5 ms·

Microsoft Teams update could turn your meeting into a complete mess

20 points by mikece 3y ago

a2tech 3y ago
Its Teams--the meeting was a mess the minute it was scheduled using Teams
- mulletbum 3y ago
  What meeting platform is not a mess then?
  - usr1106 3y ago
    We use Google Meet at work. I would not call it a mess, but collaboration features are rather limited. It's one presenter typically. Of course in Google docs and sheets many can edit at the same time and create a mess. But it's not really integrated to an online meeting. The few times I have used Microsoft Meet I found it harder to navigate. Whether that's a real problem or just not what I am used to I don't know.
  - themarbz 3y ago
    Google Meet
    - cj 3y ago
      Agreed. I never got why many people hate on Google Meet. It’s one of the few that don’t push a download to join a meeting, everything is lightweight and sandboxed in the browser.
  - ehutch79 3y ago
    Honestly? I don't even think an in person, at a table, meetings arn't a mess....
    - Cthulhu_ 3y ago
      This is frequently the case, but this is a combination of factors; immature or insecure participants, no agenda, no moderator, nobody that ever had any formal training on how to conduct a meeting correctly. But as a team (if you have a meeting with a team) there's agreements you can make, like how only one person can speak at a time (use an accessory like a ball to indicate who can speak right now). This will make the meeting more egalitarian, since in a lot of meetings (usually involving men), it's a lot of people interrupting and talking over each other so that the less forward participants are effectively pushed out of the meeting.
      - ehutch79 3y ago
        Sure, roberts rules of order are a thing for a reason. There's also a lot of cases where a meeting goes from reviewing workflow or implementation details and someone ends up railroading the meeting into bikeshedding the sidebar color.
  - HelloMcFly 3y ago
    I realize it's pretty easy fodder to dump on Teams around here, but I've honestly found it works better than any of the alternatives that I've used (Zoom, BlueJeans, Meet, Webex). It's a little bloated, though the new preview version my team is enrolled in for some reason loads faster though some features are missing. I'm not putting on a cape for Teams, it's just the best entree in the buffet line to me right now. I do hate that they removed the ability for any meeting attendee to go add notes to the meeting in advance though.
    - eska 3y ago
      I just hand out a jitsi meet link when the bloated software people have each other install doesn’t work. No install or account required
- nerdjon 3y ago
  I really hate Microsoft for pushing teams so heard with office 365, this software was just not ready to be released (it really still isn't). It seems to be bad wether or not its on Windows or Mac (I used to think it was just bad on Mac but I have had that assumption proven wrong multiple times now). The number of times I have coworkers whose cameras just don't work. My current fun 2 issues, I no longer get any alerts so I am stuck keeping my work phone next to me for teams alerts and my microphone has a weird popping or static to it (I can't reproduce this with any other app). It feels like almost every meeting someone will end up uttering the words "damnit teams" or some variation when something just doesn't work as it should. Slack may have had some problems but I really miss using it.
  - kcplate 3y ago
    My biggest complaint…on a mac, I can’t alt-tab to show the teams window, so i get the fun of tiling teams with outlook on a single space and tabbing to outlook to see my teams window. It’s maddening.
    - gellpak 3y ago
      I got so frustrated with this that I installed Edge and now have Teams running as a web app, and at least that behaves itself.
macintux 3y ago
Barely coherent article in desperate need of an editor, making much ado about nothing. Teams is wretched; this hardly seems like it will make matters worse.
- mulletbum 3y ago
  "Teams is adding a feature already available in every other meeting platform. Everyone panic!"
- lelandfe 3y ago
  > Making edits and suggestions in real-time can be an incredibly useful tool, and cut down on wasted time and countless emails - but only if people use the service for good. This update "could turn your meeting into a complete mess" in the same way that I can turn a meeting into a complete mess by screaming into my microphone. How did this article even get approved?
  - heywoodlh 3y ago
    > I can turn a meeting into a complete mess by screaming into my microphone. Or the same way that one person in a large meeting randomly keeps unmuting throughout the meeting and we hear a bunch of feedback. (I got a good chuckle imagining someone unmuting to scream into the microphone)
    - macintux 3y ago
      I let out a good groan once during a sales call when our salesperson was…exaggerating a bit. Unfortunately, it turned out the hardware mute on my headset wasn’t working correctly.
      - giancarlostoro 3y ago
        Curious, how did you handle the result? I never trust hardware mute, I rather see the software also show a mute icon as well.
sjsdaiuasgdia 3y ago
If you can't have a meeting without your colleagues being disruptive, the problem isn't the tools you use for meetings.
gruez 3y ago
>Previously, only a participant sharing their screen on a Microsoft Teams call could make annotations, which allowed for quick and simple collaboration on thoughts, suggestions or ideas - however this ability will now be expanded to all users. What's the difference between a "participant" and a "user"? Zoom has allowed anyone in the meeting to annotate since forever (there's an option to disable it though), and I haven't seen it cause "a complete mess".
hu3 3y ago
The substance of the article: > The video conferencing service has announced a change to its platform that will allow all meeting participants to make annotations whilst on a call. > Previously, only a participant sharing their screen on a Microsoft Teams call could make annotations, which allowed for quick and simple collaboration on thoughts, suggestions or ideas - however this ability will now be expanded to all users. Brace for the smiley faces.
Cthulhu_ 3y ago
Only if you're dealing with immature children I guess. Most people can be trusted with tools like this. Plus, I'm sure it'll be an option that the host can configure. As others have pointed out, this article is much ado about nothing.
jpl56 3y ago
People can already "annotate" by writing a comment. What annoys me the most with Teams is that the menu we use every time, the one where you choose which speaker and which microphone you will be using, is buried under "...", then "settings", then "peripherals" ... I hate that so much!
ubermonkey 3y ago
Bad link, but I feel like we're watching "worse is better" win again with Teams. You get Teams with Office. You don't have to pay for something else -- something better, like GTM or WebEx. And so you use it, and those other, better options wither. We watched the same thing happen with word processing (though to be fair WordPerfect refused to adapt and was complicit in its own demise) and spreadsheets (same song for Lotus). The exact same thing happened/is happening with critical path scheduling software -- there used to be lots of them, and now the only real alternative to MS Project is Primavera P6. Ugh.
MDWolinski 3y ago
I mean, if you're in a meeting with a bunch of 5-year olds, then yes, this could be a problem. But in an office environment, I suspect that most people will be less inclined to doodle away on your presentation. That being side, Zoom had this functionality for awhile now. It's actually beneficial to me if someone is giving a presentation and I have some notes or trying to get them to click somewhere they can't comprehend...

