What are channel meetings?
A regular Teams or Outlook meeting is created and owned by someone, it surfaces in their calendar, and they invite people to that meeting. Channel meetings are open door meetings, which surface in a Teams channel. Anyone in the team can come along, but you can still invite people to them too.
There’s a lot to love about channel meetings, but a few things to be aware of too.
Pros
- Meetings are ‘open door’
- Chat, recordings, files, transcripts etc all saved in the channel are easy for everyone to find. Not someone’s OneDrive!
- New hires can view previous meeting content
- You won’t forget to add anyone, and new colleagues can find the meeting easily
- No need to search through your chats to see what someone said in a meeting
- Easy to add to your own calendar
Cons
- Someone still owns the meeting (make sure you add co-organisers!)
- Anyone in the team can attend
- Not available in private channels
- Meetings created in Teams only, not Outlook – so no delegated meeting creation
- No chat attendees from outside the team
- ‘Professional meeting-goers’ will be even ‘busier’
- A ‘meeting has started’ popup will appear for people who use that channel
What about guests?
You can invite guests, but they cannot use the chat.
Who gets notified?
People who use that channel.
Can people add Channel Meetings to their own calendars?
Yes, open the meeting ad click ‘add to calendar’ in the top left corner
Should I add meetings to an existing channel or create a dedicated ‘Meetings’ channel?
- Use an existing channel if the meeting is narrowly focused on that topic or those people
- Create and use a ‘Meetings’ channel for the ‘everyone’ meetings
- If you use a ‘Meetings’ channel for all meetings, make sure the meeting subject clearly indicates what the meeting is about so people know if they should attend
When should I use a regular, non-channel meeting?
- When you want a named person, private meeting
- Want chat for non-member attendees
- Want to schedule on behalf of someone else
- You want to ‘own’ the meeting assets like the recording
Best practice:
- Add a Channel Calendar to surface your meetings
- Are there people in the channel you really want to attend? Remember to invite them by name
- Add co-organisers
- Use a channel calendar to surface your meetings and make then easy to browse
How to
- Drop down
- Channel calendar tab
Use other 365 apps to create a holistic meeting experience
- Planner
- OneNote
Thoughts?
People seem to love or hate Channel meetings, what are your thoughts? Please share below.
