Faculty, staff, and students can access Microsoft Teams with your UT Microsoft 365 account. With Teams, you can chat, video call, share documents, and more! To assist you with learning about all of the tools and features of Teams, we are offering weekly tips and upcoming training. Check back weekly for new tips.
Add a Poll to a Teams Meeting
4/29/2024 An easy way to add engagement or to simply survey your participants is to add the Polls app to your Teams meeting. There are three options for Polls:
You can create a New Poll.
You can select Recent Polls and open a Poll you have already created.
You can select Suggestions and have Polls provide you a suggested Poll with suggested response options.
You can add a variety of question types including Multiple Choice, Quiz, Word Cloud, Rating, and Ranking, as seen in this image.
Calling all teams! Need to bring people together virtually? Microsoft Teams has you covered, but with all the options available, choosing the right delivery stage can feel overwhelming. Don’t worry, this quick guide will help you pick the perfect virtual stage for your next event!
Webinars: Need structured meetings with defined presenter roles and attendee registration? That’s a Webinar! Webinars provide the tools to schedule meeting events, manage attendee registration, run interactive presentations, and analyze attendee data for effective follow-up. Webinars are ideal for training efforts with large audiences.
Town Halls: Imagine a big company meeting where everyone can hear the latest news and ask questions. That’s a Town Hall! It’s great for large audiences, like all-hands meetings or company announcements. Think of it as a virtual auditorium with a stage for presentations and a microphone for questions.
Live Events: Ever watch a webinar or presentation online? That’s a Live Event! It’s like a live broadcast where you can see and hear the speaker, but there’s not as much back-and-forth interaction. Perfect for guest speakers, presentations to a large audience, or events where the focus is on the speaker.
The next time you’re planning a virtual event, think first about your needs:
Interactive presentation with registration? Webinars!
Microsoft Loop is a new collaboration tool that aims to transform the way teams work together. It’s a flexible, dynamic platform that brings people, content, and tasks together in one place, making brainstorming, planning, and creating easier than ever.
What is Microsoft Loop?
Loop is more than just a single app. It’s a collection of components and features that can be used in a variety of ways.
Create flexible workspaces: Loop workspaces are like blank canvases where you can add all sorts of content, including text, lists, tables, images, and even live data feeds. Organize content as needed, and it will stay in sync across all your devices.
Use portable components:Loop components are like building blocks that can be moved between different workspaces and apps for reuse and organization purposes.
Collaborate in real time: Loop is designed for real-time collaboration. You can see what your teammates are working on as they work on it, and you can make changes together at the same time.
Who Can Use Microsoft Loop?
Microsoft Loop is for anyone who works in teams. It’s especially well-suited for teams that work on complex projects or that need to quickly adapt to change.
What are the benefits of Using Microsoft Loop?
The many benefits of using Microsoft Loop, include:
Increased productivity: Loop can help you get more done by making it easier to collaborate and stay organized.
Improved communication: Loop offers a central place to share ideas and information.
Enhanced creativity: Loop offers a flexible platform to brainstorm and experiment.
Reduced stress: Loop can help you reduce stress by making it easier to stay on top of your work and deadlines.
Microsoft Teams allows you to record your meetings to share with others or watch later. Meeting recordings in Teams will reside in one of two places depending upon the type of meeting.
Teams Channel Meeting Recordings are housed within the Teams’ SharePoint site files, with access from the Teams’ Channel Post, Meeting Chat, and the Teams’ Files tab.
Non-Channel Meeting Recordings, e.g., Chat meetings, are housed within OneDrive (of the individual who selected record), with access from the Chat’s Files tab.
Each meeting recording will expire after 60 days unless you revise this date. Revisions to this date can be made from the link provided with the recording in the Channel Post or Chat, Stream, or OneDrive/SharePoint.
If you need a recording or a transcript of your meetings, both features are available within Microsoft Teams Meetings. Meetings can be recorded to capture audio, video, and screen sharing activity. Meetings can be set to record automatically when they start or recording can start during a meeting. Like recordings, transcripts will be created automatically when a recording begins. Microsoft Teams also offers ‘live transcription’ within meetings. During a meeting, with the live transcription feature enabled, the text appears alongside the meeting video or audio in real time, including the speaker’s name and a time stamp. After the meeting, users can download and/or search the transcript to review important discussion items.
Just as in Zoom, Microsoft Teams has breakout rooms available to presenters in Teams meetings. Breakout rooms can be used in meetings with up to 300 participants. You can either automatically or manually assign participants to rooms and meeting organizers can move between rooms to facilitate. Rename breakout rooms so that you can assign participants to rooms with specific topics.
For a link to a Microsoft information article and additional details on breakout rooms, see this OIT Knowledge Base article.
When presenting by yourself or with a group in a Microsoft Teams meeting, you want the presenters to be front and center for all participants. You can spotlight, or pin, up to seven participants in a Teams meeting to ensure their videos remain prominent to everyone watching.Learn how to spotlight video feeds during Teams meetings
How often have you co-presented where your partner had the PowerPoint on their laptop, and you had to awkwardly ask them to advance to the next slide? In Microsoft Teams meetings, you can control the PowerPoint from your co-presenter’s computer. Here are a few tips:
You must be a co-organizer of the meeting.
The first presenter must share only the PowerPoint from a list of recently opened files available in the share options.
When you’re ready, just take control.
Other organizers can then reclaim control when you complete your presentation.
Wouldn’t it be nice if when presenting your screen your video can remain active on the screen for your viewers rather than become just one of the many smaller video feeds that get lost to the side? Microsoft has solved this issue with Presenter Mode options which allow you to change the view depending on your purpose and content..
Microsoft Teams provides unique options when it comes to Presenter Modes for Teams meetings, including (1) Content Only, (2) Standout, (3) Side-by-Side, and (4) Reporter. Teams offers additional options for each of these modes including placement of your video feed on the right or left of the screen, a sliding scale to increase or decrease your video feed size, and the option to change backgrounds.
Have you switched to the new version of Microsoft Teams? If so, check out the new Meet app. If you pin this app to your vertical toolbar on the left of your Microsoft Teams window, you’ll have a list of upcoming meetings as well as an easy way to find meeting recordings.
Microsoft Teams allows users to create Teams and channels for use with projects, collaboration, and efficient communication. However, periodically, projects end, Teams’ purposes change, or a Team may no longer be of use. By hiding Teams that are no longer in use, your Team List or Grid view will be easier to manage by showing only those Teams that are in active use.
In either the Team List or Grid view, select the More Options ellipsis (…) and select Hide.
Once hidden, a separate area at the bottom of the Teams Grid or List will appear. Any team placed in this area can be unhidden and returned to the active Teams area.
Microsoft Teams allows you to have many channels to discuss different topics in each Team. As you get more and more channels, however, it can become difficult to keep track of all the conversations, especially if you are not actively involved in some of the discussions. While you cannot hide the General channel, you can hide other channels to help streamline your view of the Team. These channels will only be hidden for you, not the rest of the Team. At any time, you can show your hidden channels. As with most things in Teams, it all starts with the ellipsis (…) menu.
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