# Mattermost feature explanation

**URL:** <https://forum.mattermost.com/t/mattermost-feature-explanation/701>\
**Category:** End User Help\
**Created:** [December 29, 2015, 3:55am UTC](https://forum.mattermost.com/t/mattermost-feature-explanation/701 "2015-12-29T03:55:48Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![auzty](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.mattermost.com/auzty/32/1598_2.png) [@auzty](https://forum.mattermost.com/u/auzty)\
**Post date:** [December 29, 2015, 3:55am UTC](https://forum.mattermost.com/t/mattermost-feature-explanation/701/1 "2015-12-29T03:55:49Z")

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maybe this is a funny questions, i really new in this mattermost and im not IT heavy. I am have a task to test the mattermost application,  
what is “TEAM” mean? what is “channel” mean? are both different?  
, first when we sign up,

![](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/uploads/mattermost/original/1X/f8ea208b3ab226e1880e5ffd157f580d680c653f.png)

(my assumption, if we enter same team, we will get one team automatically)  
,but after i tried it, there just separated team (although same team name)  
and then i must switch to team that i want to join.  
maybe the “channels” similar with “private groups” that contain the people who have same in common conversation, but i still didn’t clear what is “TEAM” mean.  
i really need guidance to use this app, thanks you

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**Author:** ![it33](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.mattermost.com/it33/32/3_2.png) [@it33](https://forum.mattermost.com/u/it33)\
**Post date:** [December 29, 2015, 3:56am UTC](https://forum.mattermost.com/t/mattermost-feature-explanation/701/2 "2015-12-29T03:56:52Z")

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Hi @auzty, here’s [some documentation to start](https://github.com/mattermost/platform/tree/master/doc/help). There should be an article on creating teams being added, which should explain teams.

@eric, just curious where the article is in the queue?

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**Author:** ![eric](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.mattermost.com/eric/32/242_2.png) [@eric](https://forum.mattermost.com/u/eric)\
**Post date:** [December 29, 2015, 4:51am UTC](https://forum.mattermost.com/t/mattermost-feature-explanation/701/3 "2015-12-29T04:51:15Z")

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Hi @auzty, the documentation on creating teams can be found [here](https://github.com/mattermost/platform/blob/master/doc/help/Creating-Teams.md).

Quick summary is that “teams” are a collection of members that have conversations organized into [“channels”](https://github.com/mattermost/platform/blob/master/doc/help/Channels.md), which can be viewable to all members in the team, or private to a select number of people in the team.

You can have multiple teams on your system with the same “Team Name” (since it is just a display name), but the “Team URL” must be different for all the different teams on your system. I will submit a pull request to make this more clear in the documentation, thanks for bringing this up!