VIEW ALL PARTICIPANTS IN VIDEO MEETING

[M_SAN04]

We have 8 people on a daily video meeting in Teams.

Default setup gives 3 or 4 video screens and then rest only appear as small icons in the bottom corner. We need it so all 8 can be seen with the member speaking being a larger window and the others still visible in video, but in smaller tiles. (similar to how it looks in Zoom)

Is it possible to reconfigure settings?

[#2]

Not true...I have someone who has tried both platforms and still only one person.

[#3]

@Kotus-Tech We're very much in the same boat. I've got entire departments (c. 40,000 users total, given the COVID-19 WFH scenario) going back to WebEx and saying that there's no point in them moving to Teams as a result of being restricted to a 4-person video view. How can a tool as old as WebEx (to say nothing of Zoom) still be kicking Microsoft's tail in the usability and features stakes? 

[#4]

@Daniel-Howell I agree 100%!  Today I tried a Teams Meeting with my 30 students.  It was confusing and hard to figure out who was talking.  The students suggested we use Zoom but unfortunately it's not an approved app for our school board so we are stuck with Teams.

With the need to teach remotely for the foreseeable future there must be a way for Microsoft to allow all participants to be seen at once!

[#5]

@M_SAN04 

This is so immensely frustrating. I'm a teacher, and we've been having wonderful class sessions with my 26 kids via Zoom. I can see all of them, I can respond to their facial expressions and reactions. I can call on their raised hand without them needing to hit the digital 'raise hand' key (and I don't have to 'lower their hand' afterwards). It's better for teaching, management, and community. The 4-person limitation - or even the 9-person limitation - will be a big step backwards. Unfortunately, our district is saying that Zoom is not an approved app and we have to use Teams. PLEASE address this issue ASAP. I can't believe that with all of the brainpower and money that Microsoft has, they can't figure out how to give me the same level of functionality as Zoom.

[#6]

@Linus Cansby  

Hi,

How did you manage to split screen to 3x3 participants or all participants in MS Teams? 

Kind Regards 

Ed

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-teams/view-all-participants-in-video-meeting/m-p/12...

Or is it a new feature of MS teams that will be deployed soon ?

[#7 · Accepted solution]

Right, lots in this thread to unpack.

1. The 4 video view will work in the desktop app on Windows, Mac, Linux or the mobile app on Apple or Android. It is not possible in the browser. I don't believe this is likely to change in any useful time period.

2. The 9 video view is in development, and Microsoft have heard loud and clear from MVPs that it's important. As far as I know it won't be here during April.

3. The view you see will always be the students that talked most recently. If you keep your students muted and unmute to speak it shouldn't be confusing to work out who is speaking.

4. As the teacher you can select any of the students in your meeting to view their video by clicking on the ... next to their name in the list of attendees and selecting pin, once you have finished unpin to get back to active speakers.

4. Your school districts are probably wise to not permit the use of Zoom, they have a responsibility to not allow your student data to be accessed by third parties or several other risks. Look up zoom bombing if you think it'll be fine, or when zoom were sending data to Facebook without permission, or when hackers worked out how to access private meetings.

5. Teams has very good controls to allow you to keep order during a meeting, controlling who can speak, present etc. It's harder to achieve this in Zoom. Tips in my video attached.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKdlyf_KDCg

[#8]

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@Tugsim wrote: How can a tool as old as WebEx (to say nothing of Zoom) still be kicking Microsoft's tail in the usability and features stakes? 

---

@Tugsim ...I think the likely answer is simple. "Platform Maturity and Resource Allocation"

[#9]

Well explained. Teams is huge collaboration tool whereas zoom you can compare with webex or bluejeans.

[#10]

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@alitaqvi wrote:
Well explained. Teams is huge collaboration tool whereas zoom you can compare with webex or bluejeans.

