Teams Meetings: Controlling Participants in Your Meetings

Summary

This article provides a list of recommended Teams Meetings settings that enable a Teams Meetings organizer to control how participants interact in a meeting. The intended purpose is to prevent unwanted material from being shared by students and unwanted guests from accessing the meeting room. This article will walk through how to change settings to have more control and security in your Teams Meetings. 

Recommended settings for attendees of a course (i.e. those not teaching):

 

Enable a Lobby

The lobby feature can be enabled at the time the meeting is scheduled from within the Teams integration with Canvas or after starting a meeting. The "join before host" option is disabled when the lobby feature is enabled.

Scheduling from Canvas

Step 1 - Click on the More Options (...) from the Teams Meetings area in Canvas and then Click on Meeting Options

A screenshot of Teams Meetings in Canvas of more options and meeting options

 

Step 2 - Change the option of this question Who can bypass the lobby? to Only organizers and co-organizers click Save

Note: This will be reflected in the other meetings you have scheduled for the course. 

 

Enabling during a Session

Step 1 - Click on MoreSettings > Meeting options

Screenshot of how to find More menu then Settings then Meeting Options in Teams Meeting

 

Step 2 - Under Who can bypass the lobby? Change to Only organizers and co-organizers 

Screenshot of Meeting Options - Who can bypass the lobby? Only organizers and co-organizers

 

Step 3 - Click Save

Step 4 - For a detailed overview of the Lobby see: Microsoft Support - Using the lobby in Microsoft Teams meetings 

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Prevent Participant Screen Sharing 

To prevent participants from sharing their screens during an online session

Step 1 - Click on More > Settings > Meeting options

Screenshot of how to find More menu then Settings then Meeting Options in Teams Meeting

 

Step 2 - Under Who can present, change it to Only organizers and co-organizers and click Save.

Screenshot of who can present? Only organizers and co-organizers

 

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Email settings in the Teams App

Even when scheduling Teams Meetings from Canvas. A meeting organizer can also control response collection and forwarding of meeting invitations to other users when scheduling a meeting in Teams. 

To do so once a meeting is scheduled, go to the Calendar in the Teams application. 

The default is to have OnRequest Responses and to Allow Forwarding.

Click on the More Menu (...) then Response Options then check off Request responses or Allow Forwarding if you want to disable that setting and Send update

Screenshot of Request responses and Allow forwarding settings in Teams Meetings

 

Please note this setting does not carry through for all of your scheduled meetings in Canvas, so if you want the same setting for each course meeting, you will need to change this setting for each one. 

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Managing your attendees

Meeting organizers can remove attendees, mute attendees, or change attendee or presenter status during a meeting.

Step 1 - Select Show Participants in the meeting bar

Step 2 - Hover over the attendee’s name in the list

Step 3 - Select More options (…)

Step 4 - Select the appropriate option, including Mute/UnmuteRemoveMake Presenter

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Locking a Meeting

You can also lock your meeting 

Step 1 - After joining the meeting, select People.

Step 2 - In the Participants pane, select More actions > Lock the meeting (or unlock when locked).

When a meeting is locked, no additional participants can join, but invitees can still access the meeting chat, recording, and other meeting info.

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Further Readings

Microsoft Support - Using the lobby in Microsoft Teams meetings 

Microsoft Support - Lock a Meeting in Microsoft Teams 

For more detailed information about security and privacy in Teams, as well as information about Teams security and compliance, please view the resources below:

 

Need additional help?

For assistance concerning site creation, content sharing, file synchronization, or other common SharePoint, OneDrive, Teams, or Office app activities, we recommend our Microsoft 365 Learning sites:

Learn more about the great tools our Microsoft 365 Learning sites offer!

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