The new Q&A Teams meeting app just became available to my tenant. The new app introduces similar Q&A features as already available in Teams Live Events. Really anticipated and valuable add-on for organizations not familiar with running Live Events. Also in smaller organizations, interactive meetings are a better option for engagement.
In this blog post, I will cover basic settings, moderation, and some tips for running Q&A sessions.
Add Q&A app to the meeting
Schedule a meeting and open it from the Teams Calendar app. Click the small +-icon from the top of the meeting window to add a new app.
Search for Q&A and select it. Click Add from the opening dialog.
Select desired settings for attendees, these can be changed later. Enable moderation, if needed, it can be enabled later as well. As informed, moderation cannot be disabled once enabled.
Q&A appears as a tab to the meeting, and you can already start using it. Settings can be modified from the right-side panel.
Running Q&A in a meeting
Depending on the Q&A settings, participants can ask questions and start new discussions. Both options create a conversation thread, the difference is that replies to questions can be marked as the best answer.
All participants can filter questions and discussion threads based on all conversations, all questions, and unanswered questions.
Questions, discussions, comments, and answers can be reacted with the same reactions as in Teams chats and channels conversations. Answers can be marked as the best answer. Participants can also edit and delete their comments and answers..
Questions, answers, and comments can have a few stylings like bolds, italics, and contain links, and lists.
Organizers and organizer tools
All participants in the meeting presenter role are also moderators of the Q&A. Only the meeting organizer can change Q&A settings. The meeting organizer can also rename the Q&A and remove the Q&A from the meeting.
Presenters can close and reopen discussion threads. One questions/discussion thread can be pinned on top of the feed. Moderators can also delete discussion threads.
Moderation
When moderation is enabled, presenters will see tabs for questions/conversations in review, published, and dismissed states. Questions/discussions can be moved between states by publishing, dismissing, and restoring from dismissed to in review state. Answers and comments are not moderated in the same manner, but presenters can delete specific answers/comments.
Using the meeting tab
The meeting tab is useful when there are a lot of conversation threads, especially with long answers, going on, and when moderating. Q&A is currently working on Teams desktop meeting experience, so the tab is also important for people joining via browser or mobile.
Planning a Q&A session
When planning a Q&A session couple of things should be considered.
- Who will be organizing the meeting and taking care of specific meeting options and Q&A settings beforehand?
- Who will be acting as moderators? They must be invited as presenters to the meeting.
- Who will be running the Q&A session and encouraging the audience to ask questions?
- Before the Q&A session starts, guide attendees to open the Q&A panel or open the Q&A tab from the meeting invite.
- Disable the meeting chat, so there aren’t two places to follow conversations.
- Maybe adding some warm-up question and answers would be also good idea.
For the meeting organizer:
- Add Q&A app to the meeting after scheduling
- Set Q&A options for attendees and enable moderation, if needed
- Invite presenters who in the moderator role from meeting options
- Disable the meeting chat, if whole session is focusing on Q&A
- Educate the moderators, if needed
- Advice attendees joining on mobile or browser to user the Q&A tab on the invite
- Rename the Q&A to describe the event
Matti Paukkonen 