Create and manage a channel in Office 365 Video

To upload a video to Office 365 Video, you upload it to a particular channel. You can use a channel for videos for a particular subject, for example, or for videos for a group such as a department or a team. Channel admins in your organization can create channels, and each channel can be managed separately by one or more people who have edit permission for the channel. This article describes how quick and easy it is to create and manage a channel and upload videos to it in Office 365 Video.

In this article:

Creating a channel. Create a channel so that people can upload videos to it.
Managing a channel. Upload videos, control who can edit or view a channel, and perform other channel management tasks.

Office 365 Video comes with one preconfigured channel, which is named Community. By default, everyone in your organization can edit and view the Community channel, but you can change these permissions if you like. For example, you can change the edit permission for the Community channel so that only certain people can upload videos to it. For information about channel edit permission and channel view permission, see Changing channel permissions later in this article. Or you can delete the Community channel if you don't need it. For more information, see Deleting a channel later in this article.

Creating a channel

You have to have channel admin permission to create a channel. By default, everyone in your organization has channel admin permission. Only a video admin can change who has channel admin permission. For information about video admin permission and channel admin permission, see Changing admin permissions for your Office 365 Video portal in Manage your Office 365 Video portal.

The person who creates a channel automatically has edit permission for that channel and can give other people permission to edit it. For information about channel edit permission, see Changing channel permissions later in this article.

To create a channel

Sign in to Office 365 as a user who has channel admin permission.
Go to the Office 365 Video portal by doing one of the following:
- On the Office 365 top navigation bar, choose Video. If you don't see Video on the top navigation bar, select the ellipsis on the top navigation bar and then choose Video in the drop-down menu that appears.
- Select the Office 365app launcher , and then select the Video icon.
On the Office 365 Video top navigation bar, on the left side, choose Channels, and then on the right side choose + New Channel.
In the Start a new channel dialog box, do the following:
1. Type a name for the new channel.
2. Select the Pick a channel color box to select a color for the new channel.
Choose Create.

Managing a channel

This section describes the procedures for managing a channel, which you can do only if you have edit permission for the channel:

Selecting a channel to manage
Uploading videos
Checking when a video is ready to play
Editing information about a video
Deleting a video
Managing channel settings

For information about channel edit permission, see Changing channel permissions later in this article.

Selecting a channel to manage

To manage a channel, you first select it.

To select a channel to manage

Sign in to Office 365 as a user who has permission to edit the channel that you want to manage. For information about channel edit permission, see Changing channel permissions later in this article.
Go to the Office 365 Video portal by doing one of the following:
- On the Office 365 top navigation bar, choose Video. If you don't see Video on the top navigation bar, select the ellipsis on the top navigation bar and then choose Video in the drop-down menu that appears.
- Select the Office 365app launcher , and then select the Video icon.
On the Office 365 Video top navigation bar, choose Channels.
Select a channel for which you have edit permission. For more information about channel edit permission, see Changing channel permissions later in this article.

Uploading videos

To upload a video, you upload it to a specific channel. You can upload multiple videos to a channel at the same time. For information about video formats that are compatible with Office 365 Video, see Video formats that work in Office 365 Video.

You have to have channel edit permission for a channel to be able to upload videos to it. For information about channel edit permission, see Changing channel permissions later in this article.

When you upload a video, the original file is stored in SharePoint Onlineand it counts against your storage quota. For more information, see Manage site collection storage limits.

For search discoverability, it can be useful to be consistent about how you title and describe videos when you upload them. (You can also change this information at any time later. For more information, see Editing information about a video later in this article.) This information can make it easier for everyone to search for the videos later, especially when you have a lot of videos in Office 365 Video. It also provides additional context for the video in Delve and the Office Graph.

Note As is the case for any file upload, there are many factors that can affect the time it takes to upload a video, such as network bandwidth and video size.

To upload a video

Select the channel that you want to upload a video to. For information about how to do this, see Selecting a channel to manage earlier in this article.
On the top navigation bar, on the right side, choose Upload videos.
Do one of the following:
- Drag a file to the box labeled Select videos to upload or drag files here.
- Click in the box labeled Select videos to upload or drag files here, select a video in the Choose File to Upload dialog box, and then choose Open.
The video will start to upload.
While the video is uploading, you can provide a title and description for the video, and then click Save.

After the upload is complete, the video player page will appear.

To upload multiple videos at the same time

From a Windows Explorer window, drag and drop the videos into the box labeled Select videos to upload or drag file here. The videos will start to upload.
When all the videos are uploaded and are being processed for playback, you can choose Edit details next to a video thumbnail to provide a title and description for the video. To provide this information:
1. Specify a title and description for the video.
2. Choose Save.

Checking when a video is ready to play

After you upload a video, it takes time to process it for streaming playback and index it for search before it is ready to play. The video will first be visible and playable under My Videos in the channel. It will be visible and playable by others elsewhere on the portal a while after that. Only people who have permission to view videos in that channel can view it.

To check when a video is ready to play

Select the channel to which you uploaded one or more videos. For information about how to do this, see Selecting a channel to manage earlier in this article.
Choose My videos.
Refresh the page occasionally. For example, to refresh the page in Internet Explorer, you can press F5. When the video is ready to play from My Videos, a video thumbnail will appear instead of a processing message. The video will appear elsewhere on the portal for other people to watch it a little later.

