File sharing and collaboration in Microsoft Teams

Uploading files to Teams

• Each channel in Teams has a Files area
• You can drag and drop files from Explorer
• You can also use the upload files button
• You can post files in the team conversation

Where files are stored

Files are stored securely in the channel/team. Files are accessible anywhere with internet access (there is no need to connect to the university network).

Who can access files?

• Only team members, guests and owners have access to files
• Once on Teams, the files do not belong to any specific person, and any member of the team can read, edit or delete them 
• To see team members, go to the … next to the team name and click manage team (all members can do this)

Collaborative editing

• Many people can work simultaneously on a file
• You can work on Microsoft Office documents directly within Teams
• Office 365 shows you who’s got the file open, and any changes happening by different users in real time
• A new version is created every time the document is closed, not every time a change is made during live editing
• You can roll back to an previous version

Find previous versions

Open the file in SharePoint and then:

• Go to document menu (…)
• Then Version history
• From there, you can view or restore previous versions

If the file was deleted, you can find it again in the recycle bin:

1. Open the file in SharePoint
2. Find the Recycle Bin in the left menu
3. Select the file and click Restore in the bar above

Downloading files

You can download a local copy of a file with the Download button. This will not update the original on Teams so avoid this when multiple people are working on a file as versions won’t be in sync.