Webex Teams FAQ

Cisco Spark became Cisco Webex Teams in May 2018. Webex Teams is an app for continuous teamwork with video meetings, messaging, file sharing and white boarding. 

You can use lots of common graphic formats for your picture: .jpg, .png, .gif, or .bmp. Or use the camera on your phone to take a quick selfie. The file has to be under 10 MB, though and ideally a square image between 200x200 pixels and 1000x1000 pixels. Webex Teams resizes your file to use in Webex Teams.

If your picture doesn't change for you, it could be the file size. Or, your picture may be set through your organizations directory and you'll need to contact your administrator to change it.  If other people don't see your changed picture, it's probably down to the local caching on their apps, the change can take up to four hours to show for other users.

You add a profile pic by clicking on your initials.Once you add a profile picture you can only replace it with another picture.

Click your profile picture, select Settings > Appearance, choose your preferred theme, then click Save. You'll then be prompted to restart Webex Teams to apply the changes.

Yes, Webex Teams allows you to set notifications in two ways - for All Spaces or for Certain Spaces. These settings work together so that you don't miss anything and that you can keep up-to-date with what's happening.

• Set Notifications for All Spaces - Click your profile picture, then select Settings > Notifications and set your preferences
• Set Notification for Certain Spaces - In the space, click information, select Notifications, then choose a setting, and click Save to set your preferences.

Webex Teams suppresses notifications for incoming messages or calls when you're sharing your screen or application while on a call or on a meeting.

If you need some quiet time to work without getting any Cisco Webex Teams message or call notifications, you can set your status to Do Not Disturb (DND). Your status is also updated so that other users can see that you don't want to be disturbed.  You'll still see your unread indicators, so you can still see the messages you haven't viewed. People can still send you messages. 

• Click your profile picture, click Status, and choose how long you don't want to be disturbed.

• Click Off to change your status back to Active so people know that they can contact you again.

New messages will have a blue dot next to them, just click one to read them. You can send messages, share files, pictures, videos, and even gifs in Webex Teams. You can add emojis or use @mentions to get someone's attention in a space. @mentions help people notice urgent or important messages. You can reply to a thread to keep conversations organized in a group space. You can flag messages that you think are important to follow up on them later. Simply click on a shared File to preview it or download the file to your device. The Webex Teams app keeps a list of all the content shared in a space, so you'll never lose track of it.

Yes.

When you're working in a busy space, it's sometimes difficult to keep track of people's comments. To make it easier to follow specific conversations, you can reply to someone's message simply start a new message thread or reply to one that has already started. 

• Hover over the message or the file and click Start a thread.
• After you create the thread, you or anyone else in the space can add a reply to that thread, click

• When somebody replies to a thread, you'll see a notification in the space to highlight the new replies

You can share most types of files except for .tif files, and the largest file size that you can upload to a space is 2 GB. You can also preview documents without downloading them first if they're no more than 50 pages and less than 100 MB in size, and one of these file types: .doc, .docx, .gif, .jpeg, .pdf, .png, .ppt, .pptx, .xls, and .xlsx 

When you add animated GIFs, they'll play automatically in the app if you keep their file size to under 2 MB. 

• Drag and drop the file into the message area, click Attachment to select a file, or click Screen capture to select a part of your screen to capture. Then, press Enter to send the file.

Yes, when people share files in a space, you can view or download them as they're posted. Or, you can see a list of recently shared files without scrolling through the messages.

• Preview—Click the file to get a quick preview. You can also download the file from here.
• Download—Hover over the file in the space, click Download, then click Show in folder to see the file download location.
• You can choose the default download folder. Go to Settings > General > Default file download location and click Change. Then, select a new download location and click Save.
• See All Files—Go to the activity menu and click Files.

You can create whiteboards in a space, anyone in the space can then choose to view or edit them. You can also use whiteboards in a meeting, you can create or open an existing whiteboard, and then share it on the call so that everyone can view it.

• Select the space, click the activity menu, choose Whiteboard, and then select New whiteboard.
• You can select the following:
  • Color changes the marker color.
  • Eraser turns the marker into an eraser to remove edits or click eraser again to select Clear all and remove all edits. You can click undo to restore the edits you just cleared.
  • Stickies creates and adds stickies. You can add text, change the color, and move the stickies around your whiteboard.
  • Undo removes your last edit. You can continue to click undo and remove each edit until you return to the last saved whiteboard.
  • On a shared whiteboard, if someone selects Clear all, undo is unavailable. However, if you select Clear all and nobody else edits the whiteboard, you can click undo to restore the edits.
  • There's no limit to the size of your whiteboard. Use the arrow keys on your keyboard to move around the whiteboard. You can use a mouse or a touchpad to zoom in or out on the whiteboard.

