Teams FAQs to be deleted

Yes - If another organisation has requested that you become a guest user on one of their Teams, you can do this. The other organisation should add you to their Team. You will then receive an email asking you to join as a guest to their Teams, you should follow the prompts in this email to accept this.

Then, make sure to switch your organisation from the University of Edinburgh to the other organisation when prompted. You can do this by clicking your profile picture / initials, selecting "Accounts and orgs" and changing the selected account to "Other organisation name (guest)".

This is likely because the user has not switched to the University of Edinburgh tenant in Microsoft Teams. 

You can inform the external user to either:

• Open the Teams desktop app, click their profile picture / initials in the upper right of the Teams desktop window, select "Accounts and orgs" and change the selected account to "University of Edinburgh (guest)" OR
• Click their organisation name to the left of their profile picture / initials and select "University of Edinburgh (guest)"

If the user does not see the organisation name / cannot change it to University of Edinburgh (guest):

• Make sure you have added the correct account as a guest to your team and that you have not made any errors in the email address you added
• Ask the user if they have followed the prompts in the invitation email sent to them from Microsoft Teams and have accepted to join our tenant
• Ask if they are signed in to the Teams desktop app with the account you added as a guest user to your Team
• If they are signed in using the correct account, ask them to: 
  1. Click "settings and more" (icon of 3 dots) beside their profile picture / initials in the upper right of the Teams window
  2. Click "Check for updates" from the list
  3. Wait until a banner shows along the top bar of the Teams window, asking the using to "refresh teams"
  4. Click the "Refresh Teams" link
  5. Teams will restart
  6. Have them check if they now see the organisation name beside their profile picture

By default everyone can present in Teams meetings, with all participants (except the organiser who can access meeting options) having the same roles. This can be changed, however.

There are 3 roles in Teams meetings, an organiser, presenters and attendees. 

The following table explains the key capabilities of the 3 roles in Teams meetings, as you can see attendees have less permissions than the organiser and presenters:

By default the participants you invited to your meeting will be added as presenters.

We recommend that you change your participants from presenters to attendees for privacy and security reasons, unless all participants need to have presenter capabilities.

You can do this either before the meeting or during the meeting, however we recommend that you do this before your meeting as it is easier. 

To change participants to attendees, follow these steps:

1. Schedule your meeting and send the invite to your participants (for help with this see this page)
2. Then, click the "Calendar" icon in Teams (on the left navigation bar)
3. Then, find your meeting and click it
4. Next, click "Meeting options" (beside the time zone option)
5. Then, a new window will be opened in your broswer with meeting options
6. Next, click the drop down beside "Who can present?" and select either Specific people (if you want others to have the same permissions as you) or Only me
7. Then, if you selected "Specific people", enter the names of your presenters beside "Select presenters for meeting"
8. Finally, click "Save. You can now close this browser window, and all meeting participants will be added to your meeting as attendees (unless you added them as presenters). 

You can also change participants roles during your meeting if you need to (this can be useful if you have changed all participants to attendees beforehand and need to allow someone to present). However, we recommend you try to do this before the meeting wherever possible, as to change participants to attendees during the meeting you have to manually go through each participant and change their role. 

Further information on changing participants roles during a meeting, as well as further information on meeting roles is available from Microsoft:

Further Information on Teams Meetings roles

Yes - You can stop all meeting participants, except yourself, from being able to record your meeting, or you can specify certain participants who can turn on meeting recording while preventing everyone else from doing so. To do this you have to change your meeting participants to attendees from the default presenter.

We recommend that you change your participants to attendees for privacy reasons. To do this:

1. Schedule your meeting and send the invite to your participants (for help with this see this page)
2. Then, click the "Calendar" icon in Teams (on the left navigation bar)
3. Then, find your meeting and click it
4. Next, click "Meeting options" (beside the time zone option)
5. Then, a new window will be opened in your broswer with meeting options
6. Next, click the drop down beside "Who can present?" and select either Specific people (if you want others to have the same permissions as you) or Only me
7. Then, if you selected "Specific people", enter the names of your presenters beside "Select presenters for meeting"
8. Finally, click "Save. You can now close this browser window, and all meeting participants will be added to your meeting as attendees (unless you added them as presenters). 

