Introduction
Minimising problems with video conferencing
Share this information with your colleagues if they are having a poor experience with video conferencing quality, such as freezes, dropouts and poor audio or visual quality.
- Always mute your microphone until you need to speak.
- Use a headset with microphone for the best sound quality, especially if you also want to type during the meeting.
- Use the ‘raise hand’ function if there are several people in your Teams meeting. That way you are not talking over one another.
- If your broadband is playing up and you keep freezing, it helps to switch off your video to free up bandwidth
- Occasionally you may have someone who cannot hear or be heard. Ask them to try leaving the meeting and re-entering. Often this solves that problem. If they cannot hear you, type it into the Chat space or them to see.
- Teams works best on either the Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge browsers, both of which should already be installed on your Barnardo’s computer. With a personal device, try to load one of these if you don’t already have either.
Microsoft Teams
Teams is part of your Office 365 package. You can use Teams to hold online meetings and make voice calls to internal colleagues.
Even if a guest does not have Office 365 themselves, they can still join your meeting via a web browser by clicking onto the link you send in your invitation.
Guides
There are some guides available on Inside Barnardo’s to help you with Teams meetings. Please use these to find out more about Teams and how it works.
https://inside.barnardos.org.uk/teams-training-and-guidance
There are guides to help you to:
- join a meeting and manage the controls once you are in
- create a meeting and manage the controls within it
- create ‘breakout rooms’ within a meeting to hold smaller sub-meetings
- share your screen
- use Whiteboard to brainstorm
- see how you can use Teams to stay in touch with others
How to join a Teams meeting whilst working from home
If your computer has the Teams app already loaded, you can just click onto the meeting link you receive in the calendar invite.
Choose ‘open Microsoft Teams’ when the options appear.
Then set your joining controls for audio and video.
If your computer is not equipped with Teams, you can still join a meeting using a web browser. When you click onto the meeting link in your calendar invite, choose ‘continue on this browser’ (you will have to click ‘cancel’ on the smaller white box first to clear that).
What do these mean?
Open Microsoft Teams – for those with Teams loaded, this takes you to the black joining screen.
Download the Windows App – if you don’t yet have Teams loaded you can do it here.
Continue in the browser – you can join the meeting with the Web version without loading Teams.
Open your Teams app – the same as the top white box for ‘open MS teams’.
If you are logged onto your personal device and are not using a Barnardo’s account, you will probably have to wait in the lobby for someone to admit you to the meeting. Don’t worry - they get told you are waiting.
Guests from other organisations
Any guests outside of your organisation can also choose ‘continue on this browser’ which will get them access to the meeting using Teams web app.
If you are the meeting Organiser, you can set up a lobby so you can control when people can enter the meeting. External guests will normally be waiting in the lobby for you to admit.
Once in a meeting
If you join using the Teams app, the controls will be along the top of your screen.
If you have joined via a Web browser because you don’t have Teams on your computer, the controls will be at the bottom of your screen.
Audio-Only Conferencing on Teams
To get the most from Teams functionality we strongly recommend, where possible, for both internal and external attendees to use the Desktop Client, Web Browser or Mobile App to join Teams meetings. Obviously features like chat, screen sharing and subtitles are not available to dial-in callers so the user experience is very limited.
The call-in number is not free so dial-in users will also be charged a local/national rate call as per their service provider’s charges. You can find instructions and user guidance for how to install and use Teams on various devices below.
At the moment there is no ability to dial out from Teams because this requires phone system licensing and integration.
Microsoft Teams anywhere
Use Microsoft Teams on your desktop, on the web, or on your iOS or Android mobile device. We do, however, realise that using the Teams apps may not always be possible due to the availability of an internet connection, device compatibility or other reasons.
The licensing model for Audio Conferencing in Microsoft Teams means that dial-in functionality is not automatically available to everyone.
Meeting organisers will need an additional licence so that an audio conference number appears in the meeting links that they create, as below:
We have purchased a sufficient number of licenses based on our analysis of dial-in usage in Google Meets and Cisco Webex but the licence numbers are limited so these will only be issued upon request based on the business need.
If you don’t have access to Audio Conferencing and there is no-one in your Team or wider department who can create a Teams meeting with Dial in functionality for you then you can request a licence for this via Service Desk. If the licence request is approved then you will receive an email similar to the below advising that this has been set up.
Instructions for setting up a meeting can be found here:
Add a dial-in number for a meeting in Teams -Office Support (microsoft.com)
Who to contact if you need further help and support?
Service Desk number 0330 222 0199
Service Desk email: servicedesk@barnardos.org.uk
Inside Barnardos Software Support Centre
Hybrid Meetings
Some of you will be creating and/or attending what is known as a ‘hybrid meeting’. A hybrid meeting is where two or more attendees are working together at one location and others are joining the meeting remotely. It is called ‘hybrid’ because the same meeting is being attended in different ways.
A successful hybrid meeting should allow all participants to contribute equally, regardless of whether they are on site or remote, and should achieve the desired outcome.
For help with hybrid meetings and with booking ‘Teams Rooms‘ that are suitable for a hybrid meeting, please see the following guides at the bottom of this page:
- How to book a Teams Rooms video conference meeting
- Teams Rooms equipment user guide
- Hybrid meeting tips
Workplace
Workplace is available to all employees and volunteers on any smart device, and is an easy to use corporate social network.
Everyone in Barnardo's can join Workplace from any device. For example, if you have a personal smartphone you can download the Android or Apple app.
Your Workplace password is not your login password for other Barnardo's systems - it is unique. If you forget your Workplace password, request a new one in the Workplace app or browser, and follow the email that you receive in your Barnardo's email account. (If you are not able to access your email, visit our Working from home guidance for help.)
To make an audio or video call on Workplace, simply:
- click the message icon (speech balloon) at the top left of the screen
- In the ‘search workplace chat’ field, start typing the name of the person or group you wish to call or meet with. It will give you suggestions as you type.
- Once you have found the person you want and click on the name, you will see the call options in the workplace pane to the right.
- Click onto the hand receiver icon to make a voice call or the camera icon to make a video call.
There is an option to share your screen on one-to-one video calls on Workplace.
For lots of colleague tips, check out the Workplace Tips group in Workplace itself. You can also find this in Groups on your Home page:
