Quick start - Set up Teams for Education

This guide is for IT admins in education, including admins who haven't yet deployed Teams.

Microsoft Teams is a digital hub that brings conversations, meetings, files, and apps together in one place. Because it’s built on Microsoft 365, schools benefit from integration with their familiar Office apps and services.

It delivers enterprise-grade security and compliance that is extensible and customizable to fit the needs of every school.

With Microsoft Teams, your school or institution can:

  • Create collaborative classrooms.
  • Connect in professional learning communities.
  • Communicate with school staff.
  • Coordinate research across institutions.
  • Easily facilitate student life efforts like clubs or extracurricular activities.

This guide will help you get started with:

  • Turning on Teams for students.
  • Learning what kind of controls are available to manage Teams within your school.
  • Finding partner services through references to external documentation.

If you've already deployed Teams (as a pilot or full deployment) and are looking for pointers on how to use Teams, see Microsoft Teams for Education.

Before you begin

  1. Deploy School Data Sync to make it easier for educators to automatically create Teams. Contact https://aka.ms/sdssupport for deployment assistance.
  2. Configure the correct ports and protocols for Teams. See Office 365 URLs and IP address ranges.
  3. Prepare your school's network for Teams.
  4. Choose a team type. Teams for Education offers three new types of teams (for a total of four). To understand the differences and use cases of each, see Choose a team type to collaborate in Teams.