How to use Microsoft Teams: Create, schedule and add members to Team meetings

Video conferencing has become one of the most essential tools in the modern workplace as more and more people are becoming dependent on these platforms to work remotely or from various office locations. Of all the available options, MS Teams is one of the most preferred options as it also offers excellent integrations with Office 365 applications apart from plain video calls.

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What is Microsoft Teams?

Microsoft Teams is a unified communication hub that provides businesses and organizations with a means to communicate and collaborate more effectively, and at the same time, minimize misunderstandings and productivity errors. Using Microsoft Teams, working professionals can easily communicate virtually, discuss, access and work on documents, in real-time.

The tool combines persistent workplace chat, video calls, and file storage and offers a range of impressive and valuable video conferencing features including superior quality video calls. It also comes with the ability to share screens and record video calls. Users can easily join MS Teams meetings or collaborate on-the-go with the help of MS Teams apps for smartphones and tablets.

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How to create a meeting in Microsoft Teams

To create a meeting or a new video call in a particular channel, you need to select the team and channel that you want to make a call in and tap the 'Meet Now' video call icon which is located at the bottom of the page before the three-dotted icon.

Image credits: Microsoft Office support

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One can also choose to start a video call within an existing conversation by clicking on 'Reply' followed by selecting the video call option. This will allow you to follow up on an existing thread of topics.

After you have clicked the video call icon, you will be able to toggle the camera on or off, schedule a meeting or meet now. The screen will show you how you will appear on call.

Image credits: Microsoft Office support

Meet now

The 'Meet now' feature allows you to begin the meeting right away and is generally used for ad hoc meetings. If you select this option, you will be asked to users to the meeting. You can click on 'add suggested users' or even search for users you wish to add. If you use the search function, you will also be able to add members from outside of your organization using their phone numbers.

Schedule a meeting

If you click on 'Schedule a meeting', which is located right below the 'Meet now' option on the screen, you will be able to set up a meeting on the calendar for a later date and choose the schedule of the call. To schedule a meeting, select 'Schedule a meeting' and click on 'Calendar'. Now you have to click on 'New meeting' and select a range of time in the calendar to open a scheduling form.

The scheduling form will let you give your meeting a title, invite people, and add meeting details.

Image credits: Microsoft Office support

Attendees can be added once you have set the date and time by clicking on 'Add required attendees' and entering their email addresses. Once it is set, click on 'Save' which will send an invite to everyone's Outlook inbox.

Creating chat calls in MS Teams

Apart from channel calls, you can also make chat calls. The app offers two options when it comes to chat calls in Microsoft Teams. These are one-on-one and group calls. Both of them are private calls and do not appear in your channel conversation.

To begin a call using the chat feature, you will have to navigate to the chat list and tap 'New chat' to initiate a new conversation. You can simply type the name of the person you wish to call in the 'To' field. Next, you have to choose either a 'Video call' or 'Audio call' option to start the conversation.

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Image credits: Microsoft Office Support