---

Exactly!  That's what people are not understanding.  People are focusing on one or two things that Teams doesn't do as well as an app/platform that focuses just on those one or two things.  If Teams was only about conferencing, then this is all very-well deserved criticism.  But look at everything Teams does do and how does that stack up to what WebEx/Zoom do?  Would it satisfy people to say "Teams is a jack of all trades.  WebEx/Zoom are a master of one." 
Teams is a Swiss Army Knife.  WebEx/Zoom are German steel scalpels.

That being what it is... Microsoft along with the rest of us understand the Pros & Cons of each platform.
But I doubt that many businesses or their respective IT departments are going to spend the time and money to roll out a completely new infrastructure to address what is hopefully a short-term annoyance as it relates to video conferencing.  If we weren't all forced to work remotely, very few would be clamoring to replace Teams with an alternative.

If/When Microsoft releases the update to the 9-box, is it clear that it still won't satisfy most of the people in this thread.  So why rush it?  If they do rush the 9-box or something larger like a video feed for every Participant, and it doesn't work that well or worse, breaks existing functionality, nobody wins in that scenario.  

What's more likely to happen is that your respective businesses/IT department will tell you to "make do" until this passes.  Or, they may authorize a switch to some smaller/less expensive offering from WebEx/Zoom.  And then once this all passes, you all will revert back to Teams because that's where all your work actually takes place.  You need your Swiss Army knife more than a scalpel.  The people that control your infrastructure and finances know that.  And Microsoft knows that.

[#11]

@Andre_LeBlanc wrote:
If/When Microsoft releases the update to the 9-box, is it clear that it still won't satisfy most of the people in this thread.  So why rush it?  If they do rush the 9-box or something larger like a video feed for every Participant, and it doesn't work that well or worse, breaks existing functionality, nobody wins in that scenario.

 Rushing it? Given that this thread's been going since 2016, and we had techs and devs suggesting that we'd be seeing content "very soon" almost a year ago, I don't think anyone's accusing MS of rushing anything. More that, after all this time, we were expecting to not be fobbed off with excuses, and were expecting some actual, tangible results.

Yes, Zoom and WebEx are established systems that handle the concurrent visibility of multiple users much better then Teams - but given how long apps like WebEx have been around, would it not have been possible, if not competitively advisable, for MS to mimic that functionality and enable Teams to be viewed as a viable video calling replacement for WebEx, rather than a poor man's fall-back? Or a Jack-of-all-trades and master of none?

You say you "doubt that many businesses or their respective IT departments are going to spend the time and money to roll out a completely new infrastructure to address what is hopefully a short-term annoyance as it relates to video conferencing"; I regret to inform you that, even with a team as small as my immediate unit of 10, let alone in departmental team meetings of over 120, Teams has fallen out of favour after 3 weeks of use. 3 weeks. And that's primarily due to this inability to see all users - not due to the current climate but because three of the team are based elsewhere, we WFH twice a week, staggered across various days etc. And that's common across the organisation. We have, potentially, in excess of 40,000 users likely to be needing to use video-conferencing facilities across every working week, and you're basically handing money to your competitors rather than working out a way of improving the functionality of your system and monetising it by (as they do) adding 'host accounts' as an upgrade to free accounts to include certain aspects of functionality. 

How / why is this so hard to understand? You're essentially saying "We're OK with average", rather than taking Teams and turning it into an *incredible* "master-of-all-trades"...

[#12]

@Andre_LeBlanc wrote:
If/When Microsoft releases the update to the 9-box, is it clear that it still won't satisfy most of the people in this thread.  So why rush it?  If they do rush the 9-box or something larger like a video feed for every Participant, and it doesn't work that well or worse, breaks existing functionality, nobody wins in that scenario.

 Rushing it? Given that this thread's been going since 2016, and we had techs and devs suggesting that we'd be seeing content "very soon" almost a year ago, I don't think anyone's accusing MS of rushing anything. More that, after all this time, we were expecting to not be fobbed off with excuses, and were expecting some actual, tangible results.

