Microsoft Teams Live Events
During the challenging times of the COVID-19 crisis, the popularity of live streaming software reached a new high. Among the players such as Zoom, WebEx, Hangouts and other streaming apps, Microsoft has launched a feature to stream live events using Microsoft Teams. What separates Microsoft Teams from others is the trust of security, which is synonymous with the Microsoft brand. As with Microsoft’s say-it-as-it-is naming convention, it is simply called Microsoft Teams Live Events.
What is Microsoft Teams Live Events?
Microsoft Teams Live Events has been introduced as a part of Microsoft Teams and Office 365. This capability allows users to broadcast events to audiences of varying sizes both internally and publicly. Users can livestream video and digital content to audiences of as many as 10000 attendees. The capability is specifically designed to handle situations in which there are a few people that are presenting to a significantly larger group of people.
This is in contrast with a regular Teams Meeting which is more appropriate for a two-way communication promoting interaction and collaboration among participants. Consequently, it is an ideal solution for structured forms of meetings such as town halls, announcements, Q&A sessions, product launches, webinars, and conferences. It is possible to assign roles like producers and participants to members. The primary advantage of Microsoft Teams Live Events is that it empowers users on different devices to engage and coordinate seamlessly on online events regardless of the physical location of the presenters.
Let’s find out how to access, create, start, and use Microsoft Teams Live Event.
How to Access Microsoft Teams Live Event?
Microsoft Teams Live Event is accessible with the commercial version of Microsoft Teams with Office 365 E1, E3, E5, A3 or A5 licenses. The live events can be created and viewed in other applications such as MS Yammer and MS Stream that are a part of the plans. While the capability does not need any special license, the user must belong to the organization to create an event and must have an Exchange Online mailbox. You might need permission from your IT admin to grant the rights on Microsoft Teams Admin Centre to create live events. Besides, Teams Live Events is essentially an upgraded version of Skype Meeting Broadcast with added functionalities such as screen sharing, support for dial-in presenters, external encoders, and tools apart from other aspects. It will be officially replacing Skype for Business on 31st July 2021.
How to Create A Microsoft Teams Live Event?
Creating a Microsoft Teams Live Event is not very different from any other personal or channel meeting. Simply choose the Live meeting option on the New meeting drop-down menu. This will display a new screen where you can add details like the title, location, scheduled start and end time, organizer, presenter, and the details about the meeting. You will then proceed to choose the type of attendees for the meeting. This could be ‘People and groups’, Org-wide or Public. You might require admin permission for the last option. This will be followed by a screen where you will have to confirm if you are presenting the meeting within Team or an external app or device. In the former case, there will be options to select for whom the recordings will be made available, whether or not to display captions, attendee engagement report, and the ability to enable Q&A. Click on the ‘schedule’ button to set up the meeting. Share it with people by forwarding the URL when you click “Get attendee link”.
How to Start a Microsoft Teams Live Event?
The presenters of the live event will receive invitations which will have to be accepted. The item will be added to their calendar through which they can access the event. The Presenter must have the Teams desktop application. The producer can start and finish the event and make updates whenever required. The event will not start until the producer share the content to the Queue. If the same person is both the producer and the presenter, they will have to click the share button. Use the ‘content left’ option if you want to share both the content and your video feed. Click on the ‘Send live’ button and then press ‘Start’ if the event is not yet live. Confirm on the pop-up to continue with the live feed. You will see ‘Live’ written on the top along with a red button to confirm that your audience is watching the live event.
Effective Use of Microsoft Teams Live Event
There are a lot more nitty-gritty aspects with Microsoft Teams Live Events. From switching between contents and participating in Q&A to accessing recordings and generating attendee engagement reports, there is a lot of capabilities that live events offer vis-a-vis a regular meeting. This comes at the cost of the functionality offered to attendees, the requirement of the best output qualities and diligent planning. Therefore, live events must ideally be used for broadcasting messages while you should continue to use the regular meeting for normal collaboration. As a feature that is available on the commercial Teams application, it is ideal to procure an Office 365 license.
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