MS Teams Live Events

Below we highlight key information on compatibility, production, and recording for Live Events.

Live Event types

At the TU Delft, it is currently only possible to produce a Live Event using Teams. It is not possible to produce Live Events using a professional camera set up in a lecture room. For this, you can use Collegerama. You can of course add an external camera and/or microphone to your PC and use that to present in a lecture room.

Record a Live Event

At the TU Delft, Live Events are always recorded and available for Producers and Presenters to download. When you check the option Make Recording available to attendees, the recording will be saved. To share the recording, a Producer or Presenter can also always download the video and upload it somewhere else (i.e. in Brightspace).

Learn about the roles, responsibilities, and best practices for organising and managing MS Teams Live Events.

Event roles: Organizer, Producers, Presenters and Attendees

There are four roles:

• Organizer: schedules the Live Event, adds Producers and Presenters and invites Attendees. The Organizer takes on either a Producer or Presenter role during the meeting.
• Producer: manages what Attendees can see and hear.
• Presenter: presents and moderates the Q&A.
• Attendee: watches the Live Event. They cannot share audio or video but, if enabled they can ask questions in the Q&A.

Tips for hosting a Live Event:

• Practice with colleagues or TAs: familiarise yourself with the functionalities by testing them with your colleagues or TAs. Simulate different roles (e.g. Attendee/Producer/Presenter) to choose the right settings and ensure a smooth experience.
• Collaborate, do not go solo: always have a colleague or TA assist you during the event to manage tasks effectively and handle any issues.
• Use dual screens as a Producer: if you are a Producer, working with two screens can significantly improve efficiency and make managing the event easier.

Live Events are scheduled through the Teams Calendar. Follow these steps to set up your event:

1. Create a Live Event: In the Teams Calendar, open the + New Meeting drop-down in the top-right corner and select Live Event, then follow the prompts.

2. Invite Producers and Presenters:
   1. Add their names in the search box. You can also add external participants as Producers or Presenters, by entering their email addresses. They will be invited through an email.

• 2. Add an external person's email address, to allow them to present. Make sure to turn the toggle on for Allow external presenters and type in their email addresses in the search box, as shown below.

• 3. You can also send the link to invite attendees as described here, but it is advised to invite Attendees after the event is scheduled.

3. Set Live event permissions. Choose who can access the event:
   • Public: anyone with the link can join,anonymously or via log in.
   • Org-wide: access restricted to users logged in with a TU Delft account.
   • People and Groups: invite specific people (internal or external logged in and with an MS Teams account). When adding people this way, note that they will not get a notification. Make sure to send all your Attendees the event link for them to join.

4. Choose to produce your Live Event in Teams (Other production types are not (yet) available at the TU Delft.)

5. Configure your Event options. Keep in mind:

• • Recording available to producers and presenters: this setting enables you to download the video after the Live Event has finished. 

• • Recording available to Attendees: this setting enables Attendees to see the recording. To share the recording with (non-)Attendees a Producer/Presenter can also download the recorded video and upload the video at some other place (i.e. in a Team or a Brightspace course).
  • Captions (preview): a caption is a text version of what the speaker says. In MS Teams it can also be translated into up to six languages live. Captions are available in many different languages.
  • Attendee Engagement Report: when enabled Producers and Presenters can download a Report after the event which that tracks Attendee participation.
  • Q&A: when selected, the Q&A is open by default and Attendees can start asking questions even if the event has not started. These questions are only visible to moderators until they publish them at the event. A full report on all questions (private, public and dismissed) and answers can be downloaded after the Live Event.

After scheduling the event, you have to invite Attendees by sharing the link, which is available at the final step of scheduling or when you open the Live Event from your MS Teams Calendar.

Within the Live Event scheduling option in MS Teams Calendar you can only invite Producers and Presenters. Attendees need to be invited separately.

You can share the invite link in Brightspace, email, MS Teams chat or any platform of your choice.

Create and share an *.ics calendar file for attendees.

Optionally, generate an *.ics file, create a regular meeting invite and insert the Live Event Attendee link in the invite message body. Then export the meeting invite as an *.ics calendar file. This *.ics file can then be uploaded to OneDrive or another cloud service, from where you can share it. Be aware that not everyone is familiar with *.ics files.

Invite the Producers and Presenters to join approximately thirty minutes ahead of time. Use an introduction slide to inform Attendees that the event will start soon. Begin the broadcasting about ten minutes early to test everything, but keep all audio muted until ready to go live.
During the Live Event, the Producer controls what Attendees see and hear. You can show the presenter, the screen of a Presenter or Producer, or other content such as a PowerPoint presentation

The Presenter can share audio, video and/or a screen and moderate Q&A.

If there are multiple Presenters, their screens will switch automatically when a new Presenter shares. The Producer cannot undo this.

Presenters and Producers are both able to open, moderate and close the Q&A.

If the Q&A feature has been enabled by the Live Event Organizer during set-up, then a Q&A pane is available at event time through which Attendees can submit a question or a comment. The button location is different depending on your role:

• For Producers, the button appears as a chat-icon with question mark in the top-right corner.

• For Presenters, the same button appears, but integrated in the presenter toolbar.

The Q&A pane has three tabs: New, Published and Dismissed. A few remarks:

• All event team members can see the messages in the New tab and need to decide up front who will moderate those messages.
• Questions from the audience need to first be pushed to the Published or Dismissed tab before you answer them, otherwise, your answer will not be glued to the original question.
• Messages from the moderators are prefixed with the word 'Moderator'. The Attendees cannot see the name of the moderator. If you want to make yourself known to the Attendees, prefix your messages with your name.

Presenters and Producers can communicate with each other through the Chat pane. For Producers, the button to open Chat is in the top-right corner. For Presenters, the button is on the presenter's toolbar. 

As a Producer, you can restart a Live Event while the event is active, or after you have ended it. This is useful in the case where you accidentally lose connection or the event runs into errors.

To restart your Live Event:

1. In the Live Event: Select More actions at the top of the MS Teams meeting window.
2. Select Restart event.
3. A confirmation will pop up, select Restart to confirm.

MS Teams will then verify that the event can be restarted. If MS Teams can successfully restart your Live Event, the Producers and Presenters will be disconnected, while Attendees watching the event will see a waiting screen informing them that the event will begin shortly. Producers and Presenters will need to rejoin and start the event again.

At the TU Delft, Live Events are always recorded and available for Producers and Presenters. When the option Make recording available to Attendees is checked, Attendees can also see the recording. After the event has finished, it will take a while (approximately fifteen minutes per recorded hour) before the video is available to download.

You can download the recording in resources of the event. To see the resources you can either (1) open the Live Event in the Calendar in Teams or (2) Open the Live Event in your Outlook calendar and click on Manage Live Event resources.

Learn how to access reports on Attendee participation and Q&A insights after your Live Event.

Attendee Engagement Report

If the Organizer enabled it, Producers and Presenters can download an Attendee Engagement Report after the Live Event. This report shows when which users joined and left, as well as other data about each Attendee’s experience.

Q&A Report

If the Q&A was enabled for the meeting, a full report on all questions (private, public and dismissed) and answers can be downloaded after the Live Event.