create assignment microsoft teams

How to Use Assignments in Microsoft Teams: Quick 12-Minute Tutorial for Teachers

Sara Wanasek

Using Microsoft Teams in the classroom gained popularity during the pandemic. However, it can, and is, being used in both online and physical classrooms today. As a learning management tool, Teams works seamlessly with other Microsoft products like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint which are classic favorites for students and teachers alike.

This multi-functional tool allows you to stay in touch with your students not only through video calls, but with chats, files, and assignments in Microsoft Teams. Teams can seem daunting when you first begin to use it, but it really is quite simple and easy to use. To make it seem less intimidating, we have broken down and explained some main features of Teams separately. Here are links to our other guides on features of Microsoft Teams:

• Microsoft Teams for Online Teaching – A Guide for Teachers
• Using Breakout Rooms in Microsoft Teams  
• Assignments in Teams
• Class Notebook in Microsoft Teams
• 15 of the Best Teams Tips and Tricks .

Below is a quick, everything-you-need-to-know guide on assignments in Microsoft Teams. Let’s get started!

Create an Assignment in Microsoft Teams

To begin creating assignments in Microsoft Teams, you first need to be sure of two things:

• You are logged in with a Microsoft EDU account
• The Team you have created is a Class Team type

If both of those things are complete you will be able to see the Assignments tab on the side ribbon and on the top ribbon in the General channel. If you need help getting to know the interface and basics of Teams, check out our Teams Guide for Teachers.

Start a New Assignment

Now, to create your assignment, click on the Assignments tab from the top ribbon under your General Channel. Click Create , and then Assignment , to begin your first assignment. You can explore creating a quiz with the help of Microsoft Forms and creating an assignment based on a pre-existing assignment another time.

Add Assignment Details

In your new assignment, add a title and a description to let your students know what to do to complete the assignment.

If you prefer to attach the instructions as a document, or have supporting materials to the assignment, you can attach them under the Add Resources link. Teams allows you to attach files in many different ways: through your OneDrive, ClassNoteBook, from a link, by creating a new file, or from uploading a document from your computer.

When you attach a resource, you have the option to allow students to edit it or not. By default, they cannot edit; however, if you prefer to change this, just click on the three dots at the end of the resource and click, Students edit their own copy. Now, when students edit this file, a new copy will be made for them, and it is automatically attached to this assignment for an easy turn-in.

Set Points and a Rubric

To easily grade this assignment in Teams, assign the number of points it is worth, or add a rubric . Similar to creating assignments, you can use a pre-existing rubric, upload one, or create a new one.

Creating a new rubric is very customizable so you are able to add all the information your students need to complete the assignment. Just add a title , and a description , then fill in the rest of the rubric. If you need more categories , just click the plus button at the end of the columns, or after the bottom row. In addition, you can assign points to each category of the rubric.

Choose Students to Assign the Work to

The next step in creating an assignment is to assign it to your students. You can assign it to all of them, or a certain student(s) for more individualized work. Just click Assign to All, or go through the list and click the students you would like to assign this to.

Give a Due Date & Close Date

In Teams, there are two different categories of dates for when the assignment is due.

Due Date: This is when the assignment is due, however, students are still able to turn in the assignment late, after the due date has passed.

Close Date: This is when the assignment closes and no more submissions are allowed.

To set both of these, and schedule this assignment for the future, click Edit under the Due Date section. To set a Close Date , click the checkbox on the side and set the date.

When all of your setups are complete, back at the top of the page, click assign, or save for later if it still needs a bit more work.

How Students Can Turn in Assignments

After you assign an assignment, students will receive a notification. They are able to view the assignment in the General Channel or on the Assignment tabs.

The student’s view of the assignment is very similar to the teacher’s view. They will see the Due Date and Close Date, the instructions, any files you have attached, and a rubric if there is one.

Students can begin their assignments right away in Teams if you have attached a document for them to work on. In the example below, students would be using PowerPoint on their desktops simultaneously with ClassPoint to make their presentations more interactive. As they work, their changes will be saved automatically. If you don’t have a document attached, students can upload and attach their work instead.

