5 Features to Boost Your Game in Microsoft Teams
Last week, I hosted a LinkedIn Live Office Hours event on Boosting Your Game in Microsoft Teams. My guest for that live event was Karuana Gatimu, who is the Principal Manager of Customer Advocacy for Microsoft Teams. She works a lot with organizations and communities, helping them set up Microsoft Teams and use it efficiently. So, naturally, she had a lot of great insight and tips to help you get the most out of Teams.
I wanted to share a list of some of my favorite features that we discussed in that event. These are tips for people who use Teams but have not explored beyond the specific features that they use every day.
Pin your favorite channels
In Microsoft Teams, conversations happen among groups of people who have been organized into teams. You can be a member of several teams, and each team can contain separate conversation channels. You read and post messages to your groups within these channels. If you are a member of lots of different teams, which each contain lots of different channels, it becomes more difficult to find the specific channels you want. So, you might want to pin your favorite channels.
After you pin a channel it will appear at the top of your list of Teams. So, if you pin a few of your most-used channels, you can find them much faster.
Name your group chats
Chats in Microsoft Teams are private conversations that are not visible to the larger team environment. You can have private chat conversations with a single other person or with a group of people. Group chats will be labeled with the names of the people in that conversation, by default.
But, you can change the name of a group chat, to give it a more meaningful label. Open the chat conversation and click the pencil icon to the right of the participant names at the top. Type in a useful name for the group chat and save it.
That new label will be on that conversation in the chat list.
And, as a bonus, you can pin chat conversations, just like pinning team channels. So, if you have ongoing chat threads with some important people, you can easily pin them. Those chats will move to the top of the list, so you can access them easily.
Un-mute your microphone with a keyboard shortcut
Like many people, I prefer to have my microphone muted during a Teams meeting if I am not speaking. If there is a distracting noise or if I sneeze, I don’t want that to be broadcast to the people in the meeting. The only problem is that I need to un-mute my microphone when I am ready to speak.
A new feature in Teams makes this much easier. If your microphone is muted, Windows users can hold the Control key and the Spacebar. Or if you’re using a Mac, you can hold the Option key and the spacebar. Your microphone will be un-muted while holding those keys and it will be muted again when you let go. So, you can use this keyboard shortcut like a push-to-talk button. Hold those keys when you want to speak, then let go when you’re finished. This keeps your audio out of the meeting until you need to be heard.
Start a meeting on your mobile device, then continue on a computer
The Teams mobile app for smartphones can help you communicate with your co-workers even when you’re not at a computer. You can join a meeting when you’re not at your desk, or you might prefer to take a walk during your meetings. Just open the mobile app, go to the Calendar tab, and join the meeting.
Teams makes it very easy to start a meeting on one device, then continue on another. If you are signed into Teams on multiple devices and you join a meeting using one of those devices, you will see a message on the others letting you know that there is an active meeting. You can click the Join button on that banner, or you can click the normal join button on the scheduled meeting.
Then, teams will ask if you want to keep the meeting active on both devices or if you want to transfer to the second device. If you choose transfer, you will join the meeting from that second device and you will be automatically disconnected on the first device.
So, feel free to start a meeting on your mobile device, then transfer to the computer when you get back to your desk.
Schedule a webinar instead of a meeting
A meeting in Microsoft Teams is where several people can come together to have an open conversation. But, you may need to plan an event for a special announcement or an all-hands meeting where you do not want an open conversation. In this case, you might want to schedule a webinar instead of a meeting.
?In the calendar section in Teams, click the arrow next to the “New Meeting” button. A menu opens where you can choose “Webinar” instead of scheduling a meeting.
When you schedule a webinar, instead of inviting attendees, you can only invite other presenters. Presenters will see the webinar on their Teams calendar and will be able to join the event just like any other meeting.
Anybody that wants to attend the webinar will need to register. After you schedule the webinar, go back to your calendar, select the webinar, then click “Edit”.
On the webinar Details page, there is a button to copy the registration link. You can click that button to copy the link, then paste the link into an invitation email or some other communication.
People who receive the link can register for the webinar. After registering, they will receive an email with a link to join the webinar at the scheduled time. Attendees will be able to passively view the webinar event, while the presenters will be able to speak and share their screens just like in a normal meeting.
Learn more about Microsoft Teams
If you enjoyed these tips, you might want to take a look at the full “Boost Your Game” live event. Or, you can take a look at my LinkedIn Learning training courses “Microsoft Teams Tips and Tricks” and “Microsoft Teams Tips Weekly”. Both of these courses are full of great features like this that can help you move faster or work more efficiently in Microsoft Teams.
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