MS Teams meetings-tips

Use the full client experience Microsoft Teams has clients available for desktop (Windows, Mac, and Linux), web, and mobile (Android and iOS). These clients all require an active internet connection and do not support an offline mode.

To profit from all benefits of Microsoft Teams whenever possible use the desktop client on your local machine. Using other methods (e.g. virtualized environment, web, ..) can result in a poor end user experience.

Make sure that the new meeting experience is enabled Teams -> Settings -> General -> Check “Turn on new meeting experience�

Check your devices before the meetings starts In a test call, you'll see how your mic, speaker, and camera are working. Follow the instructions from Test Call Bot and record a short message. The message will play back for you. After that, you'll get a summary of the test call, and you can go to your device settings to make changes.

Share your screen / presentation In Microsoft Teams, you can show your desktop, a specific app, presentation, or any file while in a meeting.

Select Share screen button ďƒ Select what you want to share -

Desktop lets you show everything on your screen.

Window lets you show a specific app.

PowerPoint lets you show a presentation.

After you select what you want to show, a red border surrounds what you're sharing (not in linux).

Select Stop sharing to stop showing your screen.

Use raise hand feature During a meeting, you can raise a virtual hand to let people know you want to contribute without interrupting the conversation.

Just select raise your hand in the meeting controls.

Everyone in the meeting will see that you've got your hand up.

Meeting presenters will also receive a notification that your hand is raised.

In meetings where attendees can't unmute themselves, a presenter can then allow you to unmute.

Change your background for a Teams meeting If you want to change what appears behind you in your video, you can either blur your background or replace it entirely with any image you want.

Go to your meeting controls and select More actions > Apply background effects.

Select Blur to blur your background, or choose from the available images to replace it. Select Preview to see how your chosen background looks before you apply it, and then select Apply.

Background effects won't be available to you if you're using Teams through optimized virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI).

Use Large gallery view Large Gallery view lets you see up to 49 video feeds at once. Also 10 or more attendees must be sharing their video for Large Gallery view to be available.

Check your meetings options Meeting organizers can choose what participants are allowed to do during the meeting.

If you're organizing a meeting with multiple attendees, you may want to assign roles to each participant to determine who can do what in the meeting.

There are two roles to choose from: presenter and attendee. Presenters can do just about anything that needs doing in a meeting, while the role of an attendee is more controlled.

To avoid random noise and distractions in large meetings, you may want to decide when attendees can unmute.

End your meetings for everyone in attendance Meeting organizers have the option to end the meeting for all participants. If you're a teacher, for example, this is a great way to make sure your students don't hang around in your virtual classroom after you've left.

To end an in-progress meeting, go to your meeting controls and select More options [‌] > End meeting.

You'll be asked to confirm. When you do, the meeting will end for everyone right away.

Download a list of participants Meeting organizers can download a list of participants in the app. During the meeting, select show participants and choose download attendee list.

The report will download as a .CSV file that can be opened in Excel. Look for the file in your device's Downloads folder. The .CSV file contains the name, join time, and leave time of all meeting attendees.

Keep in mind that, for now, the report must be downloaded during the meeting.

Use Breakout rooms 1/3 Breakout rooms allow organizers to divide the meeting into sub-groups to facilitate discussions and brainstorming sessions.

The meeting organizer can create up to 50 breakout rooms and choose to automatically or manually assign participants into rooms. The organizer can start a breakout room in a Teams meeting or a Teams channel meeting, allowing greater flexibility on how you want to meet.

Use Breakout rooms 2/3 Using the breakout room settings, the meeting organizer can choose to allow participants to come back to the main meeting at any time, then return to the assigned breakout room. This way participants can ask a clarifying question without disturbing the breakout room discussions.

Also, organizers can use the setting to re-create breakout rooms in the same meeting. This allows them to assign participants into new room setups.

Use Breakout rooms 3/3 (FAQ) Who can start a breakout room?

- Only the meeting organizer can start and manage breakout rooms.

How can I use breakout rooms?

- The meeting organizer can start a breakout room on the desktop client only.

- Participants can join a breakout room from desktop, web or mobile.

Microsoft Teams Rooms do not have breakout room capabilities yet.

- Participants logged in from multiple devices will have all end points join the same breakout room.

What about room management?

- The meeting organizer can create, rename, and delete rooms as needed.

- The meeting organizer has to decide whether the participants are automatically or manually assigned into rooms.

- Once the breakout rooms are open, meeting organizers can join any of the breakout sessions.

- Organizers can send announcements to the rooms and recall participants back to the main meeting at any time.

- Participants cannot join or switch between rooms themselves at this time.