Hello, it's Matt and welcome to Collaboration Coach.
This time we're going to look at how to create custom templates for Microsoft Teams.
This video is specifically for Teams administrators
and we'll show you step by step how to create a custom Teams template in the Teams admin centre.
Custom Teams templates allow you to create templates with pre-defined channels and tabs
that your users can use to create new Teams.
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To get to the Teams admin centre go to the app launcher
and then hit the admin button and choose "show all" and then Teams.
To get to the Teams templates choose the Teams menu from the left hand side
and then choose "Team templates".
You'll see a mix of the Microsoft default templates and any custom ones.
You can open up any of the templates and see how they're configured.
The one we used earlier was the "manage an event" template.
When we open it you can see all the channels are added in this section
and you can also see what apps were added to each of these channels.
Notice that the add, edit and delete buttons are all greyed out here
and that's because we're not allowed to change the default templates.
To do that we need to create our own custom ones.
So I'll go back to the Teams templates page
and choose "add", then I get three choices and we'll have a look at each one in turn.
The first one is a brand new template.
This is a blank template with nothing in it.
So to select that I just check it and then choose "next".
Now it wants me to add a name for my template and a short and long description and also a locale.
Once you've done that I can choose "next" and then it will ask me for
all the channels and apps that I want to see when I create the team.
You can see the general channel is already there and it can't be changed
but you can add apps to it.
To do that just select it like this, choose the edit button and then you'll see in this "add an app for this template" section...
...I can type in the app that I want to see and it could be any app that's in the store
so it could be Microsoft or third party, so for example if I wanted to add the Planner app to the general tab
I just type in Planner, it would show me the app and I just press "add"
and then I'll see it down here in the tabs list and I can rename it if I want to.
Once i'm happy, I just hit "apply" and you'll see now that it has a tab called Planner
and further down here it's also added the Planner app to this app section.
You can also add more channels up here if you just choose the "add" button,
you then give your channel a name, a description,
and you can also toggle this "shown by default" on and off
which makes sure that the channel is visible in Teams
and then you can add any apps that you want to see there
and when you're happy you just press "apply" and you'll see the new channel added to the channels list.
You'll also see any apps you added in the apps list.
So when you've added all the channels and apps that you want,
you choose submit to create the template.
This will add the new template to the list - you can see it here,
and that will be available to choose from the Teams app when a new Team is created.
And make a note that the new template goes live immediately for all to see.
A publish button would be nice here so you could save your template before everyone sees them.
So make sure it's ready before you press submit.
If you do make a mistake you can just delete the template here
by selecting it and choosing delete, and in my tests anyway it's usually removed instantly.
Now if I go back to the Teams app and choose "join or create a new team"...
...and then "create a team", you'll see my Collaboration Coach sales template listed here
and if I click on it you'll see the two channels and the two apps I added
and I can create a team based off that template.
So lastly let's have a look at the two other options we have when we create a new template.
So if I go to the "add" button again and this time I'm going to choose "use an existing team as a template".
So when I hit "next", that prompts me to choose the team that I want to base the template on.
You'll see a list of all the teams you have in your organisation
for example I could choose the sales and marketing one here
and that tells me I've got two channels, how many private channels,
and how many members and so on.
And then if I choose it I hit "next" and then it'll ask me for a title, a short and long description and a locale.
When I add those it takes me to the next page which is the channels and apps page
and it shows me which channels and apps I already have in that template
so this is really useful if you want the business user to create the team for you
and then you can just base your template on it so they can kind of do the work,
set it up how they want it, then you use that to base your template on.
The last option is to create a template based on an existing template
so if I choose "add" and then choose "start with an existing template" and then "next",
it will show me a list of the existing templates
so for example I could base one on the template I just created - the sales one.
When I hit "next" it asks me to add the title and description
and then it will ask me to manage the channels so I can add apps and channels here
just like the other two.
Okay so that's everything you need to get started with creating your own custom templates in Teams.
Thanks for watching and I'll see you next time.
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