Teams workspace as a working platform

Teams workspace suitability
Workspace name and email address
Workspace user roles
Reminder to Teams workspace owners about the termination of a group member’s employment contract 
Workspace accessibility
Workspace life cycle
Leaving and deleting the workspace
Workspace apps
Workspace conversations and video meetings (Teams)
Workspace email and calendar (Outlook)
Setting for allowing for receiving emails from external users and using the group as an e-mail list
Workspace files and contents (SharePoint and file library)
Organising workspace tasks (Planner)
Workspace videos (Stream)

 

Teams workspace is a group work platform in Teams for different types of groups of the higher education community. Teams workspace is a perfect tool when group of people need to share and edit common documents. It also provides a platform for group messaging and video meetings.

Teams workspace is a collection of familiar Office 365 applications including SharePoint, Teams and Planner. Group owners manage group user rights and settings.

Teams workspace applications are recommended to be used with computer softwares. Services can also be used with browser or mobile applications. Staff and students can download Office ProPlus program package from the Office 365 portal and install it into personal computer. You can open, edit and save most of the groups Office files with Office ProPlus programs.

Suitability of teams workspaces

Suitability	Limitations	Costs
Suitable for processing so called regular data (personal data category 3Y + 2A is also possible when the data is separately encrypted. ) Recommended especially as the place to save work documents or files that are processed in a group. The service it produces and the data it contains are located in EEA. Access to data is ensured with multifactor authentication and monitored with a user log. Categories of personal data	Sharing: best suited for sharing and working on the organisational documents together. Also enables the addition of external members to the platform, but they must be defined when the platform is acquired.	Included in the TUNI user right.

Workspace name and email address 

Teams workspace name always has a TG- prefix so that the group can be identified e.g. in the address book. A Group name can include up to 60 characters. If the group name contains scandic letters or special characters, they will be automatically removed from both the group email and url. You can change the name of the group yourself after creation, but the change of the e-mail and url address is done through the IT Helpdesk.

The group will get an email address, which can be used when communicating with people outside the higher education community. The email address comprises of the TG prefix, the name of the group and @groups.tuni.fi ending, for example TG-xxxxxxx [at] groups.tuni.fi (TG-xxxxxxx[at]groups[dot]tuni[dot]fi). The owner must activate the incoming mail option from the group settings in Outlook Online. From the same place, the owner can specify that all group chats and events will be sent to members' inboxes.

Workspace user roles

There are three user roles in a group: Owner, Member and Guest.

Each group must have at least two owners who manage the group's user rights and settings. The creator of the group is automatically set as the owner. The creator of the group must also give ownership rights to one of the members of his group.Members can edit end delete the contents but cannot change the group settings or accecpt members to the group. Other members will have same kind of rights as an owner if member is given Owner role.

It is possible to add new members and give owner roles after group is created. The owner's task is to ensure that there are no extra users in the groups, for example in a situation where the person's employment contract ends and he continues in the higher education community in another role. A member is not automatically removed from the group, but must always be done by the owner. We remind the owner of the Teams workspace with an automatic e-mail message when the employment contract of a member in the group ends. More information in reminder section.

You can invite people from outside the Tampere university community if the owner has allowed it when ordering the group. The people outside the organization are always added as Guests. Users with Guest user right have a restricted right to use the group applications and contents. Guest cannot have owner role. External users invited to the group should enable multifactor authentication. Please read about the limitations of the Guest role on the instruction page.

It may take a few hours before the new members and owners or a changed member type are displayed in the applications - please be patient.

Reminder to Teams workspace owners about the termination of a group member’s employment contract 

An automatic reminder message is sent to the workspace owners when the workspace member's employment contract ends and there is no new employment contract starting within seven days. The reminder is sent even if the user has a valid resource agreement or study right. The reminder will only be sent once. In this situation, it is up to the owner to assess the need for membership and, if necessary, remove him from the group. 

Automatic e-mail reminders allow owners to better ensure that there are no extra users left in the groups, for example, in a situation where a person's employment contract ends and he or she continues in another role in the Tampere Universities community. The member is not automatically removed from the group, it must always be done by the owner. 

Workspace accessibility 

A Group can be Private or Public. All groups can be found at the Apps or the Address Book.

• The materials and contents of a private group are only available to Group members added or accepted by the Group owner.
• Members of a private group can invite users from the Tampere university community but they must be accepted by the owner.
• Everyone in the Tampere university community can join public groups without the owners’ approval.