When they have completed their work, they just need to click Turn In. They will see a fun animation appear indicating the turn-in is successful.

How to Grade Assignments

Once students have turned in their work, you will receive a notification. Now, you can easily look over and grade their work. Click into an assignment to view how many students have turned in their work, how many need grading, and how many you have already graded.

To grade an assignment, click on the Turned in status. Here, you are able to view their work alongside a tab for you to give them feedback. If you have a rubric , it will open for you to assign the points for each category. Scrolling down, you can leave feedback to let them know what they excelled at and what needs more work.

When the grading is completed, you can return it to the student. They can view your feedback, make changes, and turn it in again if necessary.

To easily jump between students for a continuous grading experience, click the arrows on the side of the student’s name, or click on the student’s name for a drop-down menu of your other students.

Export Grade Data

In Teams, it is really easy to export data, especially for assignments. You can export data for certain assignments, in addition to exporting all assignments and student grade data. This can be done from the Grades pivot on the top toolbar. You will see a complete list of your students, and of each assignment on this tab that you have assigned throughout the year.

Frequently Asked Questions

And that completes this tutorial on Assignments in Microsoft Teams! There is plenty you can do with this feature on Teams to make it suitable for your students and classroom. Enjoy using it to its fullest potential.

We have put together some frequently asked questions in case you still have some lingering questions before you get started!

What if I don’t see the Assignments tab?

If you don’t see the Assignment tab on the top ribbon in your General channel, or on the side ribbon, you are not logged in with a Microsoft EDU account. Create your own, or get in touch with your IT department for your login.

What is the difference between the Due Date and the Close Date?

Students can still turn in Assignments after the Due Date has passed, but once the Close Date has passed, no more submissions are allowed.

If I return the assignment to my student does that mean I want them to redo it?

Not necessarily. You can return all assignments to the students so that they can see your feedback. If you want a student to redo the assignment, you should let them know in your feedback.

Can I attach a PDF for my students to edit to the assignment?

You can do this through your Class Notebook! Insert the PDF to a Class Notebook page and set it as the background. Then, you can assign this page to your students.

Watch this for a visual guide on how to insert a PDF to a Class Notebook page.

Can I assign an assignment to a certain channel?

Unfortunately, no. You can only assign to the General Channel, which is all your students, or assign to individual students when setting up the assignment.

About Sara Wanasek

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Organize classwork with four new Assignments features from Teams

September 09, 2021.

By Microsoft Education Team

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Whether you’re preparing for a new school year or are already in the thick of one, there is no better time than now to recommit to classroom organization with the help of Microsoft Teams. Assignments in Teams has just what the educator ordered—simplified ways to streamline, distribute, manage, and access assignments for classes this year and beyond. 

Here are some of the latest and greatest features Assignments has to offer:

1. Filter assignments by class

Sometimes keeping track of assignments can almost feel like a greater task than reviewing them. Educators can now rest easy and stay organized by filtering student assignments by the classes they teach for a convenient and visual list view.

2. Return an assignment for student revision

Assignments are sometimes a work in progress, requiring ongoing updates, reviews, and edits. After reviewing an assignment, educators can now  return the assignment for revision . The returned assignment will appear in the student’s “active work” list, where they can then turn the work in after making edits. To return an assignment, educators just need to select Return for revision .

3. Assign group work

Collaborative learning just got easier with the new group assignment feature. Educators can give projects to a team of students and have them collaborate on, and submit, one piece of work for their whole group. Once the assignment has been submitted, educators can choose to submit comments and grades to individual students, or the entire group.

4. Manage assignments on a mobile device

Learning can happen from anywhere, and many educators and students rely on a mobile device to check and work on assignments. For their convenience, an upgraded version of Assignments with simplified navigation is now available on Android and iOS mobile devices and tablet devices.

When you’re ready to take advantage of these new features, don’t forget to also sprinkle in some fun and use the latest emojis in Microsoft Teams! With more than 800 emojis that are customizable (including by skin tone now), your students can freely express themselves, feel represented, and bring their full personalities to the classroom. Download Teams today to get started for free.

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Create an assignment in Microsoft Teams

Create assignments for your students in Microsoft Teams. Manage assignment timelines, add instructions, create resources to turn in, and more.

