Microsoft Teams Creation & Guidelines

Note: Student supervisors and FTS can create new Teams using the guidelines below. 

Guidelines

Current faculty or staff members must request a Team (TA's can ask for a Team for their class - see below). Typically, the requester will be the owner, but not always (use the best judgment).​​​​​​

  • Teams must include the Department Name/Abbreviation at the beginning of the Team name and then a hyphen. (ex. OIT-AdminAssistants) 
    • Example: A request for a team called HR from someone who works in the IT department should be clarified as OIT-HR to avoid confusing it with the UTD HR Department.
  • Teams should indicate the functional purpose of the group and generally should match the function of the person requesting.
    • The team owner can rename the team to a more friendly name after creating it, but the name set at creation will stick as the email address and internal name.

Teams Requested by RA's

The Team should be requested by the Faculty member conducting the research. The request can also come as the Faculty member emailing us approval on the same ticket. The RA would just need to reply to us and include the Faculty member for approval. The Faculty member can then respond "approve it," at which point the Team can be created with the RA as the owner.

Teams Requested by TA's/Faculty for Classes

Confirm the team is needed (all classes have teams created automatically). The team name should reflect the following:

  • Semester (ex. U19, F19, S19)
  • Course subject abbreviation (ex. CS)
  • Course Number (ex. 4352)
  • Section Number (ex. OU1 or 001)
  • Initials of TA (ex. SA) (this can be excluded if the faculty member is requesting)
  • -M at the end (to reflect the membership is handled manually)
    • Example: U19-CS4352-OU1-SA-M (if requested by TA) or U19-CS4352-OU1-M (if requested by Faculty)
      • For Faculty requesting a Team for a class, follow the same naming procedure as for a TA requesting a Team for a class, minus the TA initials. These should be sure to include the -M at the end to differentiate them from the automatically-created Teams for courses.

Creation Steps

For Teams requested by Faculty/Staff that are not for teaching, use the following steps. Faculty/ Staff must be the primary owner of a team.

  • Select Join or Create a team from the Teams tab in the Teams client.
  • Select Create team.
    • If prompted, choose the team type Staff.
  • Enter the Team name per the customer's request.
    • The name does not have to be exactly what the customer requested, as they can update the Team’s display name after creation.
  • Leave the Description field blank.
    • Always leave Privacy set to Private.
  • Select Next.
  • Add the Requester to the Team, then use the drop-down to make them an Owner.
  • Leave the Team by clicking the Ellipsis icon next to the Team name and clicking Leave the team.
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