Yes, Zoom and WebEx are established systems that handle the concurrent visibility of multiple users much better then Teams - but given how long apps like WebEx have been around, would it not have been possible, if not competitively advisable, for MS to mimic that functionality and enable Teams to be viewed as a viable video calling replacement for WebEx, rather than a poor man's fall-back? Or a Jack-of-all-trades and master of none?

You say you "doubt that many businesses or their respective IT departments are going to spend the time and money to roll out a completely new infrastructure to address what is hopefully a short-term annoyance as it relates to video conferencing"; I regret to inform you that, even with a team as small as my immediate unit of 10, let alone in departmental team meetings of over 120, Teams has fallen out of favour after 3 weeks of use. 3 weeks. And that's primarily due to this inability to see all users - not due to the current climate but because three of the team are based elsewhere, we WFH twice a week, staggered across various days etc. And that's common across the organisation. We have, potentially, in excess of 40,000 users likely to be needing to use video-conferencing facilities across every working week, and you're basically handing money to your competitors rather than working out a way of improving the functionality of your system and monetising it by (as they do) adding 'host accounts' as an upgrade to free accounts to include certain aspects of functionality. 

How / why is this so hard to understand? You're essentially saying "We're OK with average", rather than taking Teams and turning it into an *incredible* "master-of-all-trades"...

[#13]

@Steven Collier thanks for the post on preventing Teams bombing.

Is there a way of automatically changing the status of individuals, or groups of individuals, to the list of Attendees without going through them one-by-one? In Zoom, for example, users can be automatically flagged (by those with Host accounts) as belonging to a specific user account type ahead of the meeting. Just thinking that'd save a lot of faff and hassle in a class of 20-30 students. (Plus being able to actually *see* most of them rather than just 4, but hey, I've discussed that in a separate post, no point in going on another rant! Suffice to say I'd be astonished if it's here in April 2021, given how long we've been waiting... Guess the Most Valuable Procrastinators have earned their title.)

[#14]

@M_SAN04 

I am a new user. I am currently teaching at home due to the Coronavirus pandemic. My screen can not show all the participants ( four or nine related to the discussion below). I can only see one participant and myself on the right bottom. I have more than four participants during the meeting.  Is there any setting for that to allow me to see all participants? 

Please help.

Jenny. 

[#15]

@Linus Cansby

I am a new user. I am currently teaching at home due to the Coronavirus pandemic. My screen can not show all the participants ( four or nine related to the discussion below). I can only see one participant and myself on the right bottom. I have more than four participants during the meeting.  Is there any setting for that to allow me to see all participants? 

Please help.

Jenny. 

@Linus Cansby 

[#16]

@M_SAN04  Hello, I wish this was a feature that was working now,  for even more people  then just 9, I don't know about many people here, However due to the Pandemic this function is now a must, as well as more control restrictions for members joining the calls.( Little more in the style of Zoom, Or Webex) under Classroom team feature.

We have major schools, for students and staff alike screaming out now for this update to be rushed forward to now.

A lot of schools require this now!... please Microsoft... do something about it.

[#17]

@Jenny_T1450 Do you use the desktop client? If not download that and use see if you get four video streams in your meetings.

https://teams.microsoft.com/download

[#18]

Looks like Microsoft is speeding up the release of this feature due the recent number of votes on the uservoice request.
https://twitter.com/Microsoft365Pro/status/1244855001962500096?s=19

https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/17010055-show-video-for-all-pe...

[#19]

We use Teams at work for quick updates during the day with coworkers, but bosses like to see everyone in a meeting, so we use Zoom for staff meetings.

I really dislike using Zoom!

Please update Teams to have an "all participants" view. I thought Teams would be the end of third-party conferencing apps with meeting invites sent via email links, like Webex and Gotomeeting, but here we are with Zoom.

[#20]

@Tugsim I showed in the video how to set the Meeting Options before a meeting such that everyone other than the teachers join as attendees already.

[#21]

@Jenny_T1450 Install the Teams app rather than using the browser and you'll see 4 participants at a time.

[#22]

@Linus Cansby 

is there a button/icon to press so that i can toggle to the view of more than just my own video?