You can also change participants roles during your meeting if you need to. However, we recommend you try to do this before the meeting wherever possible, as to change participants to attendees during the meeting you have to manually go through each participant and change their role. 

Further information on changing participants roles during a meeting, as well as further information on meeting roles is available from Microsoft:

 Further Information on Teams Meetings roles

There is no option in Teams which allows you to easily add all members of a Team, however there are some workarounds which may help you. 

Workaround 1

You can add the meeting to a Channel by scheduling your meeting in Teams. To do this:

1. Click the "Calendar" icon in Teams
2. Then, click "New meeting" in the top right of the Teams window
3. Next, add your meeting details. Do not add any attendees and select the Team and Channel you want to have your meeting in from the "Add Channel" box. 
4. Finally, click Send

Note - Doing this will not add the meeting into the Team members calendars. 

Workaround 2

Another option, if this is a Team / group of people you work with frequently, is to contact IS Helpline, and ask for a dynamic distribution group email to be set up for all members of that Team. Once that is set up, schedule your Teams meetings in Outlook and add the distribution group email address to the invitees box. 

Yes, you can change who has to wait in the lobby in your meetings. By default everyone with a University of Edinburgh email address can bypass the lobby in your meetings and guests (anyone without a University of Edinburgh email address) will wait in the lobby. We recommend that you always have guests wait in the lobby. However, you can change the setting so that everyone, except you, has to wait in the lobby before the meeting until you admit them. 

To do this follow the steps included in the link below:

Change who waits in the lobby before my meetings

Yes you can playback recordings for meetings you attended, by default the owner of the recordings can only download and delete the recording.

Note: For now, guests and external people who attend the meeting can't view the recording.

The original owner of the video can name additional owners and share the video more widely if required.

Play and share a meeting recording in Teams

Cause

This error relates to the clock changing from GMT to BST, or back from BST to GMT. 

Resolution

Broswer

1. Sign out of Teams on your browser by clicking your profile picture / initials and selecting "Sign out".
2. Then, clear your broswer cache:​​​​​​
   • How to clear your cache in Google Chrome
   • How to clear your cache in Microsoft Edge
3. Finally, sign back into Teams on the browser

Alternatively, if the above does not resolve your issue, you could try scheduling the meeting  through the Teams desktop app.

Desktop

Resolution 1

Uninstall, then reinstall the Teams desktop app

Resolution 2

1. Sign out of the Teams desktop app and quit the app
2. Open the date and time preferences on your computer
3. Change your timezone to another timezone, and save that change
4. Open the Teams desktop app and sign back in
5. Again, sign out of the Teams desktop app and quit the app
6. Switch your timezone back to the correct timezone
7. Again, open the Teams desktop app and sign back in

Yes, if you are a meeting organiser you are able to prevent attendees from unmuting their mics or using their camera through the meeting options. 

First, you must set the meeting participants to attendees as this is not on by default. To do this:

1. Schedule your meeting as normal
2. Click the "Calendar" icon in Teams
3. Then, find your meeting and click it
4. Next, click "Meeting options" (beside the time zone option)
5. Then, a new window will be opened in your broswer with meeting options
6. Next, click the drop down beside "Who can present?" and select either Specific people (if you want others to have the same permissions as you) or Only me
7. Then, if you selected "Specific people", enter the names of your presenters beside "Select presenters for meeting"
8. Keep the meeting options page open

Then, to prevent attendees from unmuting, click the toggle beside "Allow mic for attendees" to change this to "No" 

To prevent attendees from using their cameras, click the toggle beside "Allow camera for attendees" to change this to "No"

Finally, click "Save" 

You will be able to allow attendees to unmute their mics and use their cameras during the meeting. Go into the participants list, find the attendee you want to allow to speak or use video, click the ellipsis beside their name and select "Allow mic" or "allow camera". The attendee must then still turn these on themselves for privacy reasons. 

