Team Captains are responsible for leading their team on and off the field, but what happens when you, as a student, are responsible for leading a virtual meeting? Become the "Team Captain" of Microsoft Teams!
Imagine you are responsible for scheduling and hosting your club’s next online meeting and you are completely clueless on where to start. You are scrambling… looking high and low for an easy, user-friendly, and virtual platform. Then you stumble across Microsoft teams, but do you know how it works? With this helpful guide you will be able to host your meetings effortlessly and become the “Team Captain of Microsoft Teams” in no time!
With classes and meetings online, having the ability to navigate through virtual chat platforms is essential. To make your virtual experience a breeze, lets break down Microsoft Teams and all the amazing features that are included.
Getting Started
To begin with the basics, you can access Microsoft Teams through the online web application or by downloading the app straight onto your computer. Either option works great but if you plan on using Teams daily, I recommend downloading the application to your computer.
Scheduling a Meeting
On the left side 6 Tabs will be displayed, to create a meeting, go to the Calendar Tab.
To schedule a regular collaborative meeting, then click on New Meeting. Now, you will be prompted with a page of meeting details that you will fill out to create your meeting. Once all the details are inputted, you can save the meeting and the meeting invitation will be emailed to your team, coworkers, or guests you expect to attend. It’s as easy as that!
An awesome feature that Teams offers is the Scheduling Assistant. This feature allows you to see all your invited teammate’s Outlook Calendars and all the meetings they have scheduled for the week. This integration gives you the ability to find an open block of when everyone will be available to meet. Now, you will not have to worry about your GroupMe blowing up every time you try to schedule a time to meet!
Hosting a Meeting
Once you begin your meeting you will have to admit invited members from the Lobby. Hopefully they look alive once you hit that admit button! Once all the Guests are admitted you can go ahead and begin your meeting.
Teams offers a tool bar to make your meeting experience top-notch. Of course, you have the basic meeting timer, ability to turn off your camera, and mute yourself. The tool bar also has the hand feature, this allows you to ~virtually~ raise your hand if you have a question or comment without interrupting the speaker. The tool bar also allows you to view all the Meeting Participants and access the Meeting Chat.
One of my favorite things about Teams is all the message features. During my internship last summer, we used Microsoft Team’s constantly, and I had so much fun writing uplifting and encouraging messages to my team! You can send everything from stickers to GIFs…the Meeting Chat can get really interesting really fast! With all these fun features you can add flare and customize your messages to your heart’s desire, making Microsoft Teams more enjoyable for everyone.
There are so many aspects to Microsoft Teams and we barely scratched the surface with all the available capabilities. With this information, I hope you will effectively function in setting up and conducting a Teams meeting. I would encourage you to take some time to explore the Microsoft Teams application to sharpen your skills as the “Team Captain.”
Check out these amazing virtual interview tips to crush your interviews during this recruiting season! https://ccomarketing.wixsite.com/purdueccoblog/single-post/2020/09/11/On
