Lesson 2: Microsoft Teams Managing Notifications
Now that you have learned how to chat and may be participating in Teams video meetings, it’s time to
pick your notification settings. Teams can be noisy or quiet as you want.
Supporting video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aID6oxYEEzI and refer to the attached
Before we begin here are some Teams notification terms to know:
BANNERs are pop-up notifications which appear at the corner of the screen whenever a user receives a
message or is mentioned, individually or as a member of a team. Banners can be accompanied by
sound or not.
You can view your FEED in the Teams by clicking the bell icon in the upper left corner of the Teams
interface.
An @mention is a way to get someone's attention in a conversation or a chat. To use an @mention, in the
box where you type your message, type @ plus the first few letters of the person’s first or last name. The
person must be a member of the team or of the group chat for you to @mention them. You can also
@mention entire teams and channels.
Likes and reactions allow you to show your feelings or acknowledge that you've seen what someone's
written by adding reactions like or . Just hover over a message and pick one that works for you.
Trending topics are hot issues currently receiving a lot of activity.
Teams vs. Channels: A team is a group of people gathered to get something big done in your
organization. Teams are made up of channels. Each channel can be dedicated to a specific topic,
department, or project. Most channels are standard ones — everyone on the team can participate in
conversations, share files, and more. With a private channel, members must be specifically added to it to
participate or see the channel in their list of channels.
Pinned channels stay at the top of the list so you don’t have to hunt them down. To pin a channel, go to
a channel name and select More options > Pin. This ensures that the channel stays at the top of your
list. If you change your mind, just select it again and unpin it.
Teams alerts do not stay visible like Skype for Business alerts but you can tweak notification settings a bit.
Basic Notification Settings
1. Open Teams and click your face or your initials in the upper right corner.
2. Click Settings and then click Notifications.
3. Under Emails: set the missed activity to As soon as possible or maybe once every hour. This will send
you an email for Teams messages you’ve missed.
4. Under Teams and Channels: choose All Activity.
5. If you want the pop-up to stay on your screen for more than a few seconds:
a) Under Notification Style: choose Windows.
b) Close Teams
c) Click the magnifying glass in the lower left corner of your taskbar at the bottom of the screen.
d) Start typing Choose how long
e) Click Choose how long notifications are shown which should appear at the top of the search list.
f) At the bottom of the screen, set Show notifications for to 5 minutes.
Advanced Notification Settings
There are a lot of notification settings. Since you’re new to Teams, you may wish to initially adjust the settings
highlighted in blue.Items in blue are the minimum recommended to be alerted to important Teams activity.
Notification Setting
Noisier
Quieter
Email: Teams will email you
about any activity you have
missed.
• As soon as possible
• Every 10 minutes
• Every 8 hours
• Daily
• Off
Appearance and sound
Show Message Preview
Popups display the first
few lines of messages.
Some view this as an invasion of
privacy
You will not see a
message preview.
Play Sound for notification
A sound will play
No sound will play.
Teams and channels
All Activity button.
Mentions and replies button
You can further tweak your “Teams and Channels” notification
settings by clicking the Customize button. To use the Customize
option, see the section below in the shaded table.
Chats
@mentions
Banner and feed
Only in Feed
Replies
Banner
Off
Likes and reaction
Banner and feed
Only in Feed or Off
Meetings:
Meeting started notification
Banner
Off
Meeting chat notification
• Unmute
• Mute until I join
or send a…
• Off
People: Follow a person's status
and get notified when they
appear Available or Offline.
Use search to add a person or
people you’d like to follow
Do not add many people to your
list.
Custom Teams & Channel Notifications – Click the Custom button under Teams and Channel Notifications
to determine exactly how you want to be notified
Personal @mentions:
Banner and feed
Only in Feed
Team mentions:
Banner and feed
Only in Feed or Off
Replies to
conversations I started:
Banner and feed
Only in Feed or Off
Replies to
conversations I replied to:
Banner and feed
Only in Feed or Off
Likes and Reactions:
Banner and feed
Only in Feed or Off
Trending:
Banner and feed
Only in Feed or Off
Shown and pinned channels
All new posts – notify every
time there is a post in this
channel
Banner and feed
Only in Feed or Off
Channel mentions – notify
me each time this channel is
mentioned
Banner and feed
Only in Feed or Off
