Make Teams meetings more fun

Microsoft Teams meetings is the university’s enterprise solution for hosting virtual meetings, webinars, and town halls. Teams meetings can be fun–even if they are part of work—because several features can be used to make meetings more exciting, engaging, and interactive.

Live reactions

Live reactions in Teams meetings lets the speaker know you’re listening. As a presenter, you can prompt engagement by encouraging live reactions to content or questions during your talk.

Select React then tap the emoji you wish to display, on a desktop. In mobile, tap the more info button (…) to find live reactions. The icon will float for a few seconds before appearing to dissipate. Like, love, applaud, laugh, or show surprise.

Make meetings interactive and ensure order by using the Raise Your Hand feature. This is available on all operating systems and devices.

Reactions using Apple devices

With an Apple device, generate 3D reactions using simple hand gestures. Floating balloons, fireworks, hearts, and confetti are some of the 3D reactions available on Macs running the Sonoma operating system, iOS 17 iPhones, and iPadOS 17.

Use these hand gestures to auto-generate 3D reactions!

Balloons—hold up one peace or victory sign.
Confetti—hold up two peace or victory signs.
Fireworks—hold two thumbs up.
Hearts—use two hands to make a heart shape.
Lasers—make the horns sign with both hands.
Rain—hold two thumbs down.
Thumbs up bubble—hold one thumb up.
Thumbs down bubble—hold one thumb down.

If using video effects like greenscreen mode or a background filter, live reactions will only appear on your silhouette. To ensure 3D graphics cover your entire screen, turn off video effects before or during the meeting.

Presenter mode

When sharing content from your device during a meeting, you can choose from three presenter mode options to overlay yourself on the imagery. Ensuring you are still visible while sharing content can help keep meeting attendees engaged with your content.

Standout—you appear overlayed on the bottom of the shared content.
Side-by-side—you appear in a frame with your applied background beside the shared content over a Microsoft 3D background.
Reporter—you appear overlayed on the bottom of the screen with your applied background beside the shared content over a Microsoft 3D background.

Adjust the relative size of your silhouette against the shared content or flip the position to suit your preferences and needs while presenting.

Toggle the Layout while in Presenter mode by selecting from the drop-down from the top-most menu banner.

Together mode

Together mode in Teams meetings enables the meeting organizer, or attendees when permission is granted, to select a scene and apply it to the meeting. All attendees can appear together within the virtual scene such as an auditorium, conference room, coffee shop… or under the water!

Optionally, the organizer and attendees can opt to enable the together mode for just their profile or assign seats within the scene.

As with most Teams meeting features, this one requires a meeting organizer to enable the option in the meeting settings.