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Reusing Teams Meeting URL/permanent "meeting room"

Copper Contributor

Once I "Meet Now" in teams, I can obtain the URL link to that meeting and save it. Then, even after I leave the meeting and close teams, the link is still good. That is, later I or someone else can click on that URL and it opens the meeting back up, in the same day, anyway.

 

The question: how do I determine if this ability to reuse a generated URL link a feature of teams that is likely to remain available, as opposed to a "side effect" of how it works right now that will stop working in a future release? (Also, does anyone know if "meet now" links expire, that is, will no longer work next week or next month?)

 

P.S.: I am aware of the security implications of this but it isn't an issue in this case, but the convenience of a permanent "meeting room"-- that is, a reusable link that the participants have and can bookmark and reuse-- is important.

13 Replies
best response confirmed by ThereseSolimeno (Microsoft)

That's a big help, thank you! @Vasil Michev 

@Vasil Michev Hello

 

I was testing some really old links from last year - regular link with start/end time and they still work. Has expiration rule changed since this post? Many thanks

From the teams doc referenced by Vasil:

"A meeting URL will never stop working. The expiry only relates to any PSTN dial-in numbers, CVI coordinates, and/or underlying meeting policies and settings."

The meeting itself sortof expires when the meeting concludes. It just happens that each of those meeting IDs is globally unique, forever, and they can be used any time to start a new session under that meeting ID. I'm building an application around this, so I too hope it does not change. I have a backup plan if it does.
Hi @glindauer checking you are still using this method?

I can get the URL no problem however how do you exit the meeting without losing the ability to rejoin? Do you have some basic steps you follow that you could share pls?

I have a client who is using AcuityScheduling and we need a fixed URL to add to the meeting reminders for her coaching clients.
I actually never ended up using that method, our group ended up using a competitors product for most meetings.

However, if you bookmark the URL in your browser, you should be able to click on that bookmark at any time and rejoin the meeting (or, if everyone else is gone, you'd start a new meeting in that same "room"). The browser should either automatically open the Teams desktop application, or prompt you to do so, or allow you to connect just using the browser. Hope that helps!
Thanks for letting me know @glindauer.

It closes the meeting when you hang up although I didn’t try going back to the URL.

My workaround is from Outlook online creating a recurring all day meeting for Mon - Fri with the Teams switch on and no reminders or end date. I had to hide the chat as it shows the guest name but it’s ok for 1:1 meetings with different clients
Yes, if you are the last person in the meeting it will close. However, if other people are in the meeting, it should stay open until the last person leaves. So if others are in the meeting and you leave, and they stay in the meeting, and you go back to that same URL, you should be back with them.

Is it not working that way? Again, haven't tested this since July 2020.
Yes you can rejoin if someone remains in the meeting however once everyone leaves on the Teams page it then closes the meeting and you can’t rejoin

Happy enough with the workaround I’ve come up with but was hoping for a more elegant solution :beaming_face_with_smiling_eyes:
@bevrobertsmentor well, sorry about that. When I enter the meeting with the "copy link" URL (for my test that is

https://teams.microsoft.com/dl/launcher/launcher.html?url=%2F_%23%2Fl%2Fmeetup-join%2F19%3Ameeting_M...

) from Teams, then leave the meeting as the only participant, then use the URL in a browser to initiate a new call, it works just fine... that's just one user. Maybe some difference in the Office 365 license? Tomorrow I will round up someone else and try more testing, and let you know how it goes.

@bevrobertsmentor should have mentioned you, edited to include your name.

OK, tested today with a group.

(1) Had four people join the meeting using the above link and we talked for 5 minutes.

(2) One of us disconnected, then reconnected again using the link, we remained joined to the same meeting. Then we all disconnected.

(3) Five minutes later a different person reopened the meeting-- he went under the Teams Chat Tab, selected the old (closed-- everyone vacated) meeting from the Chat stream, and clicked join from the right pane to restart the meeting:

glindauer_0-1637250034178.png

The rest of us joined using the link from a browser. In any case the prior Chat stream was still intact... it was the same "meeting room". This demonstrated you can use the link, or the "Join" from the Teams chat stream to [re]start the meeting. (Need to figure out how to clear this occasionally...)

 

(4) Then we all disconnected again, and I restarted the meeting from the link. Now a fifth person, who hadn't ever been in a meeting using this link previously, joined using the link (meaning that the meeting remains open to everyone, it's not restricted to the prior group of joinees).

 

Of course there are security implications with this if you are talking about something confidential, but if you are OK with the possibility of a more open forum this works fine.

@glindauer appreciate your support to find an alternative to my workaround. Were any of these people guests from outside the organisation?

My client is a private coach who works with different external clients

@bevrobertsmentor I’m afraid none of the test subjects were outside the organization. The links *should* keep working the same way whether inside or outside the organization, but I didn’t test that.

 

Regarding privacy, I don’t think there is a way to clear the chat stream— you can delete your own individual messages, but not those from others. So if you were reusing the link from different people they’d see the prior chats. You could turn off the chat but haven’t tested whether attendance and recordings would still show up in the chat stream, need to test that. 

1 best response

Accepted Solutions
best response confirmed by ThereseSolimeno (Microsoft)