Note:  Assignments is only available in class teams . You can assign assignments to classes of up to 1000 students. Classes larger than 300 can't use a Class Notebook or Makecode.

In this article

Create a new assignment, title and category, instructions and attachments.

Points, rubrics, and grading

Assigning to students or groups

Due dates and scheduling, assign, save, or discard, classwork modules.

Navigating the Grades tab

Navigate to the desired class team, then select Assignments .

Select Create >   New   Assignment .

At a minimum, you must give the assignment a title. This is required. You can optionally add a tag, which will make this assignment easier to search for in the future. 

Assignments only supports the following image file types: .png, .jpeg, and .gif. 

On mobile, Images will resize to the screen. 

On desktop, you can use sizing handles on images to resize them.  

You can also attach existing files, links, or assignment integrations and create and name a new file right from here for students to turn in.

Note:  You can add up to five files for students to edit. The total number of resources you can add to an assignment is 10, whether editable or non-editable. Read-only reference files can be up to 500 MB in size. Files for students to edit can be up to 50 MB in size.

Select Attach  to attach resources to the assignment. Choose a file from your OneDrive, upload a file from your device, or choose one of the other options set by your admin, such as MakeCode.

Note:  If you're assigning a Class Notebook page, check what version of OneNote your students are using to ensure that their assignment pages will lock after the assignment due date passes.

Select +New  to create a blank Word (.docx), Excel (.xlsx), PowerPoint (.pptx), or Whiteboard document, or a new video recording to hand out to your students.

Select  Apps  to attach content from an app to the assignment. Admins can  manage Teams apps in the Microsoft Teams admin center .

Select Learning Accelerators  to add Reading Progress , Search Progress and other Learning Accelerators to the Assignment.

By default, Students can't edit  attached documents, meaning the document is read-only. This is a great option for reference materials.

Note:  If you have older documents with the file extension .doc, .xls, or .ppt, students won't be able to edit them. You can either attach them as read-only reference material or create a new file in Teams, copy in the old content, and save it. All new files you create in Teams or other Microsoft 365 apps will have the correct extension.

The Assign to field is where you choose the class for this assignment. By default, the class team you are in will be selected. 

Multiclass Publish

Multiclass publish allows educators to create an assignment for multiple classes with the same due date. 

Do this by navigating to the Assign to field and check the boxes for classes the assignment will be published to. 

Points and rubrics

You can select which grading scheme,  grading categories , and points the assignment is worth. 

If you have configured the class to use Grading Categories, you need to select a Grading Category for assignment with points.

Select the amount of points this assignment is worth, if any. You can use points on any number-based scale including whole numbers of 100 and set your own denominator. Examples:  88/100 or decimals 3.7/4.0.

Select  Add rubric  to  create a rubric .

Select  Manage grading categories  to create or edit the grading categories for the class.

Setting up Grading Schemes

Letter grading and grading categories must be set as a Grading Scheme in the Grade settings section to display these options.

2. Navigate down to Grade settings .

3. Choose Add Schemes or  Manage schemes .

Note:  If no other grading schemes other than "Points" have been set, this link will read  Add Schemes . Once you have gone through the steps to add a new scheme, the link will change to  Manage schemes. 

5. Set the grading levels. Letter grades will be the normal A, B, C, D, F, scheme. Ensure that there are enough levels to cover the entire 0-100 percent range.

6. Select the Save button when complete. 

Finish by choosing the  Done  button. 

Choose multiple classes, individual students, or groups of students  in one class to assign to.

By default, only students who are in your class now will receive this assignment. Change this by selecting an option from the dropdown menu.

Note:  If you choose a close date, any student who joins will receive this assignment until the close date.

Select a time and date for the assignment to be due. To schedule an assignment, next to  Assignment will post immediately with late turn-ins allowed  select Edit assignment timeline . Here, you can customize when your assignment will be posted to students and when it will close for turn-ins. By default, no close date will be selected, which allows students to turn in assignments late.

