How to manage meetings in Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams is a collaboration app that lets your staff stay organised and have conversations all in one place. This quick video guide shows you how to manage meetings in Microsoft Teams.
How to Start a Microsoft Teams Meeting
You can set up your Microsoft Teams meeting either through the Teams app or Microsoft Outlook. You can decide which you want to use based on what makes the most sense to your company.
Microsoft is all about making meetings flexible so there are 3 ways that you can launch a discussion with your team:
- Ad-hoc meetings: Created by clicking the “Meet Now” button to get everyone involved in a conversation as quickly as possible.
- Private meetings: 1-on-1 conversations with specific colleagues or employees.
- Channel meetings: Group conversations with an entire team or group of people.
How to Meet Now in Microsoft Teams
If you want to “Meet Now” in Microsoft Teams, you’re probably looking for the quickest way to get all of the people in a channel talking. All you need to do is select the little camera icon in a new or existing conversations. In your video preview, enter a name for your meeting, and click Meet Now. Click on the names of the people you want to invite to your meeting. You can also type phone numbers if you want to add people from outside of your organisation to the discussion.
If you want to join a meeting using Meet Now, look for the camera icon in a conversation and click Jump In.
If you want to share a screen during your meeting, click the screen icon to show your screen to the other people you’re talking to. The ellipses icon will give you other in-meeting controls, including the option to record the meeting and have it emailed to you.
How to schedule a Microsoft Teams meeting
You can schedule Microsoft Teams meetings using your Outlook calendar and your calendar in Teams is automatically synced to your Outlook calendar. Every meeting scheduled in Teams automatically becomes an online meeting.
To schedule a meeting in a chat window, select the icon that looks like a calendar in the chat below the box where you usually type your messages. You can also go to the Calendar tab on the left-hand side of the app and click on New Meeting. Select a range of time within the calendar and Teams will open a scheduling form, where you can give your meeting a title, invite people, and add meeting details. Microsoft Teams also has a Scheduling Assistant you can use to find a time that works for everyone.
To create a channel meeting, click on New Meeting and type the name of one or more channels into the box that says Add Channel. Channels can’t be added or edited after you’ve sent your invites. You’ll need to send a new invite if you decide to add extra channels later. When you have a channel meeting, everyone in the team can see and join that channel. Once again, you can use the Scheduling Assistant with a channel meeting. You can also use dropdown boxes on your calendar to add a recurring meeting to everyone’s calendar. In your Outlook calendar Microsoft Teams Meetings will show a Join button five minutes before a meeting is set to start. When someone joins a meeting, the event changes colours to let you know that someone’s online.
How to schedule a Microsoft Teams meeting from Outlook
You can also schedule your Microsoft Teams Meetings from Outlook. The Microsoft Teams Outlook add-in allows people to view, accept, or enter meetings from Teams, or Outlook. To schedule a meeting, open Outlook and click on New Teams Meeting in the calendar view. Add the people that you want to include in the meeting to the To field. If you want a group of people to join the meeting at once, you can invite entire contact groups. Add your meeting subject, as well as a location, start time, and end time, then click Send to inform your team.
You can also invite people outside of your organisation to a Teams Meeting from Outlook. All you need to do is add them as guests before the meeting starts, so they don’t need to join anonymously. Add guests to your team by selecting Teams then visiting the team in your list. Click on … (More Options) > Add member. Enter the email address of the guest. Click Add to send a welcome email to your guest.
If you have any questions about Microsoft Teams or any other computer-related questions, give us a call on 0345 319 4877 (local call rate). We’ll be happy to help you.