Please note that the materials of the public group are available to the Tampere university community, i.e. to everyone with a tuni ID.

Life cycle of workspace

The groups lifecycle feature is not currently available, but it is coming.

Leaving and deleting the workspace

If the group is unnecessary for you, but probably necessary for other members, you can leave the group yourself by clicking the three dots next to the group name in the Teams view and selecting Leave team from the menu that opens.

If the group has become unnecessary and can be deleted, the group owner can do this by clicking three dots next to the group name in the Teams view and selecting Delete team from the menu that opens.

Workspace apps 

Teams workspace have access to several applications suited for different types of working, teaching and learning. The applications include SharePoint for shared files, Teams space for communication and video meetings, Planner for task management and Stream (SharePoint) for videos. Group applications are interconnected in many cases. For example, the files in Teams channels are saved in the SharePoint file library and recorded Teams space meetings are saved either to the group's files or to the recorder's OneDrive, depending on the settings.

Workspace conversations and video meetings (Teams space) 

You can create conversation channels for groups members in a Teams space. In the channel, you can send messages and have video meetings with the group members. Group owners and members can create new channels by clicking Manage team and selecting Add channel. Groups owners can also create private channels where specific members can have a private conversations. Channels can favorite for members to be shown in the channel list automatically. Group owner can favorite up to 10 channels for team members.

Every member can hide channel from their own channel list by clicking channel name with right click and selecting Hide. Channel can be unhidden by selecting Hidden channels and clicking channels Show button. 

In a Teams space, you can work on common files which are saved in the group’s SharePoint library. Other applications, such as Planner and Stream can be added to a Teams space as well.

Teams space works best when you download and install Microsoft Teams application. 

Workspace email and calendar (Outlook) 

You can communicate with people from outside the organization by using the Outlook browser view. Each group member can read the incoming messages and can forward them to their personal TUNI email address by changing the star in the group's SharePoint view to Followed. The group owner must change the email settings for the group to be able to receive external emails (instructions below).

Everyone can send emails from the Outlook view of the group. In the email, the sender’s personal address will be displayed. However, you can send emails in the name of an Organization group. This requires a setting to be changed and users to be assigned.

A calendar can be used for the group’s scheduled meetings.

 

Setting for allowing for receiving emails from external users and using the group as an e-mail list

1. Open Outlook in the browser view 

2. If required, log in using your TUNI email address and password 

3. Open the Group menu and select the correct group 

4. Click the wheel button in the right upper corner 

5. Click Edit group button 

6. Setting for allowing for receiving emails from external users:
   Select Let people outside the organization email this group

7. To use a group as an email list:
   Select Send all group conversations and events to members’ inboxes. They can stop following this group later if they want to.

8. Click Save button 

Workspace files and contents (SharePoint and file library) 

You can share and work on common files in the group’s file library. In the group site, you can also create lists and share topical contents by using news posts. The group owners can expand the group site with required applications.

1. Learn about a SharePoint site 

2. Upload and share files in the Share point library 

3. Sync files and folders 

Deleted files are moved to the site’s Recycle Bin. Deleted files can be restored within 90 days after the file has been deleted. Files can be restored according to Microsoft instructions.

If you wish, you can make a backup of the Teams workspace files as follows. In the folder view, click Download, and Teams will load a zip-packaged file on your computer containing all the files, folders, and folder contents in that folder, etc. Name the zip file by content and date and keep it secure. If the file needs to be saved to an external disk, see Management and storage of research data.

Organizing the workspace tasks (Planner) 

It is easy to share, arrange and view the progress of the tasks using Planner. In the task center, you can assign group members to tasks and sort them into buckets. You can display the tasks in various ways to help you view the progress and carry out the tasks. 

1. Browse to the Planner application 

2. Select the Planner of the Group 

3. Add tasks 

4. Assign members to tasks 

5. Sort tasks to buckets 

6. View the progress of the plans 

Workspace videos (Stream) 

There are two different versions of Stream today. Old recordings created before June 14, 2021 can be found in the Stream (classic) application, and recordings created after that can be found in the Stream (SharePoint) application. Stream (classic) recordings are only for internal use of the organization, but Stream (SharePoint) recordings can also be distributed outside the organization. Members of workspace can share and watch videos in the Stream app. Stream (classic) is being phased out and the recordings must be transferred immediately to OneDrive or Teams workspace files. 
 

IT Helpdesk
0294 520 500
it-helpdesk [at] tuni.fi (it-helpdesk[at]tuni[dot]fi)
helpdesk.tuni.fi