Teams Meetings
Online meetings and conferences are a key component of Microsoft Teams. Meetings in Teams include audio, video, and sharing. It is possible to arrange online meetings from Microsoft Teams or Outlook, which can be joined by any user, internal or external to the University, and regardless of if they have the Microsoft Teams desktop application or not. Attendees don’t need to have a Queen’s NetID – or even have a Teams account! – to join a Teams meeting.
New Teams Meeting experience improvements
Microsoft has announced that the following features will soon be available to improve your Teams Meeting experience. These features are coming soon. The timing of release is subject to change.

And unique to Microsoft Teams, breakout rooms can be initiated both in Microsoft Teams channels and in Microsoft Teams meetings to give you flexibility on how you want to meet. Learn how to get started with breakout rooms here.
This feature will be disabled by default but users will have the ability to turn on the new experience via the user setting
Note: In the future Microsoft will enable this functionality by default, but they want to provide users extra time to become familiar with having meetings open in their own seperate window.
New meeting experience
New meeting/calls control location
Steps for users to turn on the new experience
- Click on Avatar on top right of Teams and click Settings.
- Check the Turn on new calling an meetings experiences check box and then restart the Teams client.
Together mode is a new option in Microsoft Teams, Microsoft’s premier app for teamwork and team connection. You’ve probably seen it by now; everyone is united in a virtual space as if in a theater instead of being separated in boxes.
Together mode has a unique look, but it also has a unique feel. The design offers unique benefits: less fatigue from frequent video meetings, better sense of connection with others, and more effective meetings.
Together mode is available when at least five people are in the meeting. More seats will be automatically added to the virtual auditorium as more people join.
When to use it:
- Together mode is especially well-suited to calls in which multiple people will speak; we find that it’s easier and more comfortable for people to find moments to enter a conversation.
- Together mode helps when you must go to a lot of video meetings. Most users report less meeting fatigue.
- Together mode is helpful when a group might have trouble staying attentive, for instance in education settings.
- Together mode supports presenters who need to “read the room” or get energy from attendees.
Learn more about using video in Microsoft Teams
As part of the new Teams calling and meeting experience, Large Gallery view (preview) for Microsoft Teams meetings provides a new way to view video from up to 49 participants at once on a single screen. Similar to the normal Gallery view, Large Gallery automatically adapts the layout of participant videos in a Teams meeting into defined grids (e.g. 7x7) for optimal viewing. Large Gallery is an optional participant view that is turned off by default for each meeting, and each meeting user may switch in or out of Large Gallery view at any time.
Large Gallery is being made available as a public preview feature and uses a new flexible design to deliver a network-optimized client video experience that works on multiple device categories. During the preview, the Large Gallery experience will be available for desktop Teams client (Windows, Mac) and mobile Teams client (iOS, Android) users. In order to take advantage of this new view, users will need to turn on the new multi-window meeting experience and must have ten (10) or more participants in an active meeting with video turned on.
Learn more about using video in Microsoft Teams
Now, you have the option to make everyone—even people from Queen's University —wait in the meeting lobby when they join a meeting you've organized.
To access this setting, open Meeting options. Then, where is asks Who can bypass the lobby?, select Only me. Learn how to access these options at Change participant settings for a Teams meeting.
- Microsoft is making it easier for meeting organizers to quickly and easily change their presenter and lobby settings once a Teams meeting starts by providing an easy to access link directly in the participants pane. This new functionality will be present for both scheduled and "Meet Now" meetings.
End meeting
- Microsoft has released the ability for meeting organizers to end a meeting for all participants with a click of a button. Meeting organizers can now find an option to End meeting in the meeting control bar options.
Background effects in Teams meetings
- Users will be able to select Microsoft provided background images prior to or during a video call. Microsoft has introduced the ability for users to upload their own custom images.
Raise a virtual hand in Teams meetings
- The new raise hand feature in Teams allows meeting attendees to identify that they wish to speak by toggling the hand icon in the meeting control bar, making it easier to actively participate in meetings.
- When a meeting participant has raised their hand, an icon will appear next to their name in the roster view as well as their profile picture or video on the main meeting stage. Participants can lower their hand, and any presenter can lower individual hands in the meeting.
- Raise hand will be available initially for PC, Mac, and web-based clients. Support for mobile applications will follow.
Participant attendance report
- Meeting organizers, will be able to download a participant report, found in the participants list, that includes join and leave times for participants.
New experience for launching instant channel meetings
- Users will soon see the Meet Now button in the Channel header in the top-right corner.
Improved Teams meeting join launcher experience
- When launching a Teams meeting from a link, users will be provided with clearer options for how they would like to join the meeting.
