This spring has brought a lot of new features to Microsoft Teams meetings. It’s quite normal that when new features land on tenant, admin controls are not yet available on Teams Admin Center. PowerShell and currently Skype for Business Online module are needed to manage Teams meeting policies.

Connecting Skype for Business Online Connector

Connecting SkypeOnlineConnector requires importing the module and creating a session. Example below works with accounts where multifactor authentication is enforced.

Import-Module SkypeOnlineConnector 
$sfbSession = New-CsOnlineSession 
Import-PSSession $sfbSession

You can download the module here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=39366

Meeting Participant Report

Meeting participant report lists when participants join and leave a meeting. If user have joined before organizer, action is “Joined before” but joined timestamp is same as organizer’s. This feature is useful, when you need to keep on track who actually were present on the meeting. For example, teachers seeing which student were present on remote classes.

Currently meeting participant report can be downloaded during the meeting from a download icon on the People pane. Downloading report after meeting has ended is on the development roadmap (can be followed here: https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/33989875-view-or-export-a-list-of-users-who-attended-a-meet)

By default report is disabled, administrators can enable it by running

Set-CSTeamsMeetingPolicy -Identity Global -AllowEngagementReport "Enabled"

Example enables report to Global meeting policy. If you have more policies, you can replace Global with your policy name.

Controlling Background Effects

With background effects users can blur their background or add an image to their background. Feature also allows users to upload their own background images from background settings pane.

There might be reasons, for example company policies, when it is required to limit usage of background effects. With admin controls, it is possible to limit usage in four stages:

  • NoFilters, no background effects
  • BlurOnly, only blur available
  • BlurAndDefaultBackgrounds, blur and default images provided by Microsoft
  • AllFilters, all above and personal images

Example below sets only blur available for Global meeting policy.

Set-CsTeamsMeetingPolicy -Identity Global -VideoFiltersMode BlurOnly

Default Setting for Who Can Present?

By default everyone participating a meeting are able to present content and take over another participants presentation. Presenters can be controlled during the meeting by setting participants as presenters or attendees, or with meeting options, where organizers can set up who can present.

Meeting options can be accessed on several locations.

Meeting option on Teams Calendar App
Meeting options on meeting invite
Meeting option during the meeting on People pane

During the meeting organizer and presenters can promote attendees as presenters. Changing the default settings can be useful to reduce accidental sharing, controlling sharing on large meetings and restrict sharing on classroom meetings. Also when organizations are moving over from Skype for Business, users might think that organization’s users are only presenters by default.

Admins can setup up a default setting for who can present in the meeting four stages.

  • EveryoneUserOverride, all participants are presenter and corresponds to Everyone in the meeting options. Default setting on tenants.
  • EveryoneInCompanyUserOverride, all users, including guests, in your organization are presenters. Corresponds for People in my organization setting in meeting options.
  • EveryoneInSameAndFederatedCompanyUserOverride, user from your organization, guests and users from federated organizations are presenters. Corresponds People in my organization and trusted organizations setting in meeting options
  • OrganizerOnlyUserOverride, meeting organizer is the only presenter. Correspond Only me setting on meeting options.
Set-CsTeamsMeetingPolicy -Identity Global -DesignatedPresenterRoleMode OrganizerOnlyUserOverride

Example above sets Only me presenter mode for global Teams meeting policy.