M365 Changelog: Improvements in managing attendee audio in Microsoft Teams Meetings

MC246704 – Teams meeting organizers and presenters who use the attendee audio management feature will have greater flexibility to determine when attendees can use their microphone.

These updates apply to Teams desktop apps, Teams mobile apps, and Teams on the web.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 80261.

When this will happen

• Rollout will begin with production and GCC tenants in early April and should be complete by late April.
• Rollout will begin to GCCH and DOD tenants in early May and should be complete by late May.

How this will affect your organization

After scheduling a meeting and sending invitations, the meeting organizer can prevent attendees from unmuting during the meeting. With this setting enabled, all attendees (but not presenters) will be muted when they join the meeting and they won’t be able to unmute themselves.

In the current state, attendees must raise their hand to request to speak before a meeting organizer or presenter can allow the attendee to unmute.

• With this update, an organizer or presenter can enable the mic of an attendee by selecting “Allow to unmute” for an attendee who can’t unmute, whether or not that person has raised their hand.

In the current state, in order to prevent an individual attendee from unmuting (thereby disabling the attendee’s mic), a meeting organizer or presenter must prevent all attendees from unmuting.

• With this update, the organizer or presenter can disable an individual attendee’s ability to use their microphone by selecting “Don’t allow to unmute” for that attendee. Later, they may enable the microphone for that attendee by selecting “Allow to unmute” on the attendee.

Organizers and presenters cannot prevent attendees who dial in to a meeting using the phone number provided in the meeting details from unmuting. This functionality is in development. Further, organizers and presenters joining from Teams meeting room devices still cannot modify attendee ability to use their microphone.

What you need to do to prepare

You might want to notify your users about this new capability and update your training and documentation as appropriate.

Learn more

The Manage attendee audio permissions in Teams meetings support document will be updated once these improvements are released.