End User

There are lots of blog posts out there with useful links for the Microsoft Exams and for administrators, but they are not the only excellent resources out there on the internet.

In this post I’ve pulled together my favourite references for users of Microsoft Teams, apart from the super useful posts on my blog, of course (wink) which are shown below, but you should also have a look at the Microsoft Quick Start Guide for Teams which you can download here and the Microsoft Teams help & support page from Microsoft Support. Also don’t forget the help button in Teams itself.

Meeting Templates

Meeting templates will help users create meetings with the correct settings in meeting options as the template applies those setting automatically.  The meeting templates also help with governance as they enforce the meeting options set in the template.  Templated meetings published to the user show up on the New Meeting button in the Teams client,…

Custom Video Filters

Custom Video filters are rolling out to Teams Public Preview ring at the time of writing. The Microsoft provided filters enable applying colour filters to your video feed such as Black and White And also applying a overlay Both work with virtual backgrounds and video, but will not support the upcoming Avatars. Whilst this feature…

Watermarking your Teams Meeting

Watermarking is a Teams Premium feature intended to be used as a deterrent to stop attendees taking and sharing screenshot of meetings and people in the meeting by overlaying their email address onto the incoming video and shared content.

Setting Teams Meeting Options

With the launch of the preview of the Teams Premium add-on, many of the options require the user to use Meeting Options, yet many users do not routinely look at these and many are unaware of the features available. This article takes a look at where you can access meeting options.

First Look at Microsoft Presenter+

The Microsoft Presenter+ is a presentation remote device and Microsoft Teams remote in one device. Whilst many presentation remotes do advance slides in Microsoft Teams meetings, including when presenting with PowerPoint Live inside Microsoft Teams, but you will still find yourself reaching for the mouse to mute or use the pointer on your slides. This…

Meeting Recording Expiry Dates

You may have started to see meeting expiry recording notifications in Microsoft Teams.  Before you panic, you it is simply letting you know that the expiry date is now being enforced. Meeting recording expiry is set by the meeting policy assigned to the user who recorded the meeting. The person who recorded the meeting and…

Praise and Praise History

To celebrate the 5th Birthday of Microsoft Teams on March 14th 2022, I’m publishing this article help you rediscover one of the early features of Teams. After all, a birthday is a great opportunity to send Praise!

Keeping your Focus in Meetings

Distractions in virtual/hybrid meetings & training courses are a big pain point, so make the most of the video focus tools to help you get the most of your Microsoft Teams meetings and webinars.

Stop Drowning in Notifications

There is a new feature rolling out to Teams to allow you to mute most Teams notifications when you are in a meeting or on a call. You can either switch it on for all meetings on on a meeting by meeting basis. To mute for all meetings and calls go to Settings, choose Notifications…

Cameras On!

As we approach 2 years of intensive virtual meetings, the debate about cameras on or cameras off still rages on. This is especially true with virtual training

A Busylight with Microsoft Teams

Recently I was asked if I knew of any busy lights for Mcirosoft Teams.    Remember those days when you would walk down the office to see a colleague rather then check their Teams presence? With hybrid working the presence indicator in Teams is still important but its needs extending into our physical spaces too. Personally…

External People in Group Chat in Teams

Group chats in Teams can now include external people.  It’s as simple as creating any group chat in Teams.  First, just make sure you can message the external people to be included in the group.  In other words send them a Teams chat message.  Then simply create a new group or add them to an…

Out of Office Automatic Replies

Did you know there are many options for setting your out of office or automatic replies in #Office365 including from #MicrosoftTeams

Meeting Transcription

There are two ways of displaying in text format what is said during a Microsoft Teams Meeting; Live Captions and Transcript.  Live captions are shown on screen (usually at the bottom of the meeting screen) and disappear as new captions are generated.  Live captions are visible only to users who switch them on. Live Captions can…

My Favourite Virtual Background Sources

Apart from creating my own backgrounds in PowerPoint which I covered in an earlier post, these are my personal favourite sources for background images for virtual meetings. Create your own Teams backdrop using PowerPoint – The Teams Queen Blog Ikea https://backgroundsbyikea.com/ Microsoft  https://adoption.microsoft.com/microsoft-teams/custom-backgrounds-gallery/https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/outlook-blog/online-meeting-backgrounds-outlook-exchange-amp-bookings/ba-p/1688841 https://education.microsoft.com/en-us/resource/6eb1ef79 Warner Bros https://www.warnerbros.com/news/articles/2020/07/08/virtual-backgrounds-microsoft-teams-calls

Delegated Team Meeting Creation

Lots of people don’t create the meeting invites for the meetings they run in this blog I will lay out what the issues are and then consider ways to avoid these when acting as a scheduler.

Manage Teams Meeting Options

Teams meeting options are how you can control who can do what in your meeting. In the Education sphere this control is essential but they are also very useful in many other scenarios.

Create your own Teams backdrop using PowerPoint

You probably already know that you can add your own pictures into Microsoft Teams to use as a background.  But just in case you didn’t, here’s how (only works on desktop, not bowser or mobile apps) Save your picture somewhere sensible.  (I created a folder in my OneDrive called TeamsBackgrounds, so if I move to…

Make Fun of Virtual Meeting Fatigue

Are you sick of virtual meetings and training courses yet? To be honest, I’m not. However I have been looking for ways to ring some changes. It does get dull, always hearing (and saying) the same old phrases, so I’ve made myself some flashcards. And I gift them to you here – enjoy!

Solving Problems with Meeting Options in Teams

Do you ever get a message telling you you can’t change the meeting options for a meeting you set up? It’s probably due to what you were doing the last time you used the Teams web app (aka Teams in your web browser). These messages changed a little while ago to show you who is…

Check your Camera before a Teams Meeting

Did you want to check your camera and background before a Teams meeting and ended up trying to join a meeting early to do so, or worse joining a meeting late as you needed to adjust your settings and it took too long, or worst still what about joining a meeting and bringing up a…

Where is my meeting recording?

With Teams meeting recordings moving to OneDrive and SharePoint from Stream users and admins need to understand what this change means. It’s not just the location a recording is stored that is changing but also who can records and the sharing options once the recording is done.

Microsoft Teams Break Out Rooms – Some Early Observations

With the launch of breakout rooms for adhoc and scheduled Team meetings, many people are celebrating and it is a much requested feature, but how does it work. Microsoft have released a couple of great articles so I’m not going to reinvent the wheel and write a full guide myself, but I would like to…

Channel Notifications

Are you a member of a Team across more than 1 organisation/M365 Tenant? I use Channel Notifications to help me keep on top of the less well used teams.

Screen Sharing from Teams on a Mobile phone

Working from home for a lot of people will bring added flexibility. For many remote working also allows us to shift the times of day we get the majority of our work done. However, it is vital to remain available during normal business hours and here the Teams mobile app can help.

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