All of your work takes place within spaces in the Cisco Webex teams app.  Inside a space, you can send messages, make calls, have video meetings, share files, and whiteboard.  You can choose from three types of spaces: people, spaces, and team spaces, depending on why you need to chat.

Spaces work well for a group of people working on a specific topic.  You come together to handle this thing (which might be something quick or long term), but the focus is more narrow and specific. If your intention changes and that project outgrows its original purpose, you can simply move the space into a team, and it becomes a team space.

The "Contact a Person" option will allow you a space for a persistent chat directly with one individual.  The conversation will remain between the two of you and you cannot add other people to the conversation at a later time.

Teams help you keep everything organized by putting multiple spaces under a common theme.  Teams are great for a consistent group of people who are going to be working on something for a long time. That something might be complicated and involve many activities or could be subprojects happening at the same time.

Every team has at least one team space, General that you're automatically added to when you're added to the team.  As a team member, you can view and join all spaces in the team, and you can also create team spaces for others to join.

If you're working with at least 3 people in a Space, you can start an instant meeting directly from that space. The number of people who can join the meeting varies for each space, depending on the Webex Teams licenses of people in that space. 

From your space, go to the activity menu and choose Call or Meet. The meeting starts instantly, and everyone in the space sees a Join button in their meeting list and in their spaces list in the Webex Teams app. They also get a meeting notification on their computer or mobile phone.

In Cisco Webex Teams, if you're a moderator in a space or team, you can add others, remove people, edit, and assign others as moderators. Keep in mind that even if you've created the space, you're not a moderator unless you chose to moderate the space from the space settings. 

• Add a person as a moderator to space - Select the space, click the activity menu and choose People.  Then right-click on the person's name and select Assign as Moderator.
• Add as Moderator to Team - Go to your Teams and choose the team. Select Add Team Moderator and enter the person's name.
• If you want to remove someone as a moderator, right-click on the person's name and select Remove as Moderator.  

As an external participant in a space, they can participate in everything going on within that space they were invited to.  They will not be able to see or join other spaces. 

You'll see some areas in those spaces highlighted, like the border, message background, and icon in the message area and their email addresses.It's best practice to identify spaces that include external participants within the team name (Ex. *External* Cisco Collaboration Team).

Webex Teams gives you several options for hosting meetings, but to simplify things, you can either schedule a meeting for later or start a meeting right away. When you schedule a meeting from your calendar, you can add an agenda or attach files. If your meeting is associated with a Webex Teams space, you can share files and messages about the meeting directly in the space. When it's time for your scheduled meeting or call to start, just select Join. Inside of the meeting you can share your screen, specific applications or videos with everyone. Create Whiteboards in the app for people to edit or share one that someone has already added to the space. Continue the discussion after the meeting by adding more information to the space. Post files or presentations that you shared during the meeting to the space.

Use Webex Teams to create calendar invites that you can send to everyone in the space to tell them about the meeting and how to join.

To Schedule the meeting, go to the activity menu and select Schedule followed by Schedule a meeting. This will create an Outlook meeting invite with everyone in the space and meeting information included.  All you must do now is adjust the date and time.

You can view details about your upcoming meetings in your meetings list. When it's time for a meeting to start, you can join it from the meetings list, too. Go to Meetings and find the meeting in the meetings list.

You can use the Cisco Webex Teams app to automatically connect to a nearby Cisco Webex room or desk device and a Cisco Webex board.

• Go to your profile picture and click Settings > Devices.
• Check Use ultrasound and Connect to nearest device automatically:

You automatically connect to the nearest device in the room.

You can search for available Webex devices using ultrasound or your Wi-Fi network. 

• Select Connect to a device to automatically search for nearby devices using either ultrasound or Wi-Fi.
• If you don't see the device that you want in the list, select Search for a device and enter the name of the device you want to use.

When you connect to a device you can control it using the Webex Teams app and use it in the following ways:

• Share your screen locally.
• Answer a call.
• Start a meeting in a Webex Teams space. 

Webex Teams provides basic support for Screen Readers, Keyboard Navigation, and High Contrast.  To find out more information, click here.