New video layout in Teams meetings
- Microsoft is pleased to announce that the number of participants that can be viewed simultaneously during a Teams meeting will increase from 4 to 9. Additionally Microsoft is working on increasing this limit even further so that more participants can be viewed simultaneously. For more than 9 participants, Teams will prioritize those with video on and show them on the stage. Participants with audio will be shown below the meeting stage. To provide a high audio and video quality experience, the layout logic will consider user bandwidth and alter the number of videos shown to provide the best meeting experience.
Requirements and considerations for Teams meetings
Clients for Teams
Desktop clients
The Microsoft Teams desktop client is a standalone application. Teams is available for 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows (8.1 or later), as well as for macOS (10.10 or later) and Linux (in .deb and .rpm formats). The desktop clients provide real-time communications support (audio, video, and content sharing) for team meetings, group calling, and private one-on-one calls. To download the desktop client, go to https://teams.microsoft.com/downloads.
Web clients
Teams fully supports the following Internet browsers, with noted exceptions for calling and meetings
- Google Chrome, the latest version plus two previous versions
- Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based), the latest version plus two previous versions
- Firefox, the latest version plus two previous versions
- Safari 11.1+
- Internet Explorer 11
Fully supported for calling and meetings
- Google Chrome, the latest version plus two previous versions
- Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based), the latest version plus two previous versions
Not supported for calling and meetings and users must download the Teams desktop client
- Firefox
- Safari 11.1+
- Internet Explorer 11
Mobile clients
The Microsoft Teams mobile apps are available for Android and iOS, and are geared for on-the-go users participating in chat-based conversations and allow peer-to-peer audio calls. For mobile apps, go to the relevant mobile stores Google Play and the Apple App Store. The Windows Phone App was retired July 20, 2018 and may no longer work.
Attendee limit
Teams meetings are limited to 250 participants in a single meeting session. For large meetings, Live Events in Microsoft 365 is an option. Live Events is an extension of Teams meetings that enables an organizer to schedule, produce, and deliver live events that stream to large online audiences (up to 10,000 attendees). Live events are designed for one-to-many communications where the host of the event is leading the interactions and audience.
Setup a meeting
Your calendar in Teams is connected to your Exchange Online calendar. In other words, when you schedule a meeting in Outlook, it'll show up in Teams, and vice versa.
Schedule a Teams meeting from Outlook
Outlook Desktop Client
Microsoft Teams includes the Outlook add-in, which lets you create new Teams meetings directly from Outlook. It also lets people view, accept, or join meetings in either app.
To schedule a meeting, open Outlook and switch to the calendar view. Click New Teams Meeting in the Home ribbon.
Add your invitees to the To field - you can even invite entire contact groups (formerly known as distribution lists). Add your meeting subject, location, start time, and end time. Then click Send.
After you have sent your meeting invite, open the meeting to set your meeting options.
Outlook on the Web
To schedule a meeting from Outlook on the web, you will first need to navigate to outlook.com/queensu.ca and sign-in using your netid@queensu.ca email and password.
Once you have accessed your Outlook mailbox, you can then select your calendar and add a New Event.
From here you can select Add Online meeting and then Teams Meeting (left panel) or Teams Meeting radio button (right panel).
After you have sent your meeting invite, open the meeting to set your meeting options.
Schedule a meeting in Teams
Every meeting scheduled in Teams is automatically made into an online meeting.
There are several ways to have an ad-hoc or scheduled meeting in Teams:
Schedule a meeting in Teams chat
Select Chat on the left side of the Teams app and select Schedule a meeting icon located below the message compose box to book a meeting with the people in the chat, and it will open a scheduling form.
Similar to Outlook, in the scheduling form is where you'll give a title to your meeting, invite people, and add meetings details. You will have the option to add a channel (refer to Make it a channel meeting), individual people, or leave both blank to book yourself an appointment.
After you have sent your meeting invite, open the meeting to set your meeting options.
Schedule a meeting using the Teams Calendar
Select Calendar on the left side of the Teams app and either select New meeting at the top right of the app or select a range of time in your calendar and it will open a scheduling form.
Similar to Outlook, in the scheduling form is where you'll give a title to your meeting, invite people, and add meetings details. You will have the option to add a channel (refer to Make it a channel meeting), individual people, or leave both blank to book yourself an appointment.
After you have sent your meeting invite, open the meeting to set your meeting options.
Click on the Add channel drop-down list in the meeting scheduling form, and select a Team and channel for the meeting.
Note:
- When you have a meeting in a channel, everyone in the team will be able to see and join it in that channel.