Note: If you choose multiple classes to publish the assignment to, you can select Set due date per class to set individual schedule , due and close date for each class

You can choose whether to add this assignment to your calendar on Outlook, students' calendars, and other educators or staff in your class team. Set this preference for all assignments in Assignments Settings .

Next to Add assignment to calendars , select the dropdown and pick one of the following options:

Students only  adds the assignment to just student calendars.

Students and me adds the assignment to both student calendars and your calendar.

Students and team owners to adds the assignment to both student and other educators or staff in the class team calendars.

Choose the channel where you'd like notifications for this assignment to post. This allows you to keep student work and discussion organized by unit, topic, or subject. By default, assignments will be posted in the General channel or your selection in Assignments Settings.

To choose a channel to post in, next to Post assignment notifications to:  select the down arrow for a list of available channels. 

Pick the channel you’d like this assignment notification to post in, your selection will be applied immediately.

To post assignment notifications to a channel, make sure bot posting is enabled. You can check that here  or ask your IT Admin for help.

Assignments will post to channels that are visible to all students. Private channels will not appear during this step.

If you have selected multiple classes, select Set per Class to set which channel to use or just use the General channel. Assignments to individual students do not post to channels.

When you're ready, you can finish the process of creating your new assignment by assigning it to students.

Note:  If your school uses Turnitin, you can sync assignment turn-ins to Turnitin .

Assign  will immediately publish the assignment and your students will be notified of the new assignment on the day you specified and the notification linking to this assignment will post in the channel you selected. They'll also have an entry on their Teams and Outlooks calendars if you've selected that option.

Save  will save a draft of the assignment. Students will not receive any notification, and nothing will be added to any calendar. 

Discard  will delete the draft of the assignment. Students will not receive any notification, and nothing will be added to any calendar. 

Create a New Module

1. Navigate to the desired Class Team, then select Classwork.

2. Select Add module. 

3. Enter a title for the new module.

4. Optionally, enter a description.

5. Select Save to save the module as a draft.

Note: Draft modules are only visible to Team owners (teachers) until published. All new modules are created in draft states. 

Learn more about managing classwork modules in Microsoft Teams.

Navigate the Grades tab

To open the Grades tab, navigate to your desired class team and select Grades .

You'll see that students appear in a column, with their assignments in a row next to their name. Assignments are listed in order by due date with the nearest date at the beginning. 

Learn more about the Grades tab. 

Create a group assignment

Edit an assignment

Save an assignment as a draft

Grade, return, and reassign assignments

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Create an assignment in Microsoft Teams

Updated on: 01/07/2024

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Configure assignments for Teams

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The content stored in SharePoint includes metadata and details about Assignments and Submissions that's stored for Assignments. The export user data is supported for both Student and Teacher users. However, delete data is only supported for Students due to co-mingling and data retention compliance. Teachers can delete their data in app by deleting assignments or classes. For more information, review the Assignments Admin documentation .

There are three scripts to use depending upon the scenario:

Shared common step for Export and Delete user data scenario:

Use the Get-UserClasses.ps1 script to create a list of classes that user is part of. If the user has left the class, then a text file containing those class Ids can be provided to include data from those classes. Otherwise data won't be exported or deleted from those classes. Running this script creates a csv file that contains a list of classes, the role of the user in class, and whether or not export or delete for the user was processed (which is set to false by default).

Exporting User data:

Use the Export-EDUAssignments.ps1 script to export data for the user. The csv file generated in the above step is input to this script. Running this script will get assignments and submissions of each assignment and generates two files. The assignment file (assignment.json) contains assignments and submissions and report file(GetAssignmentsReport.csv) - status of running the script. After running the script, it updates the GetSubmissionsProcessed column in the csv input file to true for that specific class so that if there's a failure the script can be rerun.

Deleting User data:

Use the Delete-EDUAssignments.ps1 script to delete data for the user. The script reads the class details of user from input csv file generated in the previous shared step. It then deletes the submissions, and generates a report file(DeleteAssignmentsReport.csv) for status of running the script. When the deletion of submission is done it updates the DeleteSubmissionsProcessed column to true for that specific class, so that if there's a failure the script can be rerun. The script also removes students from the class unless optionally specified to not do so by the Tenant Admin, failing that the student will get all the assignments applicable to them be redistributed to them.

