MS Teams Online Meetings

For educational purposes the TU Delft has a limited amount of Advanced Communication Licenses (ACL). With this license, it is possible to have up to 1000 participants in an online meeting with the same functionality. Attendees from 1001 until 10000 will be added as view-only users. They can listen and see what’s happening, but cannot participate. The ACL can be requested here.

Setting up breakout rooms during your online lectures allows for small group discussions, evaluations, and collaboration. You can drop into the breakout rooms to offer support and answer questions. Set out a clear plan, time frame, and instructions for the students before initiating the breakout rooms.

You can create breakout rooms before the meeting starts, after breakout rooms have been created you can also shuffle the breakout rooms.

You can change multiple settings during your meeting. In the Participant settings, you can Invite, Admit, Remove, Mute, and change participants to Presenter.

When you are in the meeting, click on People on the top to go to the Participants settings.

Invite participants to meeting

To ask someone who was invited to join the meeting, select the participants’ name > More options > Ask to join.
You can also type a person’s name or phone number in the search box to add someone who was not previously invited.

Admit people from lobby

To Admit people that are in the Lobby: click on the Accept icon.

You can change who can bypass the lobby under Meeting options when clicking on More Actions (the 3 dots on top).

Lock a meeting from additional participants

You can lock the meeting to new participants while in the meeting. To do so, click on the 3 dots next to Participants and select Lock the meeting.

Mute attendees

The organizer and presenters can disable the microphone for all attendees. The attendee can then only unmute when the presenter has allowed the microphone again. To disable all participants’ microphones:

1. Click on the 3 dots next to Participants.
2. Select Disable mic for attendees.

Similarly, you can mute a single participant by clicking on the 3 dots next to the name of the attendee and selecting Mute participant.

Disable camera for attendees

The organizer and presenters can disable the camera for all attendees. The attendee can only enable the camera when the presenter has allowed the camera again. To disable all participants’ cameras:

1. Click on the 3 dots next to Participants.
2. Select Disable camera for attendees.

Similarly, you can mute a single participant by clicking on 3 dots next to the name of the attendee and selecting Disable camera.

There are several ways in MS Teams to help engage your public. You can let attendees raise their hands, have people working together on a whiteboard, organize polls and divide the group in Breakout rooms.

Attendees raising hands

Attendees can to raise their hands. This allows them to bring attention to themselves. However, as an organizer, you can lower all the hands at the same time.

1. Click on People to go to the Participant settings.
2. Click on the 3 dots.
3. Select Lower all hands.

Whiteboard

You can share a whiteboard during a meeting, by clicking Share Content and selecting Microsoft Whiteboard. You can choose whether you want to be the only one to edit, or if you want everyone to be able to edit.

Q&A lets you manage questions from attendees as an organizer. To enable Q&A, go to More Actions > Meeting Options > Enable Q&A. The Q&A icon will appear on the top.

In the settings, you can enable replies, anonymous posts, and more. Responses to questions are threaded in a conversation with the original question.

You can choose to have a moderated or unmoderated Q&A. You can organise a moderated Q&A by checking Moderate attendee conversations. If you have turned on moderation, the Q&A pane will have three Tabs: In review, Published and Dismissed. Some remarks:

• In review: All new questions will appear in the In review tab. Any moderator (organizer or co-organizer) can review and either publish or dismiss questions.
• Published: The question is visible to all attendees.
• Dismissed: Dismissed questions can be published later if desired.

During a meeting, you can customise the way you see the content and participants. In meeting settings, you can select multiple options:

• Gallery view: when joining a meeting, this view is automatically enabled. All the participants will be shown in a grid. If there are too many people on the screen, it will not show all participants. By clicking View, followed by More options and finally Gallery at the top, the gallery will be compressed at the top of your meeting screen. If there are 10 people or more in your meeting, you can click View and then Large Gallery. This will create a gallery where more participants will be added to the view in a larger grid.
• Speaker view: The participant who is talking will be shown in a large view while the other participants are visible. Once another participant starts talking the screen will switch to this individual. To enable Speaker view, click View at the top of your meeting screen and click Speaker.
• Together mode: By using Together mode, you add all the participants to a class background, as if they were sitting in a real classroom. To enable Together mode, click View at the top of your meeting screen and click Together mode. This will open the selection menu with the various scenes and their capacity.
  • The option Select Together Mode for everyone is not selected by default. Once selected and after clicking on Apply, the new scene will be selected and the MS Teams meeting view of all participants will get changed to Together Mode. New meeting participants will join in Together Mode view directly (they can switch their view away from Together Mode).
  • You will also have the option to Assign seats. With this option you can place participants in assigned seats by dragging the participant to the seat you want the participant to be assigned to. Click on Assign when done.
    To relocate or alter the scene, go to Change scene in the bottom left corner.
• Focus on content: When sharing a presentation during a meeting, you can click View at the top of your meeting screen, followed by Focus on content to zoom in to only the content you are sharing.

• Fullscreen: If you want to go full screen during your meeting, click on View at the top of your meeting page, secondly select More options followed by Full screen.