- Private channels do not support scheduled channel meetings. Meet Now meetings are supported.
- The channel for the meeting can't be edited or added once the invite is sent. You'll need to send a different new invite with the updated channel.
How to avoid being alone in channel meetings
When you schedule a meeting and select a team and channel, you might think that the team members get an email invitation to the meeting – they don’t! The meeting is only posted in the channel – it doesn’t show up in their calendar or email inbox as a meeting invitation. The easiest way to avoid scheduling Teams meetings that no one is aware of, is to add each person you want to invite to the meeting in the attendees field. Another way to avoid this is to send out the Teams meeting invitation via Outlook – but then your meeting is not visible in the channel.
You can start an impromptu meeting through the Teams calendar and within a team.
Select Calendar on the left side of Teams app, then select Meet now in the upper right corner.
You'll have a chance to set a few things up before you start your meeting. Give it a title, choose whether you want to use video, and pick your preferred audio source. When you're ready, select Join now.
Your meeting is now up and running—you just need people to join you.
To invite people:
Start typing the name or phone number of someone you want to invite in the box under People in the top right. Select them when they appear in the list, and they'll get a call right away.
Another option is to copy the meeting link and send it to anyone you want to meet with, and they can join by selecting it. Just choose Copy join info and paste the link in a message.
If you don't have meeting scheduling capability in Outlook or Teams, starting an instant meeting is a great option. Just like with scheduled meetings, everyone who attends your meeting will continue to have access to the meeting chat, the recording, and anything else people share in the meeting (like files and meeting notes), even after the meeting ends.
To get a channel meeting going right away:
In the Posts tab in a channel, select Meet now button located below the message compose box. Or, to keep the context of a specific conversation, select Reply below any post, and then select Meet now button under the box where you'd type your message.
Add a subject to your meeting and choose whether you want to include video. When you're ready, select Meet now.
Your meeting is now up and running—you just need people to join you.
To invite people:
You will see Suggestions of people to invite from your Team. Select More options beside the name of the user you would like to join and then select Ask to Join.
To invite other people to join you,Start typing the name or phone number of someone you want to invite in the box under People in the top right. Select them when they appear in the list, and they'll get a call right away.
Another option is to copy the meeting link and send it to anyone you want to meet with, and they can join by selecting it. Just choose Copy join info and paste the link in a message.
If you don't have meeting scheduling capability in Outlook or Teams, starting an instant meeting is a great option. Just like with scheduled meetings, everyone who attends your meeting will continue to have access to the meeting chat, the recording, and anything else people share in the meeting (like files and meeting notes), even after the meeting ends.
To rejoin the same meeting anytime, find the meeting chat in your chat list and select Join.
Protect your Teams meetings
Prior to starting a Teams meeting step through all the meeting options with consideration of the following recommendations on how to protect your Teams meetings.
As a meeting organizer, you may want to change the default participant settings for a specific meeting.
You can make changes to your meeting settings before a meeting by going to Meeting options. There are two ways to get there:
In Teams, go to Calendar, select a meeting, and then select Meeting options.
In a meeting invitation, select Meeting options.
By selecting the Meeting options link will direct you to a web page (sign-in required), where you'll see two options for changing participant settings:
As the meeting organizer, you get to decide who gets into your meetings directly, and who should wait in the lobby for someone to let them in by configuring “Who can bypass the lobby?”
If you choose to have people wait, the organizer and presenters, are the only people allowed to admit people from the lobby and will see a list of people in the lobby. From there a decision can made on whether to admit or deny them.
The following table provides details of the three options:
Setting | Join behaviour | Recommended when… |
Everyone | All meeting participants join the meeting directly without waiting in the lobby. This includes authenticated users, federated users*, guests, anonymous users, and people who dial in by phone. | The organizer does not want anyone to wait in the lobby. They want everyone to be able to join your meetings without specific approval. |
People in my organization and trusted organizations | Authenticated users within the organization, including guest users with Microsoft accounts and the users from federated organizations*, join the meeting directly without waiting in the lobby. Anonymous users and users who dial in by phone wait in the lobby. | The organizer wants some external users, such as external users that are not already Queen’s Office 365 guests or from a trusted organization to wait in the lobby so they can approve them one by one or choose not to admit them. |
People in my organization | Authenticated users from within the organization, including guest users with Microsoft accounts, join the meeting directly without waiting in the lobby. Federated users*, anonymous users, and users who dial in by phone wait in the lobby. | The organizer wants all external users to wait in the lobby so they can approve them one by one. Only users in our Azure AD directory will be allowed to bypass the lobby. |
*IT Services manages the list of federated organizations.