Editing information about a video

Providing information about a video will make it easier for other people to find it through search, and will provide additional context for it in Delve and the Office Graph. To edit information about a video, you have to have edit permission for the channel that the video is in. For information about channel edit permission, see Changing channel permissions later in this article.

To edit information about a video

Select the channel that the video is in. For information about how to do this, see Selecting a channel to manage earlier in this article.
Select the thumbnail of the video that you want to edit.
On the video player page, below the video player, choose Edit.
Change the information about the video as appropriate.
Choose Save.

Deleting a video

Deleting a video frees up space toward your SharePoint Online storage quota. To delete a video, you have to have edit permission for the channel that the video is in. For information about channel edit permission, see Changing channel permissions later in this article.

Note After you delete a video, you can't recover it.

To delete a video

Select the channel from which you want to delete a video. For information about how to do this, see Selecting a channel to manage earlier in this article.
Select the thumbnail of the video that you want to delete. The video player page appears.
On the video player page, below the video player, choose Edit.
Choose Delete video.
Choose OK to confirm that you want to delete the video.

After you delete a video, it can take a while for search indexing to complete, and then the video will no longer be visible in Office 365 Video.

Managing channel settings

This section describes the procedures for managing channel settings, which you can perform only for channels that you have edit permission for:

Going to the video channel settings page for a channel
Changing general channel settings
Changing channel permissions
Spotlighting videos in a channel
Deleting a channel

Going to the video channel settings page for a channel

To manage channel settings, you first go to the video channel settings page for that channel.

To go to the video channel settings page for a channel

Select a channel that you want to manage. For information about how to do this, see Selecting a channel to manage earlier in this article.
Select Settings > Video channel settings.

Changing general channel settings

You can change the name and color of any channel that you have edit permission for. For information about channel edit permission, see Changing channel permissions later in this article.

To change general channel settings

Select a channel that you want to change settings for. For information about how to do this, see Selecting a channel to manage earlier in this article.
Go to the video channel settings page for the channel. For information about how to do this, see the previous procedure, Going to the video channel settings page for a channel.
In the left navigation pane, choose general.
In the Channel Name text box, type a new channel name.
Under Channel color, select the box to choose a different color for the channel.
Choose Save.

Note It can take a while for the changes to be visible in certain pages of the video portal. Some pages in the portal are search-driven and it takes time for the search system to pick up changes.

Changing channel permissions

There are two types of channel permissions: edit permission and view permission.

Edit permission. A user or security group that has edit permission for a channel has full control over it. They can manage the channel from the channel settings page, upload videos, delete videos, and delete the channel. By default, only the person who creates a channel has edit permission for it, but that person can give edit permission to other people.

Tip It can be a best practice to limit the number of people that have edit permission for a channel. For example, if a person who has edit permission deletes a channel, you cannot recover the channel or the videos that were in it.
View permission. A user or security group that has view permission for a channel can view all of the videos that are in the channel. Without this permission, they can't see the channel or view the videos that are in it. By default, everyone in your organization has view permission for a channel when the channel is created.

You have to have edit permission for a channel to change the edit permission or view permission for it.

To change channel permissions

Select the channel that you want to change permissions for. For information about how to do this, see Selecting a channel to manage earlier in this article.
Go to the video channel settings page for the channel. For information about how to do this, see Going to the video channel settings page for a channel earlier in this article.
In the left navigation pane, choose permissions.
To control who can edit the channel, specify people or security groups in the Can edit box.
To control who can view the channel, specify people or security groups in the Can view box.

Spotlighting videos in a channel

After a number of videos are uploaded to a particular channel, it's time to promote some of them. You can promote videos by spotlighting them at the top of the channel page. You can spotlight up to five videos on a channel page.

To spotlight videos in a channel, you have to have edit permission for the channel. For information about channel edit permission, see the previous procedure, Changing channel permissions.

If you want particular channels or videos to be spotlighted on the Office 365 Video portal home page, contact a person in your organization who is a video admin for Office 365 Video. For more information, see Spotlighting videos and channels on the Office 365 Video portal home page in Manage your Office 365 Video portal.

To spotlight videos in a channel

Select the channel that you want to spotlight videos in. For information about how to do this, see Selecting a channel to manage earlier in this article.
Go to the video channel settings page for the channel. For information about how to do this, see Going to the video channel settings page for a channel earlier in this article.
In the left navigation pane, choose spotlight.
Select a spotlight tile, such as Spotlight 1.
In the window that appears, search or browse for the thumbnail of the video that you want to spotlight, and then select the thumbnail.

Note A video that has just been uploaded can be spotlighted only after it has been indexed by search and is generally ready to play on the portal. If you don’t see the thumbnail of the video that you want to spotlight right away, check back a little later.
You can repeat steps 3 through 5 of this procedure for the other spotlight tiles.

To put a different video in a spotlight tile, select the spotlight tile and then select the thumbnail of a different video.
Choose Save.

Deleting a channel

Deleting a channel removes the channel and all videos in it from the Office 365 Video portal. This frees up space toward your SharePoint Online storage quota.

To delete a channel, you have to have edit permission for it. For information about channel edit permission, see Changing channel permissions earlier in this article.

Caution After you delete a channel, you cannot recover it or the videos that were in it.

To delete a channel

Select the channel that you want to delete. For information about how to do this, see Selecting a channel to manage earlier in this article.
Go to the video channel settings page for the channel. For information about how to do this, see Going to the video channel settings page for a channel earlier in this article.
In the left navigation pane, choose general.
Choose Delete channel.
Choose OK to confirm that you want to delete the channel.