20 points by mikece 3y ago

a2tech 3y ago

Its Teams--the meeting was a mess the minute it was scheduled using Teams

mulletbum 3y ago
What meeting platform is not a mess then?
- usr1106 3y ago
  We use Google Meet at work. I would not call it a mess, but collaboration features are rather limited. It's one presenter typically. Of course in Google docs and sheets many can edit at the same time and create a mess. But it's not really integrated to an online meeting. The few times I have used Microsoft Meet I found it harder to navigate. Whether that's a real problem or just not what I am used to I don't know.
- themarbz 3y ago
  Google Meet
  - cj 3y ago
    Agreed. I never got why many people hate on Google Meet. It’s one of the few that don’t push a download to join a meeting, everything is lightweight and sandboxed in the browser.
- ehutch79 3y ago
  Honestly? I don't even think an in person, at a table, meetings arn't a mess....
  - Cthulhu_ 3y ago
    This is frequently the case, but this is a combination of factors; immature or insecure participants, no agenda, no moderator, nobody that ever had any formal training on how to conduct a meeting correctly. But as a team (if you have a meeting with a team) there's agreements you can make, like how only one person can speak at a time (use an accessory like a ball to indicate who can speak right now). This will make the meeting more egalitarian, since in a lot of meetings (usually involving men), it's a lot of people interrupting and talking over each other so that the less forward participants are effectively pushed out of the meeting.
    - ehutch79 3y ago
      Sure, roberts rules of order are a thing for a reason. There's also a lot of cases where a meeting goes from reviewing workflow or implementation details and someone ends up railroading the meeting into bikeshedding the sidebar color.
- HelloMcFly 3y ago
  I realize it's pretty easy fodder to dump on Teams around here, but I've honestly found it works better than any of the alternatives that I've used (Zoom, BlueJeans, Meet, Webex). It's a little bloated, though the new preview version my team is enrolled in for some reason loads faster though some features are missing. I'm not putting on a cape for Teams, it's just the best entree in the buffet line to me right now. I do hate that they removed the ability for any meeting attendee to go add notes to the meeting in advance though.
  - eska 3y ago
    I just hand out a jitsi meet link when the bloated software people have each other install doesn’t work. No install or account required
nerdjon 3y ago
I really hate Microsoft for pushing teams so heard with office 365, this software was just not ready to be released (it really still isn't). It seems to be bad wether or not its on Windows or Mac (I used to think it was just bad on Mac but I have had that assumption proven wrong multiple times now). The number of times I have coworkers whose cameras just don't work. My current fun 2 issues, I no longer get any alerts so I am stuck keeping my work phone next to me for teams alerts and my microphone has a weird popping or static to it (I can't reproduce this with any other app). It feels like almost every meeting someone will end up uttering the words "damnit teams" or some variation when something just doesn't work as it should. Slack may have had some problems but I really miss using it.
- kcplate 3y ago
  My biggest complaint…on a mac, I can’t alt-tab to show the teams window, so i get the fun of tiling teams with outlook on a single space and tabbing to outlook to see my teams window. It’s maddening.
  - gellpak 3y ago
    I got so frustrated with this that I installed Edge and now have Teams running as a web app, and at least that behaves itself.

