By the start of 2022, Microsoft Teams officially declared that it has topped 270 million active users in its collaboration platform. With such meteoric growth, MS Teams is now the most popular business collaboration and communication platform, outperforming Slack and Zoom.
Microsoft’s business messaging tool prides itself on its smart and team collaboration capabilities, such as integrations with other Office 365 applications like Outlook and SharePoint. However, preparing for meetings can still be complicated with all the MS applications opened to get things done.
No one-size-fits-all approach to collaboration, but MS Teams meetings can be prepared and run effortlessly with just a single integrated software — guaranteed no compromised quality. Read on to know more.
Multiple Apps Just to Run One Meeting
Organizing meetings in Teams can be overwhelming as all your MS 365 applications have to be opened and maneuvered. This could be a chore for meeting administrators and participants as everything is scattered — applications, documents, and communication are not centralized.
For instance, administrators will need to access Exchange to schedule meetings, then switch to SharePoint to upload the meeting files, edit documents using Office Offline, distribute the meeting packs with Outlook, and post the agenda in Teams. Additionally, during live meetings, the participants need to open several apps to simultaneously take part in the video call, view the presentation, access the meeting documents, present if needed, and take their own or shared notes.
It would require too many applications for both the administrators and participants to conduct a structured meeting in Teams.
MS Teams’ Meeting Function
Using the Team’s Meeting Function, users or administrators can easily schedule meetings or video calls within the channel or chat if the members are already part of it. However, this can be more tedious if some attendees cannot be found on just a single channel.
A workaround to invite all the needed individuals to one meeting room is to schedule using the Meeting Function and manually send the link to each of the meeting attendees. Agenda and relevant documents are also shared separately via Teams chat, which may be confusing for the meeting participants.
File Creation and Editing Apps
Structured meetings are not just quick alignments that rarely need an agenda. Effective structured meetings need a structure for discussions to flow smoothly. Agenda or meeting packs are a collation of the documents, discussion topics, and action items necessary in the meeting.
Administrators are tasked with creating the agenda pack and distributing it to all the meeting attendees. What they have to do is compile or edit the documents and write the agenda items.
Since meetings are already hosted in Teams, they should use MS 365 apps (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc.) to aggregate the information, edit the documents, and export them in PDF.
While structured meetings are more extensive, some agenda items may require agenda contributors, who have no administrative roles. Thus, they should also be given permission to access and edit the meeting pack. Alongside MS 365 apps, they would also need to access One Note and MS To Do to pull up meeting notes and action items from previous meetings.
If there are last-minute changes, administrators would need to revise and re-export the files for another batch of send-outs.
SharePoint
Preparing structured meetings in Teams involved collating all the documents needed as references for collaboration and decision-making. Administrators would need another application to store and secure the files — SharePoint. SharePoint provides a library where users can upload the meeting files and even meeting packets.
Once the files are uploaded in SharePoint, meeting organizers can link these to the meeting packs. But, for the relevant participants to access the document, the meeting organizer would need to contact the SharePoint administrator to configure the permissions and sharing settings of each user.
Outlook and Calendar
As integrated with Teams for business and organizational access, Outlook allows meeting organizers to set up Teams meetings via email invitations. Schedule Teams meetings in Calendar by consulting everyone’s availability in their calendar, adding all the meeting participants, and linking the Teams meeting. Attach and distribute meeting packs with the invitation.
Outlook also allows keeping track of the participants who will RSVP. If there are any changes in the schedule or updates to the documents, meeting administrators will need to resend the invitation and attachments through Outlook.
MS Teams’ Video Conferencing
While it can be easier for instant calls to be initiated within the channel, structured meetings are another case. The meeting link must be accessed via the Outlook invitation before directing to Teams for the video call. The documents are also sent separately, which may cause confusion for the participants with all the links sent in their emails.
In such meetings, participants need to access and view the meeting pack and files outside of Teams, follow the presentation, and take down notes — all while video conferencing in Teams. This would require multiple applications to be open and present, which may cause inconvenience.
One Hub to Manage All Your Meetings in Teams
Running structured meetings in Teams with the above workflow can be laborious. Meeting administrators are pained with managing multiple applications and steps for preparation and coordination. Even the participants would need to open multiple apps during the meeting to collaborate on documents and decisions.
What both administrators and participants need is a one-stop tool that can ease the meeting processes and put everything scattered in one place.
Convene in Teams (CiT) is the all-in-one productivity platform in Teams that brings together all the collaborative capacities and integrations you need in MS Teams. No need to switch among multiple applications! With CiT, running effective meetings is now convenient and easy for you to use.
Publish Structured Meetings in One Click
It usually takes over 14 apps to create and publish structured meetings in Teams. CiT consolidates all resources on a single screen — agenda, meeting documents, vote items, presenter. Multiple applications and steps are reduced to one click.
With CiT’s easy-to-use features, such as the Agenda Builder and Meeting Scheduler and Publisher, administrators would not need to spend extra hours manually creating channels, inviting participants, consolidating meeting files, and structuring the agenda. You can instantly create, schedule, publish meetings, and circulate files to the meeting participants.
What’s more, no need to worry about the versioning of documents. CiT allows instant send-outs of the latest version of each document in cases of last-minute changes. The meeting participants will always have their hands on the most updated version of the meeting files.
Access Documents in One Location
Organizing structured meetings will require accessing and compiling various documents from different departments and resources. With CiT, access all your resources on one platform anytime, anywhere, and on any device.
Eliminate the hassle of going through SharePoint or other resource libraries to find and compile relevant meeting documents. CiT is the one searchable platform you need to access everything — meeting files, agenda packs, decision records, and minutes.
Administrators can also create and edit documents in real-time via Office 365. With CiT’s integrative capacities, you can connect to SharePoint, while ensuring document encryption, comprehensive audit trail, and access controls.
Meeting participants could also prepare for structured meetings. Having all the meeting documents in one location can equip participants with all the information they need to discuss during the meeting — for a well-informed, productive, and fruitful collaboration.
Collaborate in One Screen
Running better meetings in Teams should essentially benefit the participants with smart, efficient, and easy-to-use tools. CiT allows the participants to have everything they need to collaborate in just one window. They can engage in the video conference, view the meeting files, and follow the presentation without switching to another screen.
Meeting participants can instantly take notes, annotate documents, and assign action items during the meeting while in the Teams video call. CiT allows for convenient operations, better engagement, and effective collaboration in just a single app.
Manage Meetings in Teams with CiT
Prepare and run structured meetings effortlessly in Teams with an all-in-one collaborative platform, CiT. All you need is a single space to structure the agenda, publish meetings, collaborate during meetings, integrate MS apps seamlessly, and access resources.
Maximize your Teams meetings capabilities with CiT. Explore its collaborative and easy-to-use features made for effective structured meetings.
Audrey is a Content Marketing Specialist at Convene, in charge of managing the production of quality content on the company’s website. A communication major keen on marketing, Audrey has been constantly seeking approaches to create tailored content—may it be about governance, digitalization, boards, or meetings—fit for the stakeholders. When not strategizing on the next ebook to produce, Audrey finds solitude in reading make-you-ugly-cry novels and listening to self-improvement podcasts.
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