text: Since the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses have been well-acquainted with virtual meetings. There are many different platforms out there for hosting virtual meetings – one of the most popular of these is Microsoft Teams. The communications solution from Microsoft has grown and developed since the onset of remote work and is now considered one of the best options for businesses. Many technology companies rely on the platform – such as TechQuarters, a London-based managed service provider. Their work providing IT support in London involved a lot of Microsoft Teams usage, as claim it is an ideal platform for customer communications (as well as internal comms).
  In particular, the Microsoft Teams meeting experience has proven to be highly valuable to many organisations the world over – this is due to the wealth of features that are included in it. Below are four examples of Microsoft Teams meeting features that businesses should be aware of:
  - Intuitive Meeting Scheduling
  As the frequency of meetings within organisations increased due to remote and hybrid work, the demand for a more intuitive way to manage meeting schedules grew. Luckily, Microsoft Teams has a series of features that can help businesses optimize their meeting schedules, these include the following:
  - Scheduling Assistant – When creating a meeting, the scheduling assistant compares all participants calendars, making it easier to find a time that works for all.
  - Meeting Templates – Whether you are looking to host a meeting, a 1:1 appointment, a webinar or other live event, the templates in Teams simplifies the process of configuring the invitations.
  - Custom Meeting Templates – In addition to the standard templates in Teams, organisations can also configure custom meeting templates to streamline the process of configuring online events.
  - Breakout Rooms
  A breakout room is essentially a meeting within a meeting. They allow users to create sub-meetings with a selection of participants from the main meeting, thus offering privacy without requiring users to leave and re-join the main meeting.
  We asked TechQuarters about breakout rooms and their value to businesses. As a notable IT support company in London, they have held virtual events, and stated that breakout rooms are very good for facilitating valuable post-event conversations between partners, prospects and industry peers.
  - Integrated Content Sharing
  Another valuable aspect of the Microsoft Teams meeting experience is how intuitive and seamless the process of sharing content is. As Microsoft Teams was built as part of the Microsoft 365 productivity ecosystem, it has excellent integration with commonly used products – including Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. Teams has two important features – PowerPoint Live and Excel Live; both of which were developed to make sharing content from the two apps as seamless within a Teams meeting as can be. Additionally, Teams meetings are linked to OneDrive, meaning users can easily pull content from their cloud storage for sharing to colleagues.
  - Meeting Recaps
  As mentioned earlier, remote and hybrid working has driven the number of meetings the average team holds up considerably. But often people might not be able to attend every meeting; or they might have to either join late or leave early. For this reason, the Meeting Recap feature was developed. This feature ensures that all material associated with a meeting or other event is saved to the cloud – this includes any meeting recordings that were made, as well as shared files, attendance reports, loop components, etc.
  This recap feature means that users never have to worry about missing important information that was shared in a meeting they couldn’t fully attend.
  Is Microsoft Teams the Right Meeting Experience for You?
  The features listed above are just a few of the useful features that have been built into the Teams meeting experience over the years. Whether a business is providing managed IT services London companies rely on, such as TechQuarters, or providing construction services to consumers, or any other type of work – the thing that many organisations have in common is the need for a high quality virtual communications tool, which Microsoft Teams can fulfil.