macintux 3y ago

Barely coherent article in desperate need of an editor, making much ado about nothing. Teams is wretched; this hardly seems like it will make matters worse.

mulletbum 3y ago
"Teams is adding a feature already available in every other meeting platform. Everyone panic!"
lelandfe 3y ago
> Making edits and suggestions in real-time can be an incredibly useful tool, and cut down on wasted time and countless emails - but only if people use the service for good. This update "could turn your meeting into a complete mess" in the same way that I can turn a meeting into a complete mess by screaming into my microphone. How did this article even get approved?
- heywoodlh 3y ago
  > I can turn a meeting into a complete mess by screaming into my microphone. Or the same way that one person in a large meeting randomly keeps unmuting throughout the meeting and we hear a bunch of feedback. (I got a good chuckle imagining someone unmuting to scream into the microphone)
  - macintux 3y ago
    I let out a good groan once during a sales call when our salesperson was…exaggerating a bit. Unfortunately, it turned out the hardware mute on my headset wasn’t working correctly.
    - giancarlostoro 3y ago
      Curious, how did you handle the result? I never trust hardware mute, I rather see the software also show a mute icon as well.

sjsdaiuasgdia 3y ago

If you can't have a meeting without your colleagues being disruptive, the problem isn't the tools you use for meetings.

gruez 3y ago

>Previously, only a participant sharing their screen on a Microsoft Teams call could make annotations, which allowed for quick and simple collaboration on thoughts, suggestions or ideas - however this ability will now be expanded to all users. What's the difference between a "participant" and a "user"? Zoom has allowed anyone in the meeting to annotate since forever (there's an option to disable it though), and I haven't seen it cause "a complete mess".

hu3 3y ago

The substance of the article: > The video conferencing service has announced a change to its platform that will allow all meeting participants to make annotations whilst on a call. > Previously, only a participant sharing their screen on a Microsoft Teams call could make annotations, which allowed for quick and simple collaboration on thoughts, suggestions or ideas - however this ability will now be expanded to all users. Brace for the smiley faces.

Cthulhu_ 3y ago

Only if you're dealing with immature children I guess. Most people can be trusted with tools like this. Plus, I'm sure it'll be an option that the host can configure. As others have pointed out, this article is much ado about nothing.

jpl56 3y ago

People can already "annotate" by writing a comment. What annoys me the most with Teams is that the menu we use every time, the one where you choose which speaker and which microphone you will be using, is buried under "...", then "settings", then "peripherals" ... I hate that so much!

ubermonkey 3y ago

Bad link, but I feel like we're watching "worse is better" win again with Teams. You get Teams with Office. You don't have to pay for something else -- something better, like GTM or WebEx. And so you use it, and those other, better options wither. We watched the same thing happen with word processing (though to be fair WordPerfect refused to adapt and was complicit in its own demise) and spreadsheets (same song for Lotus). The exact same thing happened/is happening with critical path scheduling software -- there used to be lots of them, and now the only real alternative to MS Project is Primavera P6. Ugh.

MDWolinski 3y ago

I mean, if you're in a meeting with a bunch of 5-year olds, then yes, this could be a problem. But in an office environment, I suspect that most people will be less inclined to doodle away on your presentation. That being side, Zoom had this functionality for awhile now. It's actually beneficial to me if someone is giving a presentation and I have some notes or trying to get them to click somewhere they can't comprehend...