Scheduling Meetings in Teams
Teams makes it super easy to schedule meetings. Scheduling meetings is similar to Outlook, but when you schedule a meeting in Teams it automatically drops in a Teams Video Link in case you have people that are remote.
Calendar
First go to the Calendar icon on the sidebar.
When you open up the Calendar section it will show you your calendar likely in a weekly view. You can change this to daily or work week by clicking the drop down menu in the top right.
From here, you can click on the “New Meeting” button in the top right. This will open up the meeting menu where you can start to fill in what you need for the meeting.
From here you can start to fill in the details of the meeting. When you choose people to add to the meeting it will automatically start to scan their calendar and yours to find an open time based on the day that you have chosen to meet with them. This is super handy. Aside: It’s also a good reminder for you to stay up to date on putting events in your calendar. You want to make sure that people see what is really open on your calendar so they can’t schedule a meeting when you actually have sometime else going on. You can, of course, just not accept the meeting request, but you don’t want to have to go back and forth figuring out the best times.
Scheduling Assistant
If you want a more visual way of looking at someone’s calendar, then you can click on the menu at the top called “Scheduling Assistant”. This will open up a much more visual way of figuring out a time by placing everyone’s calendars together to find empty slots.
From here you can grab the slider and move it down the calendar and it will provide you with open times for everyone as you move it. Once you have chosen a time you can go back to “Details” and fill in the rest of the information for the meeting.
Video Meetings
Every meeting that you schedule in Teams will automatically generate a Microsoft Teams video meeting link just in case you want to meet over video instead or if just one member wants to call in. There’s no extra setup involved for a video meeting. Just set up a meeting through Teams and that link gets added.
If you want to do an impromptu meeting with someone real quick, you can start a chat with them and there’s a button in the top right to immediately give them an audio call or video call. You can do this in a chat with one person or with a group.
Meeting Notes & Whiteboard
One advantage to creating a meeting in Teams is that it gives you extra options for Meeting Notes and Whiteboard. Let’s take a look at that.
After you’ve created a meeting, find that meeting on your calendar in Teams and double click it. This will give you a few tabs at the top of the page. One is for Meeting Notes and another is for Whiteboard.
Meeting Notes is a shared space where you can take notes before, during, and after the event and everyone in the meeting can contribute and view the notes in Teams.
Whiteboard is an app by Microsoft that is a digital whiteboard. It allows people to draw and diagram however they want. These files that you make during a meeting can be viewed and edited by anyone in the meeting.
There’s also a section for you to chat with the meeting attendees and add files that everyone can see if necessary. This makes it easy to prepare for a meeting by dropping any important files in here.
Recap
Teams makes it super easy to make a meeting by:
- Being abel to see everyone’s calendar.
- Automatically have times suggested for a meeting based on the attendees’ calendar openings.
- Automatically adding a Teams Video Meeting link to meet remotely for any members.
- Allows you to chat with the attendees before the meeting.
- Allows you to drop files in the event for all the attendees to see before, during, or after the meeting.
- Allows you to take notes or draw on the Whiteboard app so that only the meeting attendees can see.