There are two roles to choose from in a Teams meeting: attendee and presenter. The organizer is automatically assigned the presenter role. Presenters can be selected before and during a meeting. Please review the specific capabilities of each role prior to selecting an option for “Who can present?”:,
Attendee
- Speak and share video
- Participate in meeting chat
- Privately view a PowerPoint file shared by a presenter
Presenter
- Speak and share video
- Participate in meeting chat
- Privately view a PowerPoint file shared by a presenter
- Share content
- Take control of someone else's PowerPoint presentation
- Mute other participants
- Remove participants
- Admit people from the lobby
- Change the roles of other participants
- Start or stop recording
Once you are ready to make your selection, there are four options available for “Who can present?”.
The following table details how the presenter role is applied for each option.
Who can present? | What happens |
Everyone | Anyone who has access to the meeting link will join the meeting as a presenter. |
People in my organization | Only people in our Queen’s Office 365 organization, including guests with Microsoft accounts will be presenters. External participants will join as attendees. |
Specific people1 | Only people you choose from a list of invitees from within Queen’s University will be presenters. Everyone else can join as attendees. |
Only me | Only the organizer will be a presenter. All other participants will join as attendees. |
1A couple things to keep in mind:
- You'll need to send your meeting invite directly to anyone you want to select as a presenter.
- You won't be able to select specific people from outside of Queen’s University as a presenter.
- The ability to select specific presenters isn't yet available for channel meetings.
- You can also change a participant’s role during a meeting.
Access meeting options during a meeting
- Microsoft has made it easier for meeting organizers to quickly and easily change their presenter setting once a Teams meeting starts by providing an easy to access link directly in the participants pane. This new functionality is featured in both scheduled and "Meet Now" meetings.
Change a participant’s role during a meeting
-
Click Show participants in the meeting controls to see a list of the people in the people in the meeting.
-
Hover over the name of the person whose role you want to change and click More options button. From there, select Make a presenter or Make an attendee.
You will receive the following question dialogue box when switching roles during a meeting:
Notes:
- If the meeting is recurring, any change you make in Meeting options will apply to all meeting occurrences.
- If you change a role during a meeting through the participants pane, the role assignment will apply to the occurrence of the meeting. Future occurrences, participants will keep the role assigned to them on the Meeting options page.
- If someone exits the meeting and then rejoins it later, they'll rejoin with the last role they were assigned.
Change who can share their screen during a meeting
- To prevent participants from presenting or screen sharing, change their role to Attendee.
- To allow participants to present or screen share, change their role to Presenter.
Change who can mute other participants
- To prevent participants from muting other participants, change their role to Attendee.
- To allow participants the ability to mute other participants, change their role to Presenter.
Change who can admit people from the lobby
- To prevent participants from admitting people from the lobby, change their role to Attendee.
- To allow participants to admit people from the lobby, change their role to Presenter.
Change who can start or stop a recording
- To prevent participants starting or stopping a recording, change their role to Attendee.
- To allow participants to start or stop a recording, change their role to Presenter.
Change who can change roles of other participants
- To prevent participants from changing roles of other participants, change their role to Attendee.
- To allow participants to change roles of other participants, change their role to Presenter.
Remove a participant during a meeting
- Click Show participants in the meeting controls to see a list of the people in the people in the meeting.
- Hover over the name of the person whose role you want to change and click More options button. From there, select Remove participant.
Mute participants during a meeting
- Click Show participants in the meeting controls to see a list of the people in the people in the meeting.
- Hover over the name of the person whose role you want to change and click More options button. From there, select Mute Participant or to mute all attendees, select Mute all. This capability is only available to participants with the Presenter role assigned.
Teams meeting join links and audioconferencing dial-in information should not be shared on social media or made publicly available. Meeting join links should be sent directly to specific participants or published in a secured area where sign-in is required, such as in your onQ course space, a SharePoint site, the Queen's Wiki, or within your Microsoft Team.
Hold participants in the meeting lobby to control the admittance of external or anonymous participants by setting Who can bypass the lobby? meeting option to People in my organization. To handle this for larger meetings, you may want to appoint a trusted user to a presenter role to facilitate participant access to the meeting. Learn more about configuring the Who can present? setting.
Prevent users from taking control of the meeting by limiting the presenter role to the organizer and/or assigning the presenter role to specific people prior to the meeting. Learn more about configuring the Who can present? setting.
Limit the ability for screen sharing by assigning the presenter role to the organizer and/or specific people to remove the possibility of participants from taking over the meeting and sharing unwanted content. Learn more about configuring the Who can present? setting.
