Category Archives: Quick Tip

Quoted Replies in Microsoft Teams Private Chats

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As Microsoft Teams continues to gain traction, and I find myself part of more 1:1 and 1:many chats in Teams I frequently see confusion about who is replying to which message in an active chat. This is much more common when the replies are flying at a frantic pace causing messages to lose context.

The Teams mobile app has a built in swipe function to quote a message and reply making it clear where the the reply is joined. Simply swipe right on a specific message and hit the reply button which will quote the message and start the reply dialogue:

Demo of swiping right on a message in the Microsoft Teams mobile app to quote it in your reply

When using the desktop app, though, quoting a reply is not as intuitive. It can still be done, and I use it often. Simply copy the text you’d like to quote, then start a new message with the ‘>’ character. This will initiate a quote box that you can paste the text into before replying.

Demo of using the quote functionality in the Teams desktop app to quote a block of text and reply.

As @TheVarnish made clear to me when I showed him, this isn’t exactly the same functionality that exists in the mobile app. I’ll give you the same advice I gave him 😊…there are plenty of uservoice requests for the functionality, and I would suggest you vote for the feature if it is something you’d like.

Microsoft Teams Quick Tips #6 – Share System Audio

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Desktop and application sharing has long been a thing in collaboration systems like OCS, Lync, Skype for Business, and Teams. However, one of the shortcomings has been that sharing a video that has audio, or audio on its own was not optimal. The video did not match up with the audio and the experience was very choppy.

In 2019, however, Microsoft released the ability to incorporate the option to share the audio from the host system via a Teams meeting or sharing session (which is now outdated info). This was a welcome change as it was frequently asked for. Share system audio was something that I frequently show people when doing training sessions. Much to my surprise though, in a recent training session I was unable to find this option. After a bit of poking around, I found that the option had been moved to an inconspicuous location without any notification (at least to my knowledge)…so is life in “the cloud”!

How Do I Share System Audio Now??

Never fear, it is still very easy to share system audio if you can’t find it elsewhere though! There are a couple of things you’ll need to do. Keep in mind that this will share ALL system audio…so if you get dings and whistles from new email alerts, etc those will also come through to the attendees so you may want to go into focus mode or do not disturb ahead of time.

  1. Start a meeting or chat with a person or group
  2. Connect to the audio
  3. Once you’re connected to audio in a Teams meeting or chat, share either your desktop or a specific window that will include the object that you’re wanting to share audio from
  4. Hover at the top of the screen until the presentation toolbar appears.
  5. You’ll see an icon between “Give Control” and “Stop Presenting” that allows you to share the system audio:

That’s it, now you can play your video or audio clip and the attendees will hear it in near real time!

Have a Microsoft Teams quick tip that you think should be included in a future post? Comment below or connect with me on social media!

Microsoft Teams Quick Tip #5 – Reply to Email with Teams

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If you have rolled out Teams, or any user facing technology platform, you will agree that one of the biggest challenges has nothing to do with making the technology work. Instead, that challenge is usually getting people to adopt and use the new system.

I get it, breaking habits is hard and using email as your go to communication tool is a habit that we’ve had for many years. So what’s a person to do when you receive an email but want to reply and have a quick conversation outside of email instead?

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Microsoft Teams Quick Tip #4 – The Perfect GIF Doesn’t Exist

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It doesn’t matter if I’m in a group text with friends or family, posting on Twitter, or collaborating in Teams…using GIFs is my lifeblood! (PS. I only use the type that have a soft g…JIF is for peanut butter…don’t try to change my mind, it won’t work 😉)

Sometimes, the perfect GIF is out there but just not surfacing in your Teams searches. What’s a GIF master to do??

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Microsoft Teams Quick Tip #3 – Naming Group Chats

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One of the awesome collaboration options within Microsoft Teams is the persistent chats that can occur outside of a Team or Channel. These are good for having one off business conversations that don’t relate to a specific Team but also for building camaraderie and having a little fun around the virtual water cooler. As you are a part of more and more chats, it can soon become confusing as to the intent. How do you quickly find the exact chat you are looking for?

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