• Spotlight/Pin participant: You can spotlight or pin a participant by navigating to People and clicking the three dots under the participant, followed by clicking Pin for me or Spotlight for everyone, depending on whether you want to be the only one to zoom in, or if you want the whole meeting to zoom in on a single participant. You can also spotlight your own video by selecting People, right-clicking on your name and then selecting Spotlight. 

Sharing your screen

To share content in a meeting, click the Share content icon on top, then choose to present your entire desktop or a window. If you share your screen or a window that you have open, you can choose to include system audio to share the audio of your computer.

Sharing a Whiteboard

You can share a whiteboard during a meeting by clicking the Share Content icon and selecting Microsoft Whiteboard. You can choose whether you want to be the only one to edit, or if you want everyone to be able to edit. Sharing a Whiteboard will not be recorded.

On this Whiteboard, you can add Notes, Text, Documents and more. You can use this Whiteboard as you would use a physical whiteboard, for example by working out math problems or making mind maps. Microsoft Whiteboard also provides handy templates for a lot of different diagrams and such which you can use.

You can Lock an item to the Whiteboard by hovering over the item, clicking the three dots and clicking Lock. By doing this you make sure nobody can edit or remove your Whiteboard item.
Any users (guests, external or anonymous) in a MS Teams meeting can view and collaborate on the whiteboard during the meeting. They will not have continued access after the meeting ends.

Share PowerPoint slides in a meeting

To share a PowerPoint presentation in a meeting, select the Share content icon and select or upload the PowerPoint presentation you would like to use. After uploading a PowerPoint presentation you can use a multi-coloured laser-pointer, pen, highlighter, or the regular cursor to add notes or point to specific parts of the presentation. To the right of the presentation, you will see any speaker’s notes added and below the presentation, you will see the slides coming up next.

If you choose to share a PowerPoint file in a meeting, participants will get some special capabilities:

• They’ll be able to move around to different slides without interrupting the main presentation.
• They can sync their view back to the presenter’s view with one click.

Presenter mode

When sharing your screen, whiteboard or PowerPoint presentation you can also choose the Presenter mode which allows you to include your camera and the shared content in one view. You can choose the Presenter mode in the Share content settings. Clicking on Customize allows you to choose a different background from a selection.

To change the Presenter mode during a meeting you can navigate to the navigation bar at the top of the screen and change the mode there, using the same icons as the icons in the Share content menu.

Use live transcriptions

1. Go to More actions at the top of the screen.
2. Click on Record and Transcribe and then Start transcription.

• To change the spoken (and transcript) language, take the following steps:
  1. In the transcription pane, click the Settings icon.
  2. Select the language of preference.
  3. To edit colour, text size and position go to More Caption options. 

Disable/enable incoming video

The organisers can disable/enable incoming videos. You cannot turn on their camera. However, you determine whether the attendee can turn on the camera or not. Even if their camera is on, but you have selected the option to Turn off incoming video, you will not be able to see the participant. The participants will in this case be able to see themselves.

1. In your meeting select More Options

2. Click Settings and Meeting options.

3. There, within Audio and Video you can Turn off/on incoming video for the participants.

1.  Click on the 3 dots for More options on the menu bar at the top of the meeting and click Start recording.

2. A red recording dot will appear on the bar and everyone in the meeting will get a Notification that the recording has started.

3. Audio, Video, Chat and Screen share are recorded.

4. To stop the recording hover-click on the 3 dots on the menu bar again and click Stop recording.

A recorded meeting is available for everyone after the meeting, with the person who recorded the meeting being the owner of the recording. Only the owner can download and/or delete the recording. After downloading the video file one can always manually upload and share the file, for instance, within your team or somewhere external, such as Brightspace.

You can create breakout rooms before the meeting starts. To do so, follow the following steps:

1. Go to the MS Teams calendar and open the Scheduled meeting.
2. Go to Breakout rooms in the top menu

3. Click on Create rooms.

4. In the Create rooms menu, you can select how many rooms you need up to 50 different rooms and select Add rooms.

5. When the desired amount of rooms is created, you can Assign participants either Automatically or Manually. Assigning automatically will assign participants evenly to the rooms. Assigning manually will give you the possibility to assign participants to the different rooms yourself.

It is also possible to appoint managers for each breakout room before starting your meeting, read below futher details.

To be able to create Breakout rooms, you are required to be the organiser of the meeting. If someone else organises the meeting, creating Breakout rooms is not possible for you. You can however assign people to manage the rooms before the meeting starts or during the meeting.

When the meeting starts, you will see in the top right the option to create Breakout rooms.

To create a Breakout room:

1. Click the Rooms icon shown in the picture above.
2. You will see the following menu:

3. Select the number of Rooms you would like to create.
4. Choose to assign participants to the Rooms Automatically or Manually and click on Create Rooms. The rooms will then be created but not yet opened.
   • If you choose Automatically, the rooms will be created and you will see the sidebar titled Breakout rooms.

