Microsoft Teams is built on Microsoft 365 groups, Microsoft Graph, and with the same enterprise-level security, compliance, and manageability as the rest of Office 365. Teams leverages identities stored in Azure Active Directory (Azure AD). Collaborate for free with online versions of Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote. Save documents, spreadsheets, and presentations online, in OneDrive. Microsoft Teams launched in November 2016 as part of the Office 365 productivity suite. Teams is a collaboration platform that unifies chat, voice, video and file sharing. It’s designed to be used by local, remote and distributed work groups—anyone in any company, really! Microsoft has steadily updated Teams since its initial launch.
-->Microsoft Teams is the hub for teamwork in Microsoft 365. The Teams service enables instant messaging, audio and video calling, rich online meetings, mobile experiences, and extensive web conferencing capabilities. In addition, Teams provides file and data collaboration and extensibility features, and integrates with Microsoft 365 and other Microsoft and partner apps.
Skype for Business Online retires on July 31, 2021, which was announced on July 30, 2019. Microsoft Teams is an entirely new service, built for the cloud from the ground up by leveraging Azure and other service innovations from Microsoft. Microsoft Teams is built on Microsoft 365 groups, Microsoft Graph, and with the same enterprise-level security, compliance, and manageability as the rest of Office 365. Teams leverages identities stored in Azure Active Directory (Azure AD). These services are delivered from Microsoft data centers and are accessible to users on a wide range of devices from inside a corporate network or over the internet. For more information, see the Microsoft Teams IT architecture and telephony solutions posters.
Teams 365 Office
This service description details the key differences between services provided across the various cloud installations. Microsoft Teams core functionalities do not differ among the subscriptions. The availability of compliance capabilities depends on your subscription level. To learn more about Teams security and compliance, see Security and compliance in Microsoft Teams.
If users have been migrated fully online they must have both teams and Skype for Business Online licenses for full Teams functionality, even if Skype for Business Online will not be used.
Available plans
For detailed plan information on subscriptions that enable users for Teams, see Find the right Microsoft Teams for your business. Additional details can be found in the Microsoft solutions comparison table.
Government plans that support Teams include Office 365 G1 through G5. For more information, see Office 365 Government plans.
All supported subscription plans are eligible for access to the Microsoft Teams web client, desktop clients, and mobile apps.
Microsoft Teams is not available as a standalone service.
Feature availability
The following table lists the major Teams features available across plans. Certain caveats apply. See the footnotes for further information. This table may change without notice.
To understand more about Teams features by operating system platform, see Teams features by platform.
For the most up-to-date, complete list of Teams features across Microsoft 365 and Office 365 plans, see Find the right Microsoft Teams for your business.
| Feature | Small-business plans | Enterprise plans | GCC | GCC - High | DOD | Education plans |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chat | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Teams | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes1 | Yes1 | Yes |
| Channels - Standard | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Channels - Private | Yes | Yes2 | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| Meetings | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Screen sharing PowerPoint Audio/Video Desktop | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Voice | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes3 | Yes3 | Yes |
| Audio conferencing | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes3 | Yes3 | Yes |
| Apps, Bots, & Connectors | Yes | Yes | Yes4 | Yes4 | Yes4 | Yes |
| Live Events | No | Yes | Yes | No5 | No5 | Yes |
1 Microsoft Teams in GCC-High and DOD support 2500 members in an individual team.
2 Microsoft Planner is not currently available to access in private channels.
3 Direct routing must be configured for Microsoft Teams voice and audio conferencing to work in GCCH and DoD.
4 Third-party applications and application publishing are not available in these clouds at this time.
5 Live Events is not available in GCC-High or DOD at this time.
Cloud voice features
For audio conferencing, your organization must buy and assign an audio conferencing license to each user who sets up dial-in meetings. For Teams features that require calling plans, each user needs a phone system and a domestic or domestic and international calling plan. To learn more, see Microsoft Teams add-on licenses.
Live events
This offering in Office 365 replaces the retired Skype Meeting Broadcast. Live events capabilities are available for licensing plans as detailed within the Stream service. For more information, review the Microsoft Stream licensing overview. The live events service can be accessed through Stream, Yammer, or Microsoft Teams. To learn more about live event capabilities, see Live events across Microsoft 365 in Yammer, Microsoft Teams, and Microsoft Stream.
Learn more
For more information about Teams, check out the following resources:
Office 365
Licensing terms
For licensing terms and conditions for products and services purchased through Microsoft Commercial Volume Licensing Programs, see the Product Terms site.
Messaging
Teams 365 Logowanie
To stay informed of upcoming changes, including new and changed features, planned maintenance, or other important announcements, visit the Message Center. For more information, see Message center.
Accessibility
Teams 365 Install
Microsoft remains committed to the security of your data and the accessibility of our services. For more information, see the Microsoft Trust Center and the Office Accessibility Center.