Tips for Video Conferencing like a Professional on Microsoft Teams

With the pandemic gripping the world, organizations are shifting to a work-from-home model and video conferencing is an integral part of that remote-work-from-home model. With the assistance of video conferencing, team members, sitting at different locations, can interact with one another in real-time and keep working efficiently thereby maintaining the required productivity in the project. The following tips and tricks will help you in video conferencing like a professional on Microsoft Teams.

Enhance your Video Conferencing on Teams

• Background Blur

Not everybody has the luxury or convenience of a home office. This means you could be in any corner of your house; kitchen, bedroom, or hall; while taking a video call. Of course, it will be awkward for your team members to see your kitchen or bedroom in the background. To cover this, Microsoft Teams has a Background Blur feature. The Background Blur feature, upon activation, blurs every object in the background and puts the focus only on you. To activate the feature all you need to do is click the purple-colored slider for the same before joining the video conference. Please note that this feature works only with objects. So, if any of your family members are present in the background he/she won’t be concealed.

• Double Check your Audio/Video Outputs

In order to avoid background noise from impacting your video call, you must plug in your headset thereby making your voice clearer to the participants. However, on certain occasions, it can happen that Microsoft Teams is not able to pick up your headphones or microphone properly and select your computer speakers by default. Hence, prior to entering into the video conference, make sure you double-check the audio/video outputs. Simply tap on the Settings cog icon on the ‘Choose your audio and video settings’ page and check that your preferred audio device is detected by Microsoft Teams.

• Share only the particular program that you want during Screen Sharing

You could be browsing different things on your laptop before initiating the video conferencing call. Though not always required, at moments, you might have to share your screen with the participants. In such cases, the best practice is to share a particular program only. This way even if you accidentally happen to switch to a different tab on your PC/Laptop, it will come up as greyed out for the participants thereby protecting your privacy.

• Use the Mute option

Nobody is speaking all the time during the video call. It is advisable to toggle ON the Mute option when you are not speaking. This way you can also respond freely, if needed in the middle of the video conferencing, to your family members or attend any emergency call on your mobile.

• Take consent before recording

On Microsoft Teams, you can record the video conferencing and share the session with the members who, due to some reason, are unable to attend. However, before toggling ON the recording for the meeting, make sure you announce the same to the participants. Moreover, even Microsoft Teams will display a banner stating that this meeting is getting recorded when you toggle ON the record option.

• Your appearance on the video

Make sure that your appearance is at par with the professional standards during the video conferencing. You simply cannot get out of your bed and immediately join the video call. There is no need to wear proper formals and adorn a necktie. What we really mean is that you must not look shabby during the video conferencing. Hence, make sure you are neat and clean, and well-groomed before joining the video conference.

• Take care of few things when setting up the video-conference

If you are the one who is setting up the video conference, make sure you select a time that sits well with all the required participants. Now, you simply cannot reach out to everybody and ask for convenient timings. What you can really do is set up a meeting for a particular time, add the required attendees and see if anyone raises an objection to the time. If for a considerable number of attendees, the timing is not convenient, it is better that you reschedule the meeting to a different time. Depending upon the number of attendees raising an objection to the timing, you can make a decision whether to go ahead with the scheduled time and record the meeting for the absentees or reschedule the meeting.

Next, make sure that when you are setting up the meet on Microsoft Teams, you enter the meeting’s agenda as well. While setting up the meet on Teams, at the very bottom, you will see a box to enter the details. Please note that the agenda must be mentioned in brief as writing up too long an agenda is not recommended. However, if you do have lots of things to be discussed in the meet, instead of mentioning them in the meeting details box, we recommend sending a separate email to the invitees mentioning the same.

Also, before the scheduled meeting time, make sure you test your hardware by setting up a test call. If this is your first time attending a meeting on teams, you might require providing permissions to teams to access your webcam and/or microphone during the video call. The best way to make sure no crucial time is wasted during the meet is to request everyone to join at least 10 minutes early so that if any hiccups arise; they can be sorted beforehand.

Conclusion

These are some of the tips that will help you have an amazing video conference on teams. Feel free to add further points to the above list by dropping down the same in the comments section below.

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