
- Webinars for up to 20K attendees
- Cloud callings to replace desk phones
- Unlimited cloud storage per user
- Advanced security and compliance
- Full guest accounts with access controls
- Backups to protect message history
Consider upgrading from free plans if you need full guest access or have concerns around data retention policies. Upgrades also provide the best experience when operating at large team scales.
Best Practices for Change Management and Adoption
Successfully rolling out Microsoft Teams requires planning the people side of change in addition to technology setup.
Here are best practice tips for driving adoption based on my experience as a Teams consultant:
Stakeholder Buy-In
- Gather executive sponsor support
- Define clear business goals aligned to strategy
Governance
- Classify data sensitivity levels
- Set channel moderation policies
- Automate retention rules
Training
- Create self-help support resources
- Schedule live virtual training sessions
- Incentivize peer coaching circles
Measurement
- Distribute pre and post-adoption surveys
- Track usage metrics for engagement
- Iteratively improve weak spots
Monitoring measurable outcomes allows continually aligning Teams rollouts to desired business objectives.
Key Takeaways and Continuing Your Education
This guide explored the main Microsoft Teams icons while uncovering expert best practices for efficiently navigating key features.
The thoughtfully designed icon system allows quickly triggering your highest priority collaborations like:
- Monitoring notification alerts
- Starting chat conversations
- Joining scheduled and instant meetings
We also covered the presence indicator system for respecting when coworkers are fully focused. Custom notifications prevent you from missing crucial updates.
From comparisons to leading competitors to mobile usage tips, we dissected multiple facets around maximizing Microsoft Teams utility.
To continue building expertise, I recommend Microsoft‘s official Teams Admin Training.
Additional resources include:
Now equipped with insider knowledge on Microsoft Teams symbols, I invite you to start boosting collaboration. Happy teaming!
