Teams has a useful search function, but it can sometimes produce too many results. To save you unnecessary time searching, you can utilise filters.
These filters allow you to search using specific criteria such as date, sender, and file type, helping you to quickly pinpoint the information you need!
Take a look at the screenshot below to learn how to use these filters âŹ
Have you found that you want all your notes including documents or PDFs all in one place? Well with OneNote, this is possible! As well as being a great space to store your personal notes, did you know that you can insert file printouts including PDFs and Word pages to go alongside your notes? Watch the video below to learn how to insert file printouts!Â
If you need to deliver a presentation within a strict time limit, you may want to practice to get your timings perfect. With DigiTip 39, you can learn how to practice your presentation and receive the timings you used per slide. View the short clip below to learn how to rehearse:Â
Have you ever gotten stuck trying to think of a different word to take your sentence to the next level? Thereâs no need to struggle anymore! With DigiTip 37, learn how to use the synonyms function in Word. View step by step instructions below or watch the short video to learn more!
Simply:Â
Right click on the chosen word Â
Hover over âsynonymsâ Â
Select a new word!Â
Still not seeing an appropriate word? Select thesaurus and view more!Â
There may be times when someone has sent you an email, and you’d like to acknowledge its receipt without sending another reply. A great feature to use in this case is the reactions feature in Outlook, which works similarly to those in MS Teams or on various social media platforms.
To react to an email, click on the smiley face button on the top of your screen. You can then choose from six emojis, ranging from a thumbs up đ to a sad face! đ„
Have you ever been in an MS Teams meeting where you’ve needed to send a quick list thatâs easy for others to read? There are actually two quick ways to create bullet points or numbered lists in any MS Teams chat.
Option 1
You can either click on the format icon in the chat, and you can easily create bullet points or a numbered list from here.
Option 2
Or, if you’re in a Teams chat:
Press – and then the space bar to start your bullet points
Press 1. and then the space bar to start a numbered list
Blogpost by ShĂąn Saunders (Digital Capabilities and Skills Development Coordinator)
In September 2023, the Digital Skills Team began DigiTips â a weekly blogpost to highlight a useful tip that you can use to make your daily digital life easier. Below are the top 5 DigiTips from 2023/24.
Are you working on one screen and struggling? Are you tired of swapping between two windows?âŻDid you know that you can split your screen to view two things at once making it much easier to view two windows at the same time. This means that you can work on documents, tabs and much more side-by-side.
Most of us will be more familiar with using emojis on our mobile phones đ±, but there will be times when weâll want to include emojis when using our laptops or computersđ». Instead of googling for the emoji you need, why not access it directly from your keyboard!?
Are you struggling to concentrate on your work? Are you procrastinating on social media? Do you need to limit your scrolling time?âŻDid you know you can now limit your Instagram scrolling time through the Instagram settings.âŻ
Have you ever copied and pasted content from a webpage or another document into a new Word document and found that it completely messes up your formatting? Luckily, there are additional options outside of the basic pasting option (ctrl+v) which can help solve this!
Sometimes, you may need to set some time aside to concentrate on a particular piece of work, but how can you show other people who are also online that youâre busy? Microsoft Teams allows you to set your status to Do not disturb, meaning that you wonât be interrupted by Teams notifications or calls (unless you choose to receive these from specific people), but it can be too easy to forget to turn this status off once youâre finished.
Here is your final DigiTip for this academic year but you can catch up on all of our previous DigiTIps from this page. We hope that youâve found our tips useful, and weâll be back in September â24 where weâll continue support your confidence with technology, one DigiTip at a time!
Do you sometimes struggle in larger meetings to know who is currently speaking? âŠ..âwas that Ffion or Bethan?!â Maybe youâre working in a loud environment and are struggling to hear others in the meeting speak? Perhaps youâve joined a meeting where the language spoken isnât your first language? Or perhaps you appreciate the accessibility of having subtitles?
If any of the above are true for you, then you will likely find the functionality to enable live captions in MS Teams useful. Watch the video below to learn how to enable live captions:
Itâs worth noting a couple of things if youâre using this feature:
Live captions are only visible to those that have enabled the feature within the meeting, meaning that if you switch them on, they wonât automatically appear for everyone!
Live caption data is permanently deleted after a meeting, so no one will have access to this information.
Visit this webpage for further support and guidance in using MS Teams.
As someone who uses Microsoft Teams every day for work, Iâve discovered a collection of useful keyboard shortcuts and tips that have helped me in navigating the platform more efficiently. Whether you’re a staff member jumping from one meeting to the next, or a student using MS Teams to collaborate on projects or attend virtual lectures, these tips should help you to make the most of MS Teams.
Keyboard Shortcut
Description
Ctrl+Shift+O
Turn off your camera
Ctrl+Shift+M
Mute your microphone
Ctrl+K
Create shorter hyperlinks
Shift+Enter
Start a new line in the chatbox without sending the message
Summary of the key keyboard shortcuts mentioned in this blogpost
Turn off your camera quickly
There are times when you need to quickly turn off your video during a call, it may be that your bandwidth is limited or there are distractions behind you. Quickly toggle your camera on and off by using the Ctrl+Shift+O shortcut.
Customise your hyperlinks
Instead of cluttering your messages with lengthy URLs, make use of the Ctrl+K shortcut. This shortcut allows you to customise the displayed text for your hyperlink, making your messages more concise!
Mute your microphone
Background noise can also disrupt meetings (I have two dogs that bark whenever someone rings the doorbell, so this is my most-used shortcut!) Use Ctrl+Shift+M to mute and unmute your microphone swiftly.
Refine your search results
Teams has an useful search functionality, but sometimes it can yield too many results! Make the most of the available filters to refine your search and to save you time.
Start a new line in the chatbox without sending your message
Typing messages in Teams can be tricky, especially when you want to add line breaks without sending the incomplete message. Use Shift+Enter to start a new line in the chatbox without sending the message prematurely.
Make quick decisions with the polling feature
Do you need to gather opinions or make decisions quickly? If youâre looking to create a poll once youâve started your meeting, Teams offers a built-in polling feature.
Please note: We suggest that you use Vevox, AUâs polling tool, if youâre looking to set up a poll in advance of your online meeting or session.
Mark messages as urgent or important
Do you want to send an important message on Teams and are worried that it will get lost within a stream of messages? To solve this issue, you can mark any messages as urgent or important in MS Teams.
Do you have any other shortcuts or other general tips when youâre using MS Teams? If so, weâd love to hear from you! Share your tips and shortcuts in the box below âŹ
Whether you want to schedule weekly catch-ups with colleagues, bi-weekly project meetings, or monthly team meetings, knowing how to set these up using the recurring meetings function in Microsoft Outlook will save you a lot of time!
The below video demonstrates how to set up recurring meetings in the desktop app version of Outlook, but the process for setting these up on MS Teams or the web version of Outlook is very similar.
Once set up, your reoccurring meeting will now appear as a series in your calendar, and if you need to alter any details, youâll always have the option of altering just a single occurrence or the whole series.