1. • If you chose Manually, you will be presented with the following screen that lists all participants, their room and their status. You can select multiple participants and assign them to a room by clicking the Unassigned dropdown menu. Click Assign once you have assigned all participants. This will prompt you with a window that asks for confirmation about the upcoming move of participants.

5. The settings can be accessed by clicking on the Gear icon in the sidebar. In the settings menu, you can Assign presenters to manage rooms, Set a time limit, choose to Automatically move participants to rooms and/or allow Participants to return to the main meeting.

• Assign presenters to manage rooms allows a meeting organiser to assign presenters as managers of the breakout rooms.

• If you want to change how you assigned the participants, click Assign participants. This will also list the unassigned participants.
• After finalising the settings and participant assignment, click Open in the sidebar to open the rooms. The sidebar will then look as follows:

• You can generate additional rooms by clicking on the + button or create announcements to all the rooms with the Speaker button.

• During the Breakout room session, the organiser can access all the Rooms in the chat menu with all the Room's materials. Here, you can see what is discussed in the chat, but also all the announcements that were made. Next to that, the Files, Meeting Notes, and Whiteboard can be reviewed.

• When the time is up, you can close the rooms by clicking on Close rooms. The students will see the following announcement: ‘This room will close in 10 seconds. You will be automatically moved back to the main meeting’.

The workaround to work in smaller groups in MS Teams is simply to create several normal Meetings. There are 2 options: either you create several meetings in one Channel or you create a Channel for every Group. The latter one has the following advantages:

• Materials are easy to share – all team members have access to materials, even if they are guests.
• You don’t need to share meeting URLs – students can join in directly via the channel.
• The chat is always available for everyone.

Follow the instructions below to create break-out rooms:

1. Go to the MS Teams menu on the vertical navigation bar on the left and select the Class Team.
2. Optionally Create a Channel for every Breakout room.
   • You can choose to make the Channels either Private or Public.
     When a Channel is set to Public: all users will be able to see the Channel automatically (the Channel can be made to show up first in the Channel list by selecting “Automatically show this channel in everyone’s channel list”. All meetings in Public Channels can be recorded.
     When a Channel is set to Private: users will only be able to see the Channel when added by the owner, see point 3. Do note that meetings in Private Channels cannot be recorded. Also, students will have to use the meet now options to start a meeting, it is not possible to start a meeting upfront.
   • Make sure that you set the correct privacy right away; you cannot change the privacy settings afterwards.
   • If you have a Private Channel for every break-out room; click on the 3 dots next to the Channel and select Add Member to add all students one by one.

3. Schedule the Main lecture and the Breakout rooms as separate meetings. For each meeting:
   1. Go to the Channel where you want to schedule the meeting.
   2. Click on the Camera-icon at the top right.

• 3. Type a Subject.
  4. Click on Schedule a meeting.

• 1. Add a Title and optional details and click on Send on the top-right.
  2. Open the meeting again and click on Meeting options and set who may present.

4. When you want to start, simply open the meeting and click on Join on the top-right. Students can also open meetings. In private channels, students should use the meet now button at the top-right.
5. When the meeting is open, students see the following:

6. When you want the Breakout session to start, simply ask students to go to the correct Channel and Meeting.
   Tip: Instruct students to stay in the main meeting when they join the breakout meeting. The main meeting will automatically be put on hold. When they end the breakout meeting, they return to the main meeting automatically.

To be able to shuffle the breakout rooms you are required to be the organiser of the meeting.

1. After you have created the breakout room, click on the Rooms icon.

2. Click on the Assign participants button.

3. Click on Shuffle.

You can choose between randomly shuffling everyone or only the unassigned attendees.

You can either appoint managers before or during your meeting. To appoint managers before your meeting:

1. Go to your MS Teams calendar and Edit the meeting invitation.
2. Go to Breakout rooms and select Room settings via the Gear icon.
3. Switch on the Assign presenters to manage rooms toggle.
4. Select Search for presenters and choose who you want to appoint as room maanger.

To appoint managers during your meeting:

1. In the meeting controls, select Breakout rooms.
2. Select Room settings by using the Gear icon.
3. Switch on the Assign presenters to manage rooms toggle.
4. If no one in the meeting is designated as a presenter, select Go to Meeting options to add presenters and choose who you want to be a room manager.
5. Choose presenters from the dropdown menu.
6. Select the back button < to save your changes.

To help you setting up your breakout rooms, here are some tips & tricks:

• Before: Prepare a Word-document or OneNote with your prewritten text that you can copy-paste to MS Teams chats and conversations. You can use different styles (colours for example) for different main topics like general event info, schedule posts and important reminders.
• Before: Upload documents to the Breakout Channels.
  For reference or for students to work on simultaneously.
• During: Ask the students to turn on ‘Do not disturb’-mode.
  The less notifications they get during the event the better they can focus.
• During: Activate the chat for the Breakout meetings. Instruct students to get in touch with you in the meeting chat if they have issues using an @-mention.
• During: Visit different rooms when starting the breakout part so you can help students who have issues.
• During: Let students know that the main meeting chat is used for support, so they can re-join if they have issues.