New Template for creating teams in Microsoft Teams

Microsoft is soon introducing new templates for creating teams in MS Teams. Team templates are pre-built definitions of a team’s structure designed around a business need or project.

Initially, Microsoft will provide 13 base templates based on tasks like managing a project, promoting an event, or coordinating incident responses. The base templates have a predefined team structure with set channels, tabs, and apps; they can be duplicated but not edited.

Currently, a team has many capabilities and most of these are supported by team templates but not all. Below I share what capabilities these templates do and do not support.

Supported capabilities

a. Base template type
b. Team name
c. Team description
d. Team visibility (public or private)
e. Team settings (e.g., member, guest, @mentions)
f. Auto-favorite channel
g. Installed app
h. Pinned tabs

Not supported capabilities

a. Team membership
b. Team Picture
c. Channel settings
d. Connectors
e. Files and content

The remaining capabilities will be added to the templates in future updates.

New templates and their properties

Microsoft created templates based on specific industry needs.  These templates include priority apps that are available on the app source. Initially, Microsoft will publish 13 templates spanning key business scenarios and industries so users can get more from using Teams.

It will be possible to extend or override certain special templates with additional properties based on your specific needs. However, some base template types contain properties that can’t be changed.

The following are the templates and their properties.

Template type	Properties that come with this base template
Adopt Office 365	Channels: General Announcements Champions corner Team forms Apps: Wiki Calendar
Manage a project	Channels: General Announcements Resources Planning Apps: Wiki OneNote
Manage an event	Channels: General Announcements Budget Content Logistics Planning Marketing and PR Apps: Wiki Website YouTube Planner OneNote
Onboard employees	Channels: General Announcements Employee chat Training Apps: Wiki Communities
Organize help desk	Channels: Announcements FAQ Apps: Wiki OneNote
Collaborate on patient care	Channels: General Announcements Huddles Rounds Staffing Training Apps: Wiki
Collaborate on global crisis or event	Channels: General Announcements World news Business continuity Remote working Internal comms External comms Customer complaints Kudos Executive update Apps: Praise Wiki Website
Collaborate within a bank branch	Channels: General Announcements Huddles Customer meetings Coaching Skills development Loan processing Customer complaints Kudos Fun stuff Compliance
Coordinate incident response	Channels: General Announcements Logistics Planning Recovery Urgent Apps: Wiki Excel OneNote SharePoint Planner
Hospital	Channels: General Announcements Compliance Custodial/li> Human resources Pharmacy Apps: Wiki
Organize a store	Channels: General Shift handoff Learning Apps: Wiki
Quality and safety	Channels: General Announcements Line 1 Line 2 Line 3 Safety Training Maintenance Fun stuff Apps: Wiki
Retail – manager collaboration	Channels: General Operations Learning Apps: Wiki

Template limitations

Team templates have some limitations in terms of channels, tabs, and apps.

Feature	Limit
Channels per template	15
Tabs per channel in a template	20
Apps per template	50

How to create a team from templates

1. Click on Teams from the left navigation on your MS Teams client.

2. At the bottom of the teams’ list, click Join, or create a team.

3. Now, click on the ‘Create a team’

Note: If you don’t see the Create a new team option, you may not have the necessary permissions to create your teams.

4. A new window will pop up, select any template under ‘Select from template’. As you can see below, we selected the ‘Contoso Events Management’ template.

5. Once you select the template, it shows you the team templates’ structure (channels and apps).

6. You can customize the team name, description, and channel names in a template.

7. After you create the team, users receive guidance on how to best use and further customize the team. Each template comes with its instruction manual.

When this will be released?

Microsoft will begin rolling this out in the first week of October. They expect to finish the rollout by the end of October.

Final Thoughts

Microsoft Teams is a great platform to collaborate with everyone in your organization. The new templates provide a basic structure for a team for those who are not sure how to get the most out of this platform.

If you have any questions about the Teams templates or any other aspect of implementing Teams for your organization, contact us today for a free consultation.