With the pandemic crisis the world is facing right now, a lot of organizations have been making the shift to workstream collaboration apps, and it can be hard to make a smooth transition. Some people don’t even feel comfortable with the virtual meeting setup as they feel it is too restrictive. But once you get acquainted with all the features of the app, you’ll realize that good collaboration apps have a lot to offer and are deemed the future workplace communication medium for a reason.

Microsoft Teams is one of the leading WSC apps and is loaded with features to make virtual meetings and collaboration as seamless for users as can be. Hosting meetings on Microsoft Teams is as simple as that. Most users take notes while in a meeting and for many people, that means opening another app like Word, or such. But Teams meetings have a gem that not all people are aware of. You can take notes in a Microsoft Teams meeting straight from the app using the app’s in-built ‘Meeting Notes’ feature.

What is Meeting Notes in Microsoft Teams?

Meeting Notes in Teams is a great way to capture every detail about your meetings on the platform. You can take and access notes before, during, and after a meeting in Teams. But there are a few facts about notes you should know.

  • Only the people who are part of the organization can start or access Meeting Notes. That means anyone who joined as a guest cannot access notes.
  • Meeting Notes isn’t available if a meeting has more than 20 people.
  • You can only access notes if you were invited to the meeting before notes were created.

For recurring meetings, the notes carry on for all the meetings. Each meeting becomes a new section in Notes.

Taking Notes Before a Meeting Starts

You can take notes for a meeting before it has even started. Go to ‘Calendar’ from the navigation bar on the left.

Then, click on the meeting you want to take notes for.

The meeting details page will open. Click on the ‘Meeting notes’ tab at the top.

Then, click the ‘Take Notes’ button to create notes for the meeting.

Now, you can add meeting agenda or other important points for the meeting. Use the ‘@’ in notes to mention other people to add something specifically for them. You can also use the formatting options at the top to format the text in notes.

There can be separate sections in notes. Click on the ‘+’ icon to create a new section.

Note: Currently, the notes can be accessed beforehand only for those meetings that don’t take place in a channel.

Taking Notes in an Ongoing Meeting

You can add notes during a meeting so that you don’t miss out on anything important. Click on the ‘More options’ (three dots) icon, then select ‘Show Meeting notes’ option.

The notes would appear on the right of the screen. If you haven’t taken notes for this meeting before, the screen would display ‘Go ahead and start taking notes!’ Click on the ‘Take notes’ option to start taking notes.

Otherwise, the notes would just open and you can start typing straightaway.

Taking Notes After a Meeting Ends

For a channel meeting, go to the channel where the meeting occurred. Click on Teams on the navigation bar on the left and then select the channel from the list of teams.

Then go to the post about the meeting, and click on ‘Show notes in full screen’ to view and edit the notes.

For a private meeting, go to Chats from the navigation bar on the left, and find the meeting chat in the list of chats.

Then, click on the ‘Meeting Notes’ tab on the top of the chat screen to access meeting notes for the private meeting.

Microsoft Teams allows users to take notes for meetings. Meeting Notes are a great feature that you can use to capture meeting objectives, agendas, important discussion points, or any other actions. One great thing about them is that they can be accessed before, during and even after the meeting. So, keep all your notes in one place while sharing them with your colleagues.