How to Create a Meeting in Microsoft Teams: A Step by Step Guide

By Patrick Laffey

Microsoft Teams is a communication and collaboration hub for your team to chat and communicate instantly via IM, voice, and video, as well as share files. Leveraging the power of Microsoft 365, it integrates your people, files, and applications in order to stay connected and be productive. So, how do you create a meeting in Microsoft Teams? In this guide, we'll give you step by step directions on how to create a meeting, whether in the office or remote.

How to Create a Meeting in Outlook with Teams Plugin

You can create and schedule a Teams meeting from Outlook directly. To do this, open Outlook and look in the bottom left corner. You should see a calendar icon. Click it to access your calendar.

If you do not see these icons, you will need to change your “Folder Pane” view to “Normal (see image below). Go to “View” at the top of Outlook, then under “Folder Pane” switch to “Normal”. You should now see the calendar icon in the bottom left part of your screen.

Once you have clicked on the calendar icon, your calendar should appear. If you are in your “Home” menu at the top, you will see a button that says, “New Teams Meeting”. Click on that option and Outlook will open a window that resembles an email.

Fill out the prompts with the appropriate information for your meeting. You should create a title which makes it clear to other attendees what the meeting is about. Below the title field, you enter the attendees. It works like an Outlook email where you can start typing their name, and you will see your contact pop up. Click on the contact to add them to the Teams meeting.

Once you’re done with the title and attendees, you’ll set the meeting time and location. If this is a reoccurring meeting, you can select the “Make Recurring” text and icon next to the meeting date which will open an options window.

In the “Appointment Recurrence” window you will be able to select options for your recurring meetings. For example, if you have a weekly meeting on Mondays at 5:30 you will set up the fields as shown in the image below. You can also tell Teams what day you want the recurring meetings to start and what day you want them to end. When done, select “OK” to save your settings.

When you’re done filling out all the required fields, click the “Send” button. Clicking send will schedule a meeting, put the meeting in everyone’s calendar, and send everyone a link to join the meeting. People can join the meeting by clicking the link in their email or they can join the Teams meeting by clicking the meeting in their calendar.

new-to-or-exploring-teamsHow to Create a Meeting in Teams

Creating a meeting in Teams is very simple! Make sure you are viewing your calendar in Teams by clicking the “Calendar” icon on the left-hand side of the Teams window (see image below).

Once in your calendar, you can click “Meet Now” or you can click “New meeting” on the top right section of the Teams window (see image below).

What is Meet Now in Teams?

“Meet Now” allows you to instantly start an ad hoc meeting. When you click the “Meet Now” button, you will be taken to a meeting settings screen. In the picture below, you can see the different options for your meeting. Make sure you change the title of the meeting at the top, check your audio, video and any other settings that may apply. When ready, click “Join Now” which will take you into a meeting.

Once in the new meeting, you will notice you are the only participant. Invite others to join by typing in a name or number on the right-hand side of the screen under the “People” heading. Notice that you can add people directly from Teams here or you can have someone join in via telephone. If you type in a team member’s number, they will receive a phone call and be able to participate as if it were a conference call.

How to Create a New Teams Meeting for the Future

In the “Calendar” tab, you will the “New Meeting” button in the top right of the window. From here you have the option to create a live event or schedule a meeting.

When you select “Schedule Meeting,” you will be prompted to set up the meeting details. Here you will need to add a meeting title, add attendees, schedule the time, specify if you want the meetings to repeat, add a channel, add a location, and add meeting details.

How to Add a Microsoft Teams Channel to Meetings

If you want to invite several people from your team into a meeting, but do not want to add them individually, you can save time by adding a channel in Teams. When you are creating a new meeting, you will see a field that says, “Add channel.” Click in the field and select the channel you want to add. Everyone who is in that channel will be invited to the meeting, plus a post will be sent out to the channel.  This is a great way to save time and know you invited everyone who needs to be invited!

How to Use Teams Schedule Assistant

Notice when you add attendees to your meeting, some people’s names might light up with colors indicating that they are not available. To check availability between all attendees, click the “Scheduling Assistant” tab at the top of the window (see below). Once inside the Scheduling Assistant, you can easily see who is free and when. This makes scheduling a breeze and will help you avoid schedule conflicts!

Add Documents to a Teams Meeting

Once you have created a meeting, it will be visible in your Calendar tab in teams. If you click on the meeting you will have additional options to further enhance meeting productivity. A great feature is being able to attach documents which other attendees can download. This is useful if you need to attach PowerPoint slide shows, business documents, Excel spreadsheets, or just about anything that may be useful to the attendees.

To add a file, click on the meeting in your Calendar tab, then click “Files” at the top of the window. Once in Files, you can share by clicking the “Share” button. You can upload files from your computer or straight from your OneDrive cloud storage (see image below). Once you select a file, it will be available to all attendees by accessing the Files tab.

Interested in learning more about Teams? Check out these resources below:

Download our Getting Started with Teams Guide that goes over all the basics in Teams

Visit our Teams Migration Services page to see how we can help support your business with Teams

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