You may also wish to try out Teams Webinar if you need this feature. Teams Webinar requires that attendees register for the event, and are automatically set as attendees with disabled cameras and mics.

Unfortunately Microsoft have not yet added the ability to schedule meetings in private channels to Teams. 

Yes, both meeting organisers and presenters can lower all hands in a Teams meeting. This may be useful if you know you have answered all questions and the attendees have not lowered their hands. 

To do this:

1. Click "Show participants" from the meeting bar
2. Then, click "More actions" (ellipsis icon) to the right of the "Participants" heading
3. Then, click "Lower all hands"

Cause

Note - the following only applies to non-channel meetings. 

The reason the user cannot access the meeting chat after the meeting has ended is because of the way they were added to the meeting.

For users to be able to access the meeting chat after the meeting ends, you must invite them to the meeting (add their name / email to the invitees box) or forward them the meeting invite. If the user is added via the participant's pane during the meeting or is just sent a meeting link, they will not have access to the meeting chat after the meeting. 

Resolution

If you are the organiser of the meeting, you can give the user access to the chat after the meeting has ended. To do this:

1. Open the meeting chat in your recent chat list
2. Click "View and add participants" (icon of two people and a plus icon) in the upper right of the teams window
3. Then, click "add people"
4. Then, in the add box, type the name or email of the user who needs access. 
5. Then, select "Include all chat history" and click "Add"
6. Finally, type a new message into the chat so that the user will see that chat

Yes, you can set your Teams meeting up in this way. 

We advise, to do this, you first set up the meeting options to set specific people as presenters and everyone else as attendees. Then, when the meeting starts you can spotlight up to 7 presenters to keep them on screen at the same time for your attendees.

To do this:

1. Schedule your meeting in the way you normally would
2. Then, open the Teams calendar and double-click your meeting
3. Then, click "Meeting options". This should be beside the timezone information, or it may be listed under an ellipsis icon beside the timezone information or "Category".
4. In meeting options change "Who can present" to "Specific people" and add the names of your presenters. 
5. Then, click "Save"

To spotlight the users during your meeting:

1. Join your meeting and wait until the point in your meeting that you want to have the panel of presenters appear
2. Then, click the participants button in the meeting bar
3. Then, find your presenters and hover over their names
4. Then, click the "More options" ellipsis that shows to the right of their name
5. Click "Spotlight"
6. You can do this for up to 7 presenters

Yes, from May 2021, if you have the Teams Android App you can access your files through the app while offline. 

To access your files while offline:

• Update the Teams app for Android through your device's app store
• Open the Teams app
• Click "More"
• Click "Files"
• Open the file you need

This feature is not currently available for Teams on iOS. This FAQ will be updated if and when, the feature becomes available for iOS.

Yes, you can choose to use Windows native notifications. 

To do this:

1. Open the Teams desktop client
2. Then, click "Settings and more" (ellipsis icon) to the left of your profile picture
3. Then, click "Settings"
4. Then, click "Notifications" from the list of settings
5. Then, under "Appearance and sound" click the drop-down beside "Notification style"
6. Select "Windows" to change the style to Windows native notification style

Yes, you can choose your preferred means of Teams notifications delivery, either via the Teams built-in notification system or via Mac.

You must make sure that you update your Teams desktop app to use this feature. You can do this by clicking "settings and more" to the left of your profile picture / initials and seleting "check for updates".

Minimum requirement Mac OS - 10.15

You can change to Mac native notifications. To do this:

1. Open the Teams desktop client
2. Then, click "Settings and more" (ellipsis icon) to the left of your profile picture
3. Then, click "Settings"
4. Then, click "Notifications" from the list of settings
5. Then, under "Appearance and sound" click the drop-down beside "Notification style"
6. Select "Mac" to change the style to Windows native notification style

This feature is rolling out now at the University of Edinburgh.

