Microsoft Teams frequently asked questions

Microsoft Teams is part of the Microsoft 365 (M365) suite of applications. It is a communication and collaboration app built for team-work, so you can stay informed, organized, and connected - all in one place.

Teams is being rolled out in a phased approach: (See Collaboration features in Teams to learn why.)

1. Teams communication - chat, video and audio calling, online meetings, screen-sharing and calendar (February 15, 2022).
2. Teams collaboration - adds collaboration features like file sharing, co-editing, teams and channels and integration of other M365 apps (date to be confirmed).

The Teams application will be automatically installed on all Parks Canada computers and smartphones before the launch date of February 15, 2022.

Google Meet and BBME will remain available. The plan is to retire them eventually, after we deploy the collaboration features in Teams. This will be communicated well in advance.

No. You must use a work-issued computer or smartphone when using Teams at Parks Canada.

Teams can be used for interdepartmental Government of Canada communication (chat, calls and meetings) if other departments allow it. Parks Canada has authorized access for all other GC departments, but it must be reciprocal for it to happen.

Yes. You can use Teams on the web. Find it here: https://teams.microsoft.com

• Fewer emails. Teams is great for the quick conversation with colleagues – you can even use the odd emoji 😉
• Centralized hub for communication - chat, calls and meetings all in one place.
• Teams mobile app - chat with colleagues and join meetings while on the move.

• Teams provides all the communication tools you use in one central location.
• The calendar in Teams syncs with your Outlook calendar, making it easier to manage meetings.
• As we start to use more M365 tools, Teams will become a central hub for content as well as meetings and chat (for example, you will be able to open and a Word document directly in Teams when in a meeting, and all participants in the meeting can co-edit the document).
• We understand that change can be hard, but eventually we will be retiring our other communication tools like BBME and Google Meet. Take this opportunity to get used to working in Teams while these other tools are still available. M365 will offer some exciting opportunities!

Collaboration features like file sharing, co-editing, and working together in channels will be added as soon as possible. These features rely on Microsoft 365 cloud storage (OneDrive and SharePoint) and will not be enabled until our network is upgraded and we have completed our Information Management Cleanup Project. We will provide more information about this soon.

We recommend turning off your video camera and using audio only when using Teams at a Parks Canada office.

We anticipate network capacity issues when using video in Teams at the office. To help with this situation, we are working with Shared Services Canada to make some critical upgrades to our network. We are also enabling Teams video meetings in our boardrooms, deploying Teams on mobile devices, and adding some WiFi hotspots at 30 Victoria. Best practices for using Teams at the office

When working remotely, Teams can be accessed without connecting to the VPN (like Outlook). If you are on the VPN, split tunnelling has been deployed at Parks Canada to ensure that there is sufficient bandwidth for regular network traffic as well as Teams and other M365 traffic (like Outlook). Split tunnelling means that M365 traffic is diverted directly to the Internet instead of travelling through the Parks Canada network. Even with split tunneling, the M365 remains secure for up to Protected B information.

Some of our boardrooms will be "Teams enabled" using existing video conferencing equipment.

Yes. You can use chat, make audio and video calls and participate in meetings from the Teams mobile app.

Video in Teams can use up to 10 times the bandwidth of audio.

A Teams meeting allows a maximum of 1,000 attendees.

• Every Teams meeting will include a regional number in the meeting details. Use this to dial in to meetings. We will be providing a toll-free dial-in option for Teams meetings soon.
• You can also use the audio option in the Teams mobile app to join meetings.

Any Teams meeting or group call can be recorded for future viewing. It will be available in the meeting chat for a period of 21 days after the meeting. Meeting participants can download the recording and play it back on their local device. After 21 days, the meeting recording will no longer be available for download from the chat. (Note: This will change when we roll out Teams collaboration at a later date. Then, recorded meetings will be stored in the cloud and won't be deleted after 21 days.)

External users (outside of the Government of Canada) can participate in Teams meetings when provided with a link via email.

No.

In the future there will be options to host live events (like all-staff meetings) and webinars in Teams. A deployment plan for this is being developed.

Yes. You can create, view, accept, or join meetings in either Teams or Outlook, and it will sync with the other.

You can participate in a Teams meeting from the Teams mobile app. You can seamlessly switch your participation from your phone to your desktop device without leaving a meeting.

Yes. Any meeting link in Teams will stay active for 60 days. This time will reset every time the link is used for a meeting. So as long as the meetings stays active, the link will never expire.

Breakout rooms are available in our current version of Teams. We will be providing training on how to use them soon. Breakout rooms allow you to create rooms where you can have a separate meeting within a meeting.

Staff can have video conferences to chat about and share data on screens up to Protected B for internal meetings. It's the only videoconferencing tool at Parks Canada that allows you to do that.

MFA is needed to access any of our M365 tools, including Teams. You should already have this set up from our email migration in September 2021. How to set up and use MFA

All information in Teams chat will be considered transitory and will be automatically deleted after 60 days.

When information of business value is transmitted via Teams chat, the information should be documented in another format (e.g. copy and paste the information into a Word document and save the document to an appropriate place).

All information in Teams chat will be considered transitory and will be automatically deleted after 60 days. Because of the current litigation hold, after that 60-day period, an administrator can still retrieve these chat messages even though they will not be available to the user.

If you ever need to chat, call or participate in meetings while on the go, you can do so using the Teams mobile app.

The Teams mobile app will be automatically installed on your Parks Canada mobile device. See Microsoft Teams for mobile

Not right away. Shared Service Canada included these apps as a package when they pushed the Teams app to Parks Canada phones. You may see SharePoint, OneDrive and Planner as well as Teams. Only Teams is usable now. You will be able to use the other apps once we complete out Information Management Cleanup Project.

To reduce the amount of data used in Teams calls and meetings on your mobile device, we strongly recommend that you change a setting in the Teams mobile app (accessible only on the Parks Canada network) to optimize data usage.

No. You must be on a work-issued device.

Training for Microsoft Teams is available here.

Yes. Our Service Desk staff are available to help colleagues as usual. We will prioritize support for Teams on your computer over Teams on your mobile.

Each business unit has an M365 Champion. List of M365 Champions (accessible only on the Parks Canada network).

The deployment of Teams is phase 2 of our M365 implementation (phase 1 was our email migration in September 2021). The next phase will be the introduction of the full suite of M365 tools (once our network us upgraded), followed by our Content Cleanup and M365 Migration Project. We will provide more information about this soon.

OneDrive, SharePoint, Office 365 apps (PowerPoint, Word, Excel, OneNote), Stream, Planner and more. We will communicate widely about how you can use these tools and services as they become available and we move towards a new culture of working. It's a learning process for us as well!