When screen sharing, only share the essentials to avoid sharing sensitive or confidential information.
While there is no ability to disable chat in a Teams meeting, you can limit access to chat by making your meeting a channel meeting (refer to Make it a channel meeting). In doing so, any user who is not a member of the team, can still join the meeting, but will not be able to participate in the meeting chat and will be limited to participating through video and audio.
Meeting with External Attendees
Anyone with an email address can take part in a Teams meeting. Here are the three main types of external attendees:
A user without a Microsoft account (any email address)
Anyone with an email address and internet connection can access the meeting via the browser, simply by clicking the ‘Join on the web instead’ button.
While the resulting interface is restricted for the attendee on the web (they cannot share camera or screen), they can view other attendees’ shared screens.
A user with a Microsoft account, as a guest user
If the guest has a Microsoft account, they can either use the web link as above or, if they click the ‘Open Microsoft Teams’ option and sign in to their Microsoft account, they can launch the Microsoft Teams client to get a richer user experience within the Teams meeting.
This will include:
- Video/Camera options
- Desktop and File Sharing
Anyone with a phone to dial-in and join
For select Queen's meeting organizers, a special license assigned to them allows them to create meetings that include a telephone number for participants to dial in to using their telephone service (mobile, home phone, work phones, etc.) in circumstances where they are unable to join via the internet, such as poor internet connectivity. When audio conferencing is available, attendees will automatically see the dial-in options for Microsoft Teams’ meetings (as shown below). Long distance charges may apply for the attendee depending on their home/cellular plan.
Manage and troubleshoot audio settings in a Teams meeting
Make sure you’re not on mute
If people in a meeting can't hear you, you might be muted, or you might not have configured your mic correctly.
In the meeting controls toolbar, check to see if you are muted. If muted, the microphone button will have a line through it. Click the microphone button to unmute/mute yourself. You can also press Ctrl + Shift + M on your keyboard to mute/unmute.

Muted
Unmuted
Make sure the right audio device is selected
To change your speaker, microphone, or camera settings when you’re on a call or in a meeting,
select the More actions (…) button and then
select Show device settings
From the Device settings panel, select the speaker, microphone, and camera options you want using the drop-down options. If you do not see your device listed, it may not be connected to your device. Click the X to close the panel.
Teams audio/video conferencing tips
Software
- Make sure you have the current version of the Teams software installed.
- Test your mic and camera before the meeting. Teams will usually select the camera and mic on start up. Note: If they are not selected, or if you want to change the settings, see below for a set-up description.
- For MAC OS users from Mojave forward: If your mic and/or camera is not working, go to System Preferences, select Security and Privacy then the Privacy tab. Select camera and make sure there is a check mark to share the camera with the application you are using. Do the same for the microphone.
Camera and Microphone Set-up
- In Teams, click on your name icon in the upper right of the screen.
- Select Settings.
- Then Devices to view or change your speaker, microphone and camera. You should see your video displayed below the selection box. You can make a test call to make sure your selected microphone and speakers are working correctly.
Best Practices for Video Conferencing
- Position the camera as close to eye level as possible. For best picture quality, do not have a bright light source or window as your background.
- If possible, use a wired internet connection. If you use a wireless connection, ensure you are close to your router to maximize signal strength.
- If you experience freezing video or audio dropouts during a call, try turning your camera off:
- Move your mouse to bring up the meeting controls toolbar. Click on the camera icon to turn it off.
- If it doesn’t help, you can turn off all incoming video. Bring up the meeting controls toolbar, click on More actions (...)
- Select Turn off incoming video.
- Move your mouse to bring up the meeting controls toolbar. Click on the camera icon to turn it off.
Learn more about Teams Meetings and Calls
Join a Meeting
- Join a meeting in Teams
- Video: Join a Teams meeting
- Join a meeting without a Teams account
- Participate in a meeting from the mobile app
- Call in to a meeting
Set Up a Meeting
- Schedule a meeting in Teams
- Schedule a Teams meeting from Outlook
- Start an instant meeting
- Video: Create instant meetings with Meet Now
- Invite people to a meeting
- Video: Tip: Meet in a channel
- See all your meetings
- Video: Manage meetings
- Add a dial-in number for a meeting
During a Meeting
- Share your screen
- Video: Show your screen during a meeting
- Take meeting notes
- Blur your background
- Adjust your view in a Teams meeting
- Multitasking in a meeting
- Video: Move around during a Teams meeting
- Manage audio settings
- Change participant settings
- Whiteboard
- Share system audio
- Keyboard shortcuts for Teams meetings
Record a Meeting
Last Updated: April 4, 2021