How can you start an instant meeting in Microsoft Teams

Catch up with an instant meeting

Have you found yourself wondering how to start a meeting in Microsoft Teams in one instant? Microsoft Teams’ Meet now function creates an instant meeting with others for when you need to turn a team conversation into a quick meeting. This option is great for users who communicate best while face to face, is faster than waiting for all participants to respond to a message in a team's channel or group chat, and is great for those without meeting scheduling rights to host a meeting as it’s available to everyone.

But starting an instant meeting in MS Teams is not the most formal approach to hosting a meeting and it doesn’t allow attendees a lot of time to prepare. So, if you have a long list of topics to cover, it’s best to organize a formal meeting first.

Different ways to meet

The Meet now option can be found in three locations