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Create Team

📝 Definition

The Create team action in Microsoft Teams allows you to set up a brand-new collaboration space for a group of people within your organization. When executed, this action not only creates the team itself but also defines its core attributes—such as name, description, visibility (public or private), and its first channel (commonly “General”). Additionally, it enables you to assign initial members and owners, while giving fine-grained control over permissions for members, guests, messaging, and even fun settings like Giphy or memes.

This action is essential for organizations that want to automate the structured creation of teams, ensuring consistency in setup, permissions, and governance right from the start.


💡 Example Use Cases

  1. New Project Kickoff Automatically create a dedicated Microsoft Team when a new project is initiated, with the right members, owners, and permissions already set up.
  1. Department Setup Standardize team creation for different departments (e.g., Marketing, Finance, HR) to ensure each has consistent channels, member settings, and governance rules.
  1. Client Collaboration Create a team for external clients or partners, where guest access can be configured to securely collaborate on files, channels, and communications.
  1. Event Planning When a company-wide event (like a conference or training session) is scheduled, automatically generate a team to coordinate planning, discussions, and document sharing.
  1. Automated Onboarding As part of an employee onboarding flow, a new team can be created for the recruit’s department or project assignment, preloaded with the right channels and resources.

🔹 Inputs

  1. Connection The authentication link between zenphi and your Microsoft Teams account. This ensures the action has permission to create a new team in your organization. If you haven’t set up a connection yet, you’ll need to do so first before using this action.
  1. Name The official display name for your new team. Choose a name that clearly identifies the purpose of the team (e.g., Marketing Strategy 2025). This name will appear in Microsoft Teams and in users’ navigation bars.

  1. Description A short explanation of what the team is for. For example, “A space for the marketing team to collaborate on campaigns and share resources.”

    • Maximum length: 1,024 characters.
    • Helps users in your organization quickly understand the team’s purpose.

  1. Visibility Determines who can find and join the team:

    • Private : Only invited members can access the team. Best for projects with sensitive or restricted information.
    • Public : Anyone in your organization can discover and join the team. Good for open collaboration across departments.

  1. First Channel Name Every team needs at least one channel. Here you define the name of the initial channel created with the team.

    • If you name it General, it will always appear at the top of the channel list (not sorted alphabetically).
    • Channels act like “rooms” within the team where conversations, files, and apps are organized by topic.

  1. Members The people you want to add as regular members of the team. You can:

    • Select users from a dropdown list.
    • Type in email addresses (separated by commas). Members can participate in conversations, share files, and collaborate based on the permissions you define later in the settings.

  1. Owners The people who will manage the team. Like members, you can add them via dropdown or email.

    • Owners have higher-level permissions, such as adding/removing members, changing settings, or deleting the team.
    • It’s best practice to assign at least two owners for continuity in case one leaves the organization.

  1. Members Settings These options control what regular members are allowed to do within the team:

    • Allow Create/Update Channels: Lets members add and edit channels.
    • Allow Create Private Channels: Lets members create channels visible only to specific people.
    • Allow Delete Channels: Lets members remove channels.
    • Allow Add/Remove Apps: Lets members install or uninstall apps in the team.
    • Allow Create/Update/Remove Tabs: Controls whether members can add, edit, or remove tabs (shortcuts to apps like Planner or OneNote).
    • Allow Create/Update/Remove Connectors: Controls whether members can connect external apps (e.g., Trello, GitHub) to channels.

  1. Guests Settings These options define what external participants (non-company users) can do if they’re added to the team:

    • Allow Create/Update Channels: Lets guests create and edit channels.
    • Allow Delete Channels: Lets guests remove channels. This ensures you can decide how much freedom external collaborators have.
  1. Messaging Settings These settings manage how communication works inside the team:
  • Allow Channel Mentions: Enables @channel mentions to notify everyone in a channel.
  • Allow Owner Delete Messages: Owners can delete any message in the team.
  • Allow Member Delete Messages: Members can delete their own messages.
  • Allow Member Edit Messages: Members can edit their own messages.
  • Allow Team Mentions: Enables @team mentions to notify all members at once.
  1. Fun Settings These options bring personality and fun into the team:
  • Allow Custom Memes: Lets users upload and use their own memes.
  • Allow Giphy: Lets users add GIFs from Giphy in conversations.
  • Allow Stickers and Memes: Enables the built-in stickers/meme tools in Teams.
  • Strict Giphy Content Rating: Sets Giphy filtering to strict (family-friendly) instead of the default moderate.

🔹 Outputs

  1. Team ID The unique identifier automatically generated for the team.

    • Think of this as the team’s “digital fingerprint” in Microsoft Teams.
    • Useful if you want to reference this team in other automated steps (e.g., creating a channel or posting a message).

