Read today’s Teams Tip – 18 February 2021

This week we are looking at how to prioritise your channels and posts in Teams by pinning them.

Pinned channels

In the past, we’ve looked at how to keep your Teams organised by hiding the quieter groups.

You can also prioritise specific channels within your Teams groups by pinning them into a list and then reordering as desired.

To do this, you must be in the Teams pane and using the List layout view (not Grid). To access list view, click on your Profile icon and select Settings > Layout > List view.

Once you have list view active, go to the channels listed under each Team and select More options (…) next to the channel you want to prioritise, then click Pin.

This pins the channel to the top of the pane along with an icon showing which Team it has come from.

You can do this as many times as you like with channels from multiple Teams and then reorder them as you wish.

An example is shown below and you can read more in this article on setting up your Teams and channels.

Pinned posts within channels

This is a more recent feature and is a useful tool for larger Teams with a lot of members where it is easy for posts to get lost due to the volume of conversations.

If there is a key post(s) that all members of a channel should see, it can be pinned so that it becomes part of that channel’s information pane.

Here is an example using the excellent PACT (Parents and Carers Together) Community of Practice.

In the image you can see that the ‘Being Well at UCL in February’ post has been pinned. This was done by clicking on the ellipsis (…) at the edge of the post and selecting Pin.

As a result, a green pin icon now shows at the corner of the post. As more conversations start, this post will move up and eventually off the immediate screen, however, because it has been pinned it can be accessed easily again by clicking the (i) icon (circled) in the top right hand corner of the channel screen.

This brings up the channel information pane, which includes an About statement for the channel, a list of Members (redacted here for privacy) and any Pinned posts, meaning that even if the original post has moved far up the conversation list, it can still be found easily without endless scrolling.

It’s a great option for keeping information like channel guidelines or important announcements in one place.

Pinning people

Nope, not wrestling, just a quick reminder that during Teams meetings with large numbers of attendees, you can pin a person’s video feed to make sure it is always on your screen.

To do this, click on the ellipsis (…) next to the person’s name, or simply right click on their feed and select Pin.

If you have any tips for using Teams which have helped you make the most of the product, please email us or post your tip on Twitter or Instagram with the hashtag #teamstips. For further information about using Teams effectively, please have a look at the Teams SharePoint site. If you are having any specific issues with the set-up of Teams, please contact the IT Services Desk directly who are best placed to help you.

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