Teams Meetings is constantly being updated with new features and actions, so it can be hard to understand what they all do. This blog will define all of the actions in a Teams meeting and what they do (as of December 2021).
When you click on the 3 dots in a Teams meeting, you are faced with a long list of actions:
Let’s take a look at what they do:
- Add an App
Adding an app enables you to add an application direclty into your Teams meeting. For example a third party app like Asana, or a first party app like Forms to do live polling in your Teams meeting. Check out my blog How to Run a Poll in a Meeting for more information.
2. Device settings
Device settings opens a panel in the Teams meeting to customise your settings. You can change the device used for audio, camera and can change the noise suppression from here. This is useful to check if you are having any audio/visual issues – make sure you have the right device connected first.
3. Call Health
Call Health will open a panel in your Teams meeting with information about the quality of your meeting. The Call health view in Teams helps you identify and troubleshoot issues you might experience during a Teams meeting or call. In this view you will get data on your network, audio, screen sharing, and outgoing video quality.
4. Meeting Options
If you are the meeting organiser then you will see an additional action called meeting options. This allows you to change the settings on the meeting for example prevent participants from sharing their screen or unmuting. Check out my blog How to change your settings in a Teams Meeting.
5. Meeting Info
Meeting info will provide you with information about your meeting such as the date, time and the join information. If you need to quickly copy the Teams meeting link to invite some else, you can open the meeting info directly in the Teams meeting rather than opening your Outlook calendar.
6. Gallery
Gallery is a meeting view and is the default option when in a Teams meeting with participants on video. Gallery allows you to participants in 2 x 2 or 3 x 3 grids.
7. Large Gallery
Large Gallery view lets you see up to 49 video feeds at once. Ten or more attendees must be sharing their video for Large Gallery view to be available.
8. Together Mode
Together Mode, enables you to turn any regular video call into a shared virtual environment, which in turn will help feel like you are in the same space as the other participants in the call. Instead of seeing participants in a square or rectangular grid separately, you will see all of them together in a virtual space. Together mode is great for taking away the intenseness of video and recreates the feeling of meeting in person. There must be at least 4 participants with their camera on to enable Together Mode.
9. Gallery at Top
Gallery at the top allows you to change the orientation of meeting participants to the top of your screen to maintain better eye contact with others while content is being shared.
10. Focus on Content
Focus mode is available when content is being shared. You can pay close attention to content, without the distraction of seeing video feeds.
11. Full Screen
Once clicked, the meeting window should fill up the whole screen so you can view the meeting content more clearly.
12. Call Me
If your organisation has the Audio Conferencing licensing then you can dial yourself into a Teams meeting. This option is great if you need to switch to your mobile during the meeting, or if sound quality is failing on the Teams call.
13. Apply Background Effects
During a Teams meeting, you can change your video background at any time. Choose to remove your background, blur, choose a provided background or upload your own:
14. Turn on Live Captions
Teams can detect what’s said in a meeting and present real-time captions. And, if you’ve turned on the new meeting experience, your captions will include speaker attribution—so you’ll see not only what’s being said, but who’s saying it.
15. Start Recording
You can record a Teams meeting by clicking start recording. This will automatically record the audio, video and any content shared in the meeting. The recording is stored in OneDrive for Business for scheduled meetings, and SharePoint for Channel meetings.
A notification will tell the participants the recording has started, along with a link to Microsoft’s privacy policy.
16. Start Transcription
You can start a live transcription of the Teams meeting during the meeting. If you have started recording, the transcription will automatically start. If you have not, then you can click the start transcription button. The text appears alongside the meeting video or audio in real time, including the speaker’s name (unless they chose to hide it) and a time stamp.
17. Don’t show chat bubbles
Chats sent during a Teams meeting will surface on the screens of all meeting participants, making the chat more central to the conversation. Chat Bubbles are enabled by default. If you wish to disable them in a meeting, use the don’t show chat bubbles button.
18. Turn off Incoming Video
The turn off incoming video button turns off the video feed from other participants. The video still remains on for the participants and anyone else in the call. This is useful if you have bandwidth issues.
19. Help
Finally, there is a help button which takes you to a Microsoft website with tips and tricks on using Teams:
