Last week, Microsoft Teams became generally available to Office 365 business users. Today we’re making Teams available in Office 365 Education, free for faculty, staff and students. We’re thrilled by the enthusiasm for Teams in the education community and look forward to seeing how customers build Teams into the way they collaborate every day.
Microsoft Teams is the chat-based workspace in Office 365 Education. Teams brings people, conversations and content—along with the tools schools need—together in one place so they can easily collaborate to achieve more. Because it’s built on Office 365, faculty, teachers and students benefit from integration with their familiar Office 365 apps and services. It delivers enterprise-grade security and compliance, and is extensible and customizable to fit the needs of every team.
Teams is available to education customers as part of the Office 365 Education suite licensing: Education, Education Plus and Education E5, as well as existing Education E3 suites.
Turn on Microsoft Teams today
Starting today, administrators can enable Microsoft Teams for their institutions through the Office 365 admin center. Although Teams is off by default, IT admins can easily configure access at the license level for Faculty & Staff and/or Students.
We recommend that IT admins enable Microsoft Teams and begin using it now within their IT organization; and with targeted groups of faculty, staff, teachers, and higher-education students.
Learn how to manage licenses through the Office 365 admin center and turn on Teams today.
- Microsoft Teams
Frequently Asked Questions
Q. In which markets and languages is Microsoft Teams available?
A. Microsoft Teams is available in 181 Office 365 markets and 19 languages: English (US), Chinese (Simple & Traditional), Spanish, French, German, Italian, Russian, Portuguese (BR), Japanese, Korean, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian, Turkish, Czech, Polish.
Q. Which Office 365 education plans include Microsoft Teams?
A. Microsoft Teams is available in all Office 365 for Education suite licensing: Education, Education Plus and Education E5, as well as existing Education E3 customers who purchased E3 prior to its retirement.
Q. Is Microsoft Teams available to purchase as a standalone service in education?
A. No, Microsoft Teams is available only as part of Office 365 Education suites, as listed above.
Q. Is there a free version of Microsoft Teams?
A. People can use Microsoft Teams as part of a free offer of Office 365 Education here.
Q. Is Microsoft Teams on by default for Office 365 Education users?
A. Starting March 20, 2017, Teams will be off by default and available to IT admins to turn on for their institutions. We recommend that IT admins enable Microsoft Teams and begin using it now within their IT organizations; and for targeted groups of faculty, staff, teachers, and higher-education students.
Q. How can IT Administrators enable Microsoft Teams for their institutions?
A. Administrators need to use the Office 365 admin center to enable Microsoft Teams for their institution.
- Sign in to Office 365 with your work or school account.
- Click Admin to go to the Office 365 admin center.
- Navigate to Settings > Services & add-ins.
- On the Services & add-ins page, click Microsoft Teams.
- On the Microsoft Teams settings screen that opens, select the education license you want to configure – Faculty & Staff or Student.
- After you select the license type you want to enable, set the toggle to On and then click Save.
Q. What platforms does Microsoft Teams support?
A. Microsoft Teams runs on Windows, Mac, Android, iOS and web platforms. Teams supports the web client on Microsoft Edge 12+, Internet Explorer 11+, Firefox 47.0+, and Chrome 51.0+. Users who try to open the Microsoft Teams web client on Safari are directed to download the desktop client. Safari support may be added at a later time.
Q. What level of security and compliance does Microsoft Teams support?
A. Microsoft Teams supports the following security and compliance measures: ISO 27001, ISO 27018, SSAE16, SOC1 Type I & II, SOC2 Type I and II, HIPAA, FERPA, GLBA and EU Model Clause (“EUMC”). EUMC data is encrypted at rest and over the wire and data is stored in the data center in the region in which the O365 tenant is homed. Microsoft Teams also enforces team-wide and tenant-wide two-factor authentication and single sign on through Active Directory.
Q. What admin controls are there for Microsoft Teams?
A. As an administrator for your institution, you can assign user licenses to control individual access to Microsoft Teams and you can allow or block what content sources can be used in Microsoft Teams. See Administrator settings for Microsoft Teams for more details. Also see the Admin support article: Frequently asked questions about Microsoft Teams – Admin Help.
Q. What trainings are available to help Office 365 Education admins learn about Microsoft Teams?
A. We have several guides and resources available for our IT admins. You can view a video on Microsoft Mechanics, learn how to deploy and operate Teams, and find more information on the Microsoft Teams Tech Community. UPDATE: We now have 3 Microsoft Teams Getting Started Guides designed for IT Admins, Educators, and School Leaders. Please visit http://aka.ms/meetteamsedu to download those guides.
