Now boasting an impressive 115 million daily active users, Microsoft Teams is becoming the number one choice for collaboration in the world. The solution, which works perfectly alongside the Microsoft selection of productivity tools, isn’t just popular among business users. Educators are also relying heavily on Microsoft Teams to deliver lessons in a digital world.
To support teachers that need to maintain the attention of their students in a complicated virtual environment, Microsoft recently introduced a new feature called “Hard Mute”. This capability aims to help educators reduce the disruptions that can occur during a Teams Meeting. Microsoft MVP, Randy Chapman, recently announced the availability of Hard Mute for Teams on Twitter:
“Hard Mute” is now available in #MicrosoftTeams Meeting Options. You can now choose to not allow attendees to unmute their mic when in a meeting. They get a notification and the option greys out for them until an organiser makes them a presenter. Great for webinars and education pic.twitter.com/TVZ7nES0Nb
— Randy Chapman (@randychapman) September 30, 2020
According to Chapman, educators, meeting organisers and presenters will now be able to access the capability to gain full control over a conversation.
Reducing Disruptions in a Meeting
The Hard Mute feature, available within your Microsoft Teams meeting options, will give hosts the power to choose whether attendees can unmute their microphone in a meeting. The option to “unmute” will be greyed out for attendees when Hard Mute is active.
As Randy noted in his Twitter post, this will be an excellent feature for teachers and educators who need to avoid any disruptions to a lesson. Currently there are a few ways that meeting organisers can prevent attendees from unmuting in a meeting.
Before a meeting, you can choose to toggle the “allow attendees to unmute” option on or off in the meeting options page. The feature will be on by default, and organisers will need to switch this to begin using the feature.
During a meeting, you can use the “…” menu at the top of the participant list to toggle the “allow attendees to unmute” option on or off too. Once the option is enabled within the meeting, participants need to raise their hand to inform a presenter that they want to speak. You can then right-click on the attendees’ name to allow them to unmute.
Is It Available Now?
The new Hard Mute function for Microsoft Teams is currently in a gradual roll-out period. All desktop users will eventually have access to this function, but you might not see it straight away. If you don’t see the option to stop your attendees from unmuting in a meeting, you might need to check your version of Microsoft Teams is up to date.