  1. Team Name The display name of the newly created team.

    • This is the name visible to members in Microsoft Teams.
    • Helps confirm the correct team was created.

  1. Team Description The purpose or summary you entered when creating the team.

    • Provides context about what the team is for.
    • Can help downstream users or workflows check the intent of the team without opening it in Teams.

  1. Team Visibility Indicates whether the team is Public (discoverable by anyone in the organization) or Private (joinable by invitation only).

    • This output is useful when auditing or reporting, so you know the access level of the team.

  1. Is Archived A flag showing whether the team is currently archived.

    • Archived teams are read-only (conversations and files remain accessible but no new changes can be made).
    • This is usually false for newly created teams, but becomes important when teams are retired.

  1. Member Settings A collection of permissions that apply to regular members of the team. It tells you whether members are allowed to:

    • Add or remove apps.
    • Create private channels.
    • Create or update channels.
    • Add, update, or remove tabs.
    • Add, update, or remove connectors.
    • Delete channels. This helps you confirm that the right level of control has been granted to members.

  1. Guest Settings Similar to Member Settings but specifically for external guests (users outside your organization).

    • Shows if guests can create/update channels.
    • Shows if guests can delete channels. This output makes it easy to verify that your guest permissions align with your company’s collaboration policies.

  1. Fun Settings Indicates which “fun” features are enabled in the team:

    • Custom memes.
    • Giphy usage (and whether it’s restricted by content rating).
    • Stickers and memes. These outputs help ensure your new team matches the organization’s culture or compliance needs (e.g., strict Giphy filtering in professional environments).

  1. Messaging Settings Lists the messaging-related permissions set for the team. It tells you whether:

    • @channel mentions are allowed.
    • @team mentions are allowed.
    • Owners can delete messages.
    • Members can delete their own messages.
    • Members can edit their own messages. This makes it clear how communication will work in the team right after creation.


🔹 Example Scenario: Onboarding a New Project Team

Imagine your company just signed a new client, and you need a dedicated space in Microsoft Teams for everyone involved in the project. Instead of manually creating the team, setting up channels, and adding members, you can automate it with the Create Team action.

  1. Trigger The flow starts with an on-demand trigger. For instance, a project manager clicks Run when a new project is added in your project management system (such as Jira, Asana, or even a SharePoint List that tracks projects).

  2. Action – Create Team Use the Create Team action to instantly build a new team in Microsoft Teams.

    • Name: The team could be named after the project (e.g., “Project Apollo – ClientX”).
    • Description: Add context such as “Collaboration hub for Project Apollo, focused on client deliverables and internal coordination.”
    • Visibility: Choose Private so only invited members can access.
    • First Channel Name: Set this as “General” so the main discussion channel is pinned at the top.
    • Members & Owners: Automatically pull the project’s assigned members from your HR or PM tool and assign the project manager as the owner.
    • Settings: Restrict channel creation to owners, but allow members to use @mentions for better communication. Disable Giphy if the project is formal.

  3. Outputs Used Once the team is created, you capture its Team ID and Team Name. These outputs can be used in later steps, such as:

    • Posting a “Welcome Message” in the new General channel.
    • Adding a link to the team in a SharePoint project tracker.
    • Automatically storing files in the associated SharePoint document library.

  4. End Result Within seconds of logging a new project, the team is fully created with the right members, owners, and rules in place—saving hours of manual setup and ensuring consistency across all projects.


🔹 Best Practices

  1. Use Clear and Consistent Naming Choose a naming convention for your teams (e.g., “Dept – Project – Client”) so they’re easy to identify and avoid confusion in large organizations.
  1. Keep Team Visibility in Mind Set Private for sensitive projects (default in most cases), and use Public only for company-wide initiatives like announcements or knowledge-sharing hubs.
  1. Limit Channel Creation for Members To prevent clutter, restrict channel creation to owners unless you want a very collaborative, open structure. This keeps the workspace clean and focused.
  1. Define Owners Carefully Always assign at least two owners for redundancy, so that if one leaves the company or is unavailable, team management doesn’t stall.
  1. Balance Permissions and Control Allow members flexibility in messaging (like editing or deleting their posts), but carefully manage fun features (memes, Giphy) depending on the team’s purpose.
  1. Leverage Outputs in Next Steps Capture the Team ID from the outputs to chain additional actions (like posting a welcome message, adding files, or updating a SharePoint tracker). This ensures automation doesn’t stop at team creation.
  1. Regularly Review Inactive Teams Use the “Archive Team” action later to clean up unused spaces. This keeps your Microsoft Teams environment organized and prevents sprawl.
  1. Test with a Pilot Team Before rolling out automated team creation for all departments or projects, test with one group. Adjust settings (permissions, fun options) to match your company culture.

✅ Following these practices helps maintain a balance between collaboration, security, and governance, while still giving users flexibility to work productively.


Updated about 3 hours ago