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Mustafa Suleyman, DeepMind and Inflection Co-founder, joins Microsoft to lead Copilot

Mar 19, 2024 | Microsoft Corporate Blogs

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Satya Nadella, Chief Executive Officer, shared the below communication today with Microsoft employees.

I want to share an exciting and important organizational update today. We are in Year 2 of the AI platform shift and must ensure we have the capability and capacity to boldly innovate.

There is no franchise value in our industry and the work and product innovation we drive at this moment will define the next decade and beyond. Let us use this opportunity to build world-class AI products, like Copilot, that are loved by end-users! This is about science, engineering, product, and design coming together and embracing a learning mindset to push our innovation culture and product building process forward in fundamental ways.

In that context, I’m very excited to announce that Mustafa Suleyman and Karén Simonyan are joining Microsoft to form a new organization called Microsoft AI, focused on advancing Copilot and our other consumer AI products and research.

Mustafa will be EVP and CEO, Microsoft AI, and joins the senior leadership team (SLT), reporting to me. Karén is joining this group as Chief Scientist, reporting to Mustafa. I’ve known Mustafa for several years and have greatly admired him as a founder of both DeepMind and Inflection, and as a visionary, product maker, and builder of pioneering teams that go after bold missions.

Karén, a Co-founder and Chief Scientist of Inflection, is a renowned AI researcher and thought leader, who has led the development of some of the biggest AI breakthroughs over the past decade including AlphaZero.

Several members of the Inflection team have chosen to join Mustafa and Karén at Microsoft. They include some of the most accomplished AI engineers, researchers, and builders in the world. They have designed, led, launched, and co-authored many of the most important contributions in advancing AI over the last five years. I am excited for them to contribute their knowledge, talent, and expertise to our consumer AI research and product making.

At our core, we have always been a platform and partner-led company, and we’ll continue to bring that sensibility to all we do. Our AI innovation continues to build on our most strategic and important partnership with OpenAI. We will continue to build AI infrastructure inclusive of custom systems and silicon work in support of OpenAI’s foundation model roadmap, and also innovate and build products on top of their foundation models. And today’s announcement further reinforces our partnership construct and principles.

As part of this transition, Mikhail Parakhin and his entire team, including Copilot, Bing, and Edge; and Misha Bilenko and the GenAI team will move to report to Mustafa. These teams are at the vanguard of innovation at Microsoft, bringing a new entrant energy and ethos, to a changing consumer product landscape driven by the AI platform shift. These organizational changes will help us double down on this innovation.

Kevin Scott continues as CTO and EVP of AI, responsible for all-up AI strategy, including all system architecture decisions, partnerships, and cross-company orchestration. Kevin was the first person I leaned on to help us manage our transformation to an AI-first company and I’ll continue to lean on him to ensure that our AI strategy and initiatives are coherent across the breadth of Microsoft.

Rajesh Jha continues as EVP of Experiences & Devices and I’m grateful for his leadership as he continues to build out Copilot for Microsoft 365, partnering closely with Mustafa and team.

There are no other changes to the senior leadership team or other organizations.

We have been operating with speed and intensity and this infusion of new talent will enable us to accelerate our pace yet again.

We have a real shot to build technology that was once thought impossible and that lives up to our mission to ensure the benefits of AI reach every person and organization on the planet, safely and responsibly. I’m looking forward to doing so with you.

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Contribute to the Microsoft Teams forum! Click  HERE  to learn more  💡

March 14, 2024

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Top Contributors in Microsoft Teams: EmilyS_726   ✅

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Hello Anna, My name is EngineTyme, an Independent Advisor and a Microsoft user like you and I would be glad to help you. I understand that you are unable to access your MS Teams account. Please provide answer to the following scoping questions to isolate the issue: 1. Have you been to access the account before now? 2. Do you get any error message while trying to access your account? if yes share the error message. 3. Have you tried to access the account via Teams on the web: https://teams.microsoft.com. 4. Have you tried to clear your Teams cache? 5. Have you spoken to your IT Admin about the issue? Please let me know if you have any questions or concern. Best regards, EngineTyme.

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