If you do not see the feature yet, update your Teams app by clicking "Settings and more" (icon of 3 dots) to the left of your profile picture / initials and selecting "check for updates". A banner will appear telling you Teams is checking for updates. In a short time a new banner should appear which allows you to click "refresh teams" to update. If you still do not see the feature, it has likely not rolled out to you yet and will soon. 

To set your out of office, click your profile picture / initials, then click "set status message". Then, click "Schedule out of office". A window should appear, and you can set your out of office.

Certain notification settings not taking effect when a user sets teams and channels notifications to "all activity" is a known issue in Teams.

Microsoft have stated that they are working to resolve this issue. 

Until Microsoft resolve this issue, you will have to configure your notification settings in each of your channels to see notifications for all activity.

Windows

Yes, real time noise suppression is currently available for Windows devices. Noise suppression will help to lower any background noise during your Teams meetings / audio calls. 

Mac

This feature is currently rolling out for Mac users. Some users will be able to use the feature now, but some may not see it yet.

If you do not have the feature try updating your Teams desktop app by clicking the "Settings and more" button beside your profile picture and selecting "Check for updates" (alternatively you may have to click your profile picture / initials and select "check for updates"). 

How to turn on noise suppression

• Select the "Settings and more" button beside your profile picture, in the top right of Teams and then select "Settings".
• Select Devices on the left and then, under Noise suppression, select an option. 

• The options are:

  • Auto (default) - The Teams app decides on the best level of noise suppression based on local noise

  • High - Suppresses all background sound that isn't speech. This option may be useful if, for example, you have a window open and there is a lot of noise outside. There are some prerequisites to using this option:

    • The High option is not available where the meeting is being recorded or live captions is on

    • High requires that your computer's processor must support Advanced Vector Extensions 2 (AVX2).

    • The high option is currently not available for Mac devices using an M1 ARM processor.

  • Low - Suppresses low levels of persistent background noise

  • Off - Noise suppression is disabled

Windows

Yes, you can do this. 

• To share sound from your computer, select Share content in your meeting controls and then click the include computer sound toggle to the top left of the share window
• When you share, all audio from your computer, including notifications, will be included in the meeting.

Mac

Note - this feature requires a one-time installation of an audio driver. 

To do this:

• Select Share content in your meeting controls and then click the include computer sound toggle to the top left of the share window
• You will then be prompted to install the audio driver
• Once installed, you can freely toggle to "include computer sound"
• When you share, all audio from your computer, including notifications, will be included in the meeting.

Mobile app

The ability to include device sound while sharing your screen on the teams mobile app is now available.

You may need to manually update the Teams mobile app to see it. To do this, open your device's app store, search for "Microsoft Teams" and click "Update", if this shows up beside the Microsoft Teams entry. 

To use the feature:

1. While in your meeting, click the ellipsis button on the meeting bar (beside the sound button)
2. Then, select "Share" from the list
3. Then, when you select "Share screen" there should be an option to include device sound

Previously, outgoing video was not available in the Safari browser, and users could not use their cameras in meetings or video calls.

Safari users can now use their camera during meetings, enabling other meeting participants to see their video.

Note - this is only available on Safari 14 or higher. 

Yes, you can do this. Get in contact with your local computing officer as they will be able to create an AD security group to allow this. 

Currently, the live transcription feature is not available on our Teams tenant. This is because live transcription is not yet available for Teams Education tenants. However, Microsoft have announced that they will be making this feature available to us.

The following features are expected to be rolled out by Microsoft in August 2021:         

• Live transcription to be available across all Office and Microsoft 365 license types, including academic A1/A3/A5. 
• Live transcription to be available across all meeting types: private, channel, and ad-hoc meetings (currently available to just private meetings).
• Live transcription to always be generated when a user starts recording a meeting on desktop client (currently Live Transcription needs to be started separately from the recording).

Microsoft may delay the roll out of one or all of these features, and this FAQ will be updated if this happens. 

Transcription after the meeting

You can get a meeting transcript of a recorded Teams meeting after the meeting has taken place. Only the recorded parts of the meeting will be transcribed. 

Note, how you get this transcription will differ depending on your Microsoft license. To check your license, click "Subscriptions" in your Office 365 Profile: My account. 

Users with A3 licenses

Your Teams meeting recording will be automatically saved to Stream after your recording is stopped in Teams. 

To get your transcript,

1. Log into Microsoft Stream and access My videos
2. Then, scroll to find the recording you need the transcript for and click "Update video details" (icon of a pen) to the right of the video
3. Then, under the "options" heading, beside "Captions", click "Download file"
4. Your transcript will be downloaded to your computer and can be edited

Users with A1 licenses

Your Teams meeting recording will be uploaded to Teams itself. This recording will be available to download for 21 days.

To get your transcript,

1. First download the recording from Teams within these 21 days
2. Then, log into Microsoft Stream
3. Click the "Create" tab and select "upload video"
4. Either drag the video file into the box or click "browse" and select the video file
5. Add your video details (name, description, change permissions
6. Click "publish"
7. Go to "My content" and select videos
8. The uploaded recording should be the first video in the list
9. Click "Update video details" (icon of a pen) to the right of the video
10. Then, under the "options" heading, beside "Captions", click "Download file"
11. Your transcript will be downloaded to your computer and can be edited

Yes, transcriptions are available after your Teams meeting if the meeting has been recorded. Only the recorded parts of the meeting will be transcribed. 

Note, how you get this transcription will differ depending on your Microsoft license. To check your license, click "Subscriptions" in your Office 365 Profile: My account. 

Users with A3 licenses

Your Teams meeting recording will be automatically saved to Stream after your recording is stopped in Teams. 

To get your transcript,

1. Log into Microsoft Stream and access My videos
2. Then, scroll to find the recording you need the transcript for and click "Update video details" (icon of a pen) to the right of the video
3. Then, under the "options" heading, beside "Captions", click "Download file"
4. Your transcript will be downloaded to your computer and can be edited

Users with A1 licenses

Your Teams meeting recording will be uploaded to Teams itself. This recording will be available to download for 21 days.

To get your transcript,

1. First download the recording from Teams within these 21 days
2. Then, log into Microsoft Stream
3. Click the "Create" tab and select "upload video"
4. Either drag the video file into the box or click "browse" and select the video file
5. Add your video details (name, description, change permissions
6. Click "publish"
7. Go to "My content" and select videos
8. The uploaded recording should be the first video in the list
9. Click "Update video details" (icon of a pen) to the right of the video
10. Then, under the "options" heading, beside "Captions", click "Download file"
11. Your transcript will be downloaded to your computer and can be edited

Yes, live English (US) captions are available in Teams meetings. 

To turn these on click the "More options" ellipsis in the meeting and select "Turn on live captions"

Yes - Microsoft frequently add new features and functionality to Teams. If you are interested in keeping up with these updates or you want to find out what is coming in the future, we have a list of features coming soon to Teams under "Teams Notice Board" on our Teams Landing page:

Teams Notice Board

You can also find further information (and suggest features you want to see) from Microsoft:

Suggest new Teams features and see what features are currently planned or in testing

What's new in Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams blog

Microsoft regularly trials new features that will not be available to all users on Teams. These features are unsupported by Information Services, though if you would like to try them you can enable these yourself by using the instructions below.

• Make sure you are using the Teams Desktop client.
• Click your profile picture and highlight About > Ensure that the "Developer Preview" is ticked.
• Access your settings from the list under your profile picture, and in General under "Application" ensure "Turn on new meeting experience" is checked.
  • If it's not checked, check it and restart the Teams desktop app. 

If you find that these produce instabilities within your client, please follow the instructions below to disable them.

• Make sure you are using the Teams Desktop client. 
• Click your profile picture and highlight About > Ensure that the "Developer Preview" is unticked.
• Restart your Teams Client.