Microsoft Teams: Muting All The Participants Without Allowing Them To Unmute

[joef1665]

Dear All,

Is there any option in Microsoft Teams to mute all the participants without allowing them to unmute back? I mean, Is there is any option for the speaker to mute all the students, and then unmute them back when I want them to speak? 

Thanks again! 

[#2]

@Renato Pereira 

Hi! 

I agree, this is a big issue that needs to get resolved. The temporary solution I found is to cancel the meeting afterwards and that way they can't rejoin the meeting. Here is what I do:

1) Schedule the meeting in the calendar

2) Hold the meeting until it's finished

3) Go back to the meeting on the calendar and cancel it

**It sends a message to all students saying that the meeting is canceled which is confusing but they will get used to the process if you explain it to them. 

[#3]

@Christopher Hoard As a meeting organizer, if I start the meeting and click the Mute All button, will that Mute everyone who joins, even those who join after I click? Or will it only Mute those who are already in the meeting? Thank you!

[#4]

That doesn't cure it. All that does it take it off your calendar.

On their Calendar in TEAMS, there's a grayed box for the cancelled meeting.  All they have to do is click on it and then rejoin, audio and video chatting unsupervised.  

@DylanElemTeacher 

[#5]

@michb175 

No, all mute all does is simply mute everyone but you (the person who selects the mute) - this includes the presenter. It will not stop anyone who joins being muted if they join with audio on, all other participants can still unmute

We have been very vocal on this with Microsoft so I would imagine they are considering it - however any more than that I can't say. I haven't been made aware of anything in this area currently and there is nothing on the roadmap or on uservoice

Best, Chris

[#6]

@Christopher Hoard Thanks for replying, I think my question was misinterpreted. But that is okay as I had a large call last week and answered the question for myself. FYI for those interested - as the organizer, when I clicked Mute All, it muted everyone who joined the call, even those who joined after I clicked Mute All.

[#7]

@michb175 We do the same (Mute all after starting the meeting). However, attendees can (and do) un-mute themselves, either in the app, or via *6 when calling in.

[#8]

@TomHaraka Yes, I understand attendees can unmute as they please. But the Mute All functionality in Teams is the closest feature I've discovered as a substitute for the ability in Skype to set at a user level to default all your meetings to Mute all on entry. For people that consistently host large meetings that Skype setting was very useful.

[#9]

@Anh_Hien_Nguyen It is not only difficult, it is non-existent. 

[#10]

For that you have set meeting policy in Microsoft Teams admin panel

[#11]

Any details on that?

[#12]

@joef1665 We need this feature for classrooms! Please microsoft!

[#13]

hey I am a student and we were facing a similar problem.The solution to this is to make the students attendee.We can make them attendee  by doing a right click on their name in participants and then make them an attendee.now if you are late due to any reason the children may fight for becoming a presenter and by default the setting is that the new joiners will be presenters. So in order to prevent the fight between students you can make only yourself a presenter. We can do that as after scheduling a meeting there is an option of editing the settings there you will see an option of meeting options on the bottom of the screen.by opening the link of meeting options scroll down and you will see an option of who can present.by clicking the dropdown in front that you will see options like specific people,only me,people in my organisation. Click anyone you want to and it is done.if you selct only me still you can make anyone presenter if you want to.

From Aryan Tapadia

[#14]

Hi @DylanElemTeacher,

regarding my post about users to be able to enter again to an old meeting, I think that will be addressed by the Roadmap ID 66921.

----

https://www.microsoft.com/pt-br/microsoft-365/roadmap?filters=&filters=&searchterms=66921

"We are making changes to how Teams meetings and join links are accessible for meeting organizers who have had their scheduling capabilities revoked. Today, Teams meeting URLs can be accessed before, during, and after the scheduled meeting time, even if the scheduling permission for the meeting organizer has been revoked after the meeting was created.
To implement this change, we are adjusting the behavior of some settings in csTeamsMeetingPolicy to give additional control to the Tenant Admins. Tenant admins can now control and define the expiration of meetings created and scheduled by their users.
This change does not impact any scheduled meetings for organizers who continue to have the ability to schedule Teams meetings (as defined by Meeting Policy). You can find additional details on this change below.

What does it mean to expire meeting join coordinates?
Once a meeting has been expired, the meeting can no longer be joined, whether through the meeting join link and/or Audio Conferencing—attempting to join the meeting will result in a failure. Any related conversations, files, whiteboards related to the meeting are preserved and unaffected, and can still be accessed. This includes channel meetings (both scheduled and meet now), scheduled meetings, and private meet now meetings.

"

[#15]

Another 'Stranger things' that Ms should fix:

- using web version of TEAMS you cannot 'cancel' a meeting (https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-teams/delete-cancel-a-meeting-not-available-on-webs...);

- the meeting 'options' is available only on the windows app, but when you click it goes to web version.

* I think that my kids cannot develop an app 'so well' as this...

---

[#16]

@DylanElemTeacher 

@Christopher Hoard 

I hope that my message gets to you. Actually, I hope that you quickly got this answered already.  Students can make things difficult sometimes.

If you go to the meeting settings in Teams, after you have created the meeting and well before any students join the meeting.  In the meeting settings, make yourself the only presenter. This will make them not able to mute others, including the teacher.

There is also a way for you to control who enters the meeting.  This is achieved in the same settings screen that I mentioned above.

I hope this is helpful to someone.  Let me know if you would like a deeper explanation or pictures.

[#17]

@joef1665

A new feature is being rolled out now that allows the meeting organiser or presenter roles to stop all users with the Attendee role from unmuting themselves 

As the meeting organiser or presenter when in your Teams meeting select the Participants icon and then more actions (...) and you will now  see a  new option 'Don't allow attendees to unmute'. Just toggle this on or off.

[#18]

@DeletedThank you, I hope that is not their solution for everyone.  In my case, that is not what we are trying to curtail.  I am trying to curtail the typing in the chat box of the meet now, not them talking.  I want them to be able to talk, just not type in the chat without my permission.

Before I could use the mute settings in teams and it stopped them from typing in the POST of a channel and also the chat of a meeting, but did NOT mute their mics.  

[#19]

@goodtimo

Dear

you can do that using the mute option in the Teams members tab

if you select the mute button the students would not be able to access the chat feature and if you want them to do so simple uncheck the option in front of the student you want to access the chat.

You can enable and disable the chat completely from the messaging policy as well in Admin console.  

[#20]

@anupamkumar No I can't, that's the reason I posted the original thread.  That adjustment used to work to stop them from being able to type in the conversation of a Meet Now AND in the POST section of a channel, but doesn't anymore. 

[#21]

@goodtimo 

What we really all want is a switch on the Meet Now sidebar with the following options to organizers:

• allow all to present (on/off)
• mute all mics (on/off)
• allow all to use Conversation box (on/off)

within each attendee when you right-click

• make presenter
• hard mute/unmute
• remove from meeting
• warn of behavior message