How to use the new communities feature in Microsoft Teams

By Fionna Agomuoh Published December 7, 2022

Microsoft has announced a new communities feature for its free Microsoft Teams communication platform that is intended for personal use rather than exclusively for large businesses.

Contents

How to access Microsoft Teams communities
How to start a community in Teams

The communities feature is available for Microsoft 365 Personal and Family and Teams Essentials accounts and allows users to easily organize, share, communicate, and collaborate in a hybrid manner. The feature allows you to not only connect online directly, but also to prepare for in-person meetings.

The Microsoft Teams Communities features is now available for Microsoft 365 Personal and Family. — Microsoft

Microsoft notes that some ideal use cases for Microsoft Teams communities include communication between recreational sports teams, event planning committees, parent-teacher associations, and small businesses. Communities allow participants to stay in contact before, during, and after in-person meetings and allow them to share data, including photos, videos, event invites, links, and other documents.

Recommended Videos

Microsoft said it has already collaborated with a number of organizations, including the American Youth Soccer Organization, to show the power of Microsoft Teams communities outside the corporate world.

The company also plans to partner with SignUp Genius in 2023 to aid those who want to use Teams communities for volunteer work, member management, event planning, and fundraising.

How to access Microsoft Teams communities

A Home screen in Microsoft Teams showing the different Communities to choose from. — microsoft

The communities feature in Microsoft Teams is currently available for iOS and Android and will soon be available for desktops, according to Microsoft. You can access the feature on mobile by going to the Home tab in the free Microsoft Teams mobile app and selecting communities.

From there, you’ll see the list of communities you’re a member of. Tap the name, and you’ll find the messages, files, events, and calendar pertaining to that community.

If you have a work or school Teams account, you must switch to a personal account in order to use the Communities feature. Microsoft ensures that data from communities cannot be passed on to an employer.

How to start a community in Teams

The new Communities feature being used in Microsoft Teams. — Microsoft

You can find the directives to start a community on the Microsoft Teams Home screen, with no need to download any other application. Fill in the suggested community types, and you can also brand the community to your liking with a photo. Sharing and inviting members is also easy and involves sending the community via email address, phone number, physical link, or QR code.

Those in charge of communities also have the ability to control settings and guidelines, as well as moderate content and manage participants.

Topics

Computing Writer

Fionna Agomuoh is a Computing Writer at Digital Trends. She covers a range of topics in the computing space, including…

Computing

Copilot Pro: how to use Microsoft’s advanced AI sidekick

Microsoft's Copilot Pro is a game-changer for productivity and creativity, offering users advanced AI capabilities right at their fingertips. Whether you're a professional looking to streamline your workflow or a creator aiming to enhance your projects, Copilot Pro provides a suite of tools designed to supercharge your experience.

But with so many functionalities, how do you truly leverage Copilot Pro's potential? In this guide, we'll unveil a treasure trove of tips and tricks to maximize your Copilot Pro experience. We'll delve into crafting effective prompts to unlock the AI's true potential, explore lesser-known features for specific tasks, and optimize your workflow for seamless integration with Microsoft 365.
What is Microsoft Copilot Pro?

Computing

Microsoft is finally making Copilot+ laptops useful for AI

Microsoft Surface Pro 11 front view in tablet mode.

Microsoft's Copilot+ PC initiative has been a smash hit, with many of them landing among the best laptops, but not for the AI hardware inside. Now, finally, Microsoft is putting the neural processing unit (NPU) inside Copilot+ PCs to good use. Starting today and going throughout the next two months, Microsoft will begin rolling out the 24H2 update for all Windows 11 PCs, and in the process, unlock several features for Copilot+ PCs, including the highly controversial Recall.

Recall is definitely the star of the show here, which will start showing up on Copilot+ laptops with a Snapdragon X chipset throughout October. Last week, Microsoft laid the groundwork for the release of Recall, detailing the security architecture of the feature and addressing some major criticisms of it. Now, for example, Recall is turned off instead of on by default. Microsoft is also allowing users to filter websites and giving users more control over their snapshots, including deleting them all.

Computing

Sorry, Microsoft — AI isn’t the reason people are buying new laptops

Asus Vivobook S 15 CoPilot+ front angled view showing display and keyboard.

New research by the International Data Corporation (IDC) shows that although AI PCs are selling well and will likely continue to, it's not the onboard generative AI that's driving sales -- it's just the usual refresh cycle.

Companies like Microsoft are aggressively pushing the advantages of generative AI for the average consumer's workflow, but the IDC thinks customers aren't responding to the AI features specifically. People need new PCs on a regular basis -- which we call a refresh cycle -- and since so many of the laptops launching this year are AI PCs, the consumers who need upgrades are naturally just buying what's available.