Microsoft Teams is a business communication platform part of the Microsoft 365 family of products, offering workplace chat and videoconferencing, file storage and application integration. Microsoft Teams will also be replacing Skype for Business (which will be retired July 31st, 2021). Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Teams has gained major interest, as many meetings have moved to a virtual environment.
Whether you're a Teams veteran or just starting out, we hope that this guide will help you make meetings as efficient as possible for you and your team(s).
Here's an index of the topics covered:
1. Prepare
Before we start, our assumption is that you have already a configured and up-and-running Teams account in a Microsoft 365 environment, so we'll go ahead with the following checklist:
- verify that your equipment is functional (hardware, Internet connection, operating system, headset, etc.)
- have a meeting outline of what you're trying to accomplish and ensure easy access to supporting documentation (written notes, documentation, presentations, spreadsheets, etc.)
- if this is your first meeting of the day, we recommend you warm up by reading aloud two minutes of text containing some inflection and ideally a wide range of characters, like The Wizard of Oz (you can find the public domain link here).
Reading aloud will avoid you having to clear your throat during the Teams meeting and can help people clearly hearing you, while potentially relieving some stress, getting you in a better mood before the call. This may sound like a silly practice, but it has proven effects on vocal performance of both amateurs and professionals.
2. Schedule, join or start a meeting
To join a Teams meeting, use the link provided by the host — you can usually find this in the meeting invite:
To start or schedule a meeting, go to the bar at the left hand side of the app window and select Calendar. This will lead to a screen with two choices in the upper right corner:
Meet now and
+ New meeting
Both of these will have very similar functions. Let's have a look at each.
Meet now
Clicking on Meet now will open the audio and video settings page. This is where the meeting can be named named (on the top of the screen) and audio/video options can be tuned:
Selecting the settings icon highlighted above will open the Device settings panel:
Once you're done tuning the audio/video settings, you have the option to select custom background effects which can make it easier to preserve privacy and keep the attention on you, not on your work-from-home environment.
The first place where you can alter what's being displayed behind you is right in the meeting screen, under your video feed preview and it's called Background filters:
You can choose to blur your existing background or select preset images ranging from professional offices to cartoonish beaches. Work from everywhere, right?
You can even select a custom background by using the + Add new option:
Just remember to flip your custom background horizontally in your image editing software before saving the file, in order for it to be displayed naturally for the others.
Once you're done customizing audio, video and backgrounds, you can start the meeting by clicking Join now. In the next screen, there will be two options to invite participants: either by copying and sharing (e.g.: via Teams chat) the generated meeting link or directly share it via e-mail:
2. New meeting
Clicking on + New meeting leads to a screen where meeting details can be selected
Here, the meeting description can be changed, attendees can be added (their availability can be looked up in the Scheduling Assistant tab), the time, duration and timezone of the meeting, the recurrence settings, a location and meeting details.
Once it's saved, the attendees will receive a meeting invitation in their calendar, together with the details you've added and (most importantly), the meeting link.
3. Meeting moderation and attendance tracking
Once the meeting is on its way, you can still change settings in the meeting screen. Look for the top menu bar and the "..." button (called ellipsis):
This will open multiple options, including lobby management, presenting rights and meeting chat settings:
Depending on the rules selected, attendees can either join in directly or will have to wait in the lobby for you — as the meeting organizer — to allow them in.
The option to Allow attendees to unmute is not required for small meetings, but can be a life saver in complex ones where there are multiple people joining.
By the way, you can check the Microsoft Teams user limits here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/limits-specifications-teams
Also in this screen, you can choose the presentation model, either with a single or multiple presenters:
You may also want to keep track when someone joins or leaves the meeting or choose to keep these events silent by toggling OFF the Announce when callers join or leave option (which is ON by default). For even more control, you can choose to download the attendee list by clicking the ellipsis ("...") button to the upper right corner of the screen, next to Participants and then selecting Download attendance list:
4. Post meeting
In order to make the most of a meeting, you'll need a summary of what has been discussed (meeting minutes) and a follow-up plan.
In order for you to be able to focus 100% on the meeting and discussion, Teams can help you with a transcript of the call — which works quite well. This is dependent on your company's privacy policy, as a requirement to getting the transcript is to record the call. This policy may or may not be defined in your organization. We'll explore one easy way to check this later on, but — depending on the formality degree and sensitivity level of the call as well as your organizational setup — it may be a good idea to check with your HR representative, (chief) privacy officer, internal communication specialist or legal department.
You'll also need to notify and obtain permission from the call participants to record their voice before actually recording and Teams reminds you of this once the recording has started:
Once you have validated these requirements, click on the ellipsis ("...") button:
Then select Start recording from the dropdown menu:
Teams will confirm that you're recording:
After the meeting is over (or the part which you wanted recorded), you can stop it in the meeting menu:
Look in the Chat tab for updates regarding the recording. process:
The recording will need to be uploaded to Microsoft Stream.
Once it's done, you'll be notified either in the Chat tab or via e-mail.
Then, click on the ellipsis ("...") button and select Open in Microsoft Stream:
This will take you to the Microsoft Stream organizational site.
On the right hand of the screen, you should have the transcript ready:
In order to download this as a file, go to the bottom of the video recording, click on the ellipsis next to the Like button and select Update video details:
This will open a video details pages, with three columns. Go to the third one, called Options and click on the Download file link:
Once you have the file, you can create the meeting minutes and send them to the meeting participants in an e-mail.
These are our tips to improving your Teams meeting productivity.
If there's anything in particular you'd like covered or if you have your own tips to share, please let us know in the comments.
Comments