Meetings can be held within the Chat area, or within a Team.
- Meetings in the Chat area are useful for one-off meetings, for one-to-one/private meetings and for when participants do not all belong to the same MS Team. Meeting chat and recordings are available from the chat area and will not be linked to any specific Team.
- Meetings within a Team channel are recommended for teams/groups that regularly meet, e.g. for weekly meetings, committee and project meetings and regular teaching sessions. Meeting chat and recordings are all available in the Team.
Including externals
You can invite people who are not members of the University (externals) to meetings in the Chat area and to meetings in a Team channel. You do not need to be a Team member to join a Team meeting, but only Team members can see the meeting chat if the meeting is held in a Team. More information on options for externals here.
The recommendations for organising your meeting depend on whether your meeting is to be held in a Team, or in the Chat area.
Meetings in the Chat area
Options:
A (Recommended): Use the Meeting scheduler in Teams Calendar. The Teams Calendar connects with your Exchange calendar so you should see the same appointments in this Calendar area as you see in Outlook. The image on the left shows the Calendar button in Teams.
B (Alternative): Use the Teams button in your Outlook Calendar. Not everyone has this feature in Outlook.
C: Unscheduled meetings – You can use the Meet Now button in the Teams Calendar to start an impromptu meeting with colleagues.
See instructions below:
The Teams Calendar connects with your Exchange calendar so you should see the same appointments in this Calendar area as you see in Outlook.
- Open Teams and select the Calendar button
- Select New meeting button
- Add meeting title, date and time and meeting details.
- Enter the names of attendees. If they are external, enter their full email address. As you type as an external address, you will be told that No results are found, but keep typing. You should see the option to Invite your contact, once you have entered a complete email address.
- You can use the Scheduling Assistant to find the most suitable date and time for your internal invitees.
- You can leave the channel blank. (This is for meetings within a Team)
- If any of the participants are external, recommend in your invitation that they test the meeting link before the meeting. They do not need a Teams account, but if they are using a mobile device they will need to download the Teams app before they join the meeting. If they reach the lobby, this indicates success!
- Send the invitation
- Before the meeting, you can use meeting Tracking to check responses to your invitation. Open the meeting Details from the Teams Calendar – Tracking info appears on the right.
The meeting will appear in your Calendars in Outlook and in Teams. At the meeting start time, click Join. Any externals will be asked to wait in the lobby until someone already in the meeting lets them in.
As the meeting is not inside a Team, there are no restrictions on who can access the meeting Chat. All participants, including externals, can see and post in the meeting Chat. External participants will not be able to access the meeting recordings.
Meeting options
Once you have scheduled a meeting you can set the meeting options. You don’t need to do this if you are happy with the default options (shown below). Note that it takes some time for the new meeting to be set-up in the calendar – it will initially appear greyed-out. When it is ready, right-click and select Edit. The Meeting options screen opens in a web page – you might have to hunt for it. If you are the meeting organizer, you can also edit meeting options from the calendar invite.
Meeting options – opens in a web page
The lobby
You can set options to decide who waits in the Lobby using meeting options (above), but note that invited guests will not be able to join the meeting until a team member admits them, even if you selection the option to allow everyone to bypass the lobby.
Some versions of Outlook calendar have a Teams button available. Using this button when scheduling a meeting will generate a link that participants can click on to join the meeting, but we don't recommend that you use it for every meeting, as the meeting will take place in the Chat area of Teams. Any meeting chat or recordings associated with the call will be stored in the chat area and will not be linked to any specific Team.
- Open Outlook and select your Calendar
- Select the New Teams Meeting button (on the Home tab). If there is no button this feature may not be available to you – use the Meeting Scheduler in Teams instead.
- Enter the names of attendees. If they are external, enter their full email address.
- Enter a subject for the meeting
- If any of the participants are external, recommend in your invitation that they test the meeting link before the meeting. They do not need a Teams account, but if they are using a mobile device they will need to download the Teams app before they join the meeting. If they reach the lobby, this indicates success!
- Click on Send.
The Meet Now button in the Teams Calendar allows you to start an impromptu meeting with colleagues. The meeting will not be held in a team. Everyone in the meeting will be able to see and post in the Chat area. For internal colleagues, you can invite people by entering their names. For externals, you should use a link to invite them to the meeting. To use this feature:
- Select Meet now button
- You can rename the meeting to describe what it is about
- If you are planning to include externals, select 'Get link to Share'. You can share the link via email, or copy and paste the link to share in other ways, for example in a Calendar invitation.
- Once you have started the meeting, you can bring in other people by going to the Participants tab. Either type their names (internal colleagues only) to call them straight into the meeting, or use the 'Share Invite' button.
You can paste the share link into an email message (or a Calendar invitation) created outside of Teams.
See also Using Chat for tutorials | Teaching Contingency (brighton.ac.uk) for more information on using the Chat feature.
Meetings within an existing Team
Don’t use the Teams button in Outlook calendar for these types of meeting. Instead you can either:
- A: Use the Teams Meeting Scheduler to set up a meeting in your Team. Everyone in your team will receive a calendar invitation with a link to ‘Join’ the meeting. If they are signed into Teams, they will also receive a pop-up notification when the meeting starts. Guests can also be invited to your Team meeting. Although this is the easiest way to set up a Team meeting there are some disadvantages: The person who schedules the meeting will be the meeting Organiser and therefore the only person able to download the participants list and start breakout rooms. If you are not planning to attend the meeting and these features are needed, then don’t use this method.
- B: Create an Outlook calendar invitation or send an email to your attendees to specify the date and time of the meeting. Include the joining instructions in the body of the calendar appointment or email (see suggested text to include below)
- C: Unscheduled Meetings: You can use the Meet Now button to start an informal and impromptu meeting in a Team. Any Teams members signed into Teams will see notification that a meeting has started in the Team. If it is important that everyone attends the meeting, then you should use other methods to notify people of the meeting.
The Meet button within a Team
- Go to the Team
- From the drop-down Meet button , select Schedule a meeting
- Add meeting title, date and time and meeting details.
- If desired, you can choose a different channel to hold the meeting in. You can't schedule meetings in a Private channel
- You don’t need to add the names of people in your Team. They will automatically receive an invitation.
- You can use the Scheduling Assistant to find the most suitable date and time for your invitees.
- If you want to add non-members, either type their name, if they are internal to the university, or their full email address if they are external. As you type an external email address you will be told that No results are found, but keep typing. You should see the option to Invite your contact, once you have entered a complete email address.
- If you are inviting external guests to the meeting, recommend in your invitation that they test the meeting link before the meeting. They do not need a Teams account, but if they are using a mobile device they will need to download the Teams app before they join the meeting. If they reach the lobby, this indicates success!
- Ask your recipients to just use the response options to let you know whether they are coming or not. If they want to give you any other information, they should send you a separate email – see info on bug below.
- Send the invitation
- Before the meeting, you can use meeting Tracking to check responses to your invitation. Open the meeting Details – Tracking info appears on the right.
- The meeting will appear in your Calendars in Outlook and Teams. At, or shortly before, the meeting start time, click the Join button. Any externals will be asked to wait in the lobby until someone already in the meeting lets them in.
Scheduler bug:
Please note that if you schedule a meeting within a Team, you will see the responses (Accept, tentative, Decline) in the meeting details, but messages typed in reply to your invitation are not delivered to you. This is a known bug. When you are writing your invitation, ask your recipients to just use the response options to let you know whether they are coming or not. If they want to give you any other information, they should send you a separate email.
This bug only affects meetings scheduled in a Team. If you are scheduling a meeting that is not within a Team, messages sent in reply will be delivered to your Inbox.
In this method you can use a Calendar invite to set up the meeting and send participants a link to the Team Channel where the meeting will be held. You need to decide who will start the meeting and ask other participants to wait for the meeting Join button to appear. See suggested meeting text below.
This meeting will take place online using Microsoft Teams. [MEETING COORDINATOR] will start the meeting at the designated time.
The meeting will take place on our Microsoft Teams area [INSERT TEAM NAME HERE] within the [INSERT CHANNEL NAME HERE – e.g. GENERAL].
To join the meeting:
- At the designated start time, you can follow this link to go directly to the Microsoft Teams site: [INSERT CHANNEL LINK HERE]
- Wait until you see a JOIN button appear in the chat on the Posts tab
- When you join the call, please:
- Click on the speech bubble icon to start the Chat
- Mute your audio
Written instructions for joining a Microsoft Teams meeting are here: https://blogs.brighton.ac.uk/teachingcontingency/microsoft-teams/how-to-join-a-webinar-via-teams/
- In the Microsoft Teams app, go to the Team where your videoconference will take place
- The channels for your team are listed on the left (some will have just one General channel).
- Click on the ellipsis (three dots) … to the right of the channel where your video conference will take place
- Click on Get Link to Channel
- Paste this link into the email or calendar appointment that you send to the attendees
Inviting people to join a Team (join code)
Some Teams meetings will require participants to use a join code to activate their membership of the Team where the meeting will take place. For instance staff development webinars or conference sessions, or where a new Team has been set up. For these types of session, you will need to share this information with your participants (via email, calendar invitation or by posting the details a website such as SharePoint).
Note that external users can not use a join code to access a Team on MS teams. Rather you would need to add them to the Team manually and invite them to the meeting using the Meetings where everyone is a member of the same Team on MS Teams instructions above.
This meeting will take place online using Microsoft Teams. [MEETING COORDINATOR] will start the meeting at the designated time.
Before you can join the meeting, you will need to join the Team using join code [PASTE JOIN CODE HERE]. We recommend that you try to join the Team in advance of the session, to check that you can access the Team.
Information on how to use the join code, as well as instruction on how to join the call at the designated time are here: https://blogs.brighton.ac.uk/teachingcontingency/microsoft-teams/how-to-join-a-webinar-via-teams/
- Click on the speech bubble icon to start the Chat
- Mute your audio