Forum Discussion
Stopping participants from unmuting themselves
Hi,
I am a teacher currently looking at options for virtual schooling during coronavirus shutdown. A lot of people are using teams, and I like much of the functionality, however I cannot seem to work out how to stop participants in a meeting unmuting themselves. This is probably fine for adult meetings, but with groups of children it's quite a distraction. Ideally I would like them to be able to choose individuals to unmute when I wish them to speak, but to be the only person with that power. Is it possible? Or is teams an inappropriate platform for this kind of task?
- Hi D_J_Barker,
Currently, you can't. Whilst Microsoft have made improvements such as joining the meeting muted, and being able to mute someone, Members of Teams meetings can unmute at any time. Policing is therefore needed. There are multiple uservoices for it including this:
https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/36709033-mute
I would recommend voting to push it up the agenda. Microsoft are very aware of this requirement, and with the development of muting whilst joining I would imagine you may see it on the roadmap relatively soon in the future. Microsoft is also working on other classroom style virtual functionality such as raise hand
https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/35262385-add-a-raise-your-hand-feature-in-meetings
You could look at potentially using Live Events in Teams to do this, which are like Ted talks where one person talks and the attendees do Q&A - however, it's not what you need. As a former teacher in secondary I know you need the default to be muted then you unmute either individuals or to the audience as required
As said I believe this will come soon, but not soon enough for Covid-19 which is here now
Hope that answers your question
Best, Chris
11 Replies
there is a major vote for the same problem
https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/39784519-teams-meeting-organizer-can-force-mute-audio-video- This option is must have for e learning . At least add it for sake of feature parity as Zoom has it .
- Hi D_J_Barker,
Currently, you can't. Whilst Microsoft have made improvements such as joining the meeting muted, and being able to mute someone, Members of Teams meetings can unmute at any time. Policing is therefore needed. There are multiple uservoices for it including this:
https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/36709033-mute
I would recommend voting to push it up the agenda. Microsoft are very aware of this requirement, and with the development of muting whilst joining I would imagine you may see it on the roadmap relatively soon in the future. Microsoft is also working on other classroom style virtual functionality such as raise hand
https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/35262385-add-a-raise-your-hand-feature-in-meetings
You could look at potentially using Live Events in Teams to do this, which are like Ted talks where one person talks and the attendees do Q&A - however, it's not what you need. As a former teacher in secondary I know you need the default to be muted then you unmute either individuals or to the audience as required
As said I believe this will come soon, but not soon enough for Covid-19 which is here now
Hope that answers your question
Best, ChrisAnnoyingly MS have incorrectly marked the request completed - incorrectly because they didn't listen to the use case properly.
I haven't found another thread to vote up yet.
- I found a new request for this.
If you find this comment, please vote:
https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/40156951-can-the-presenter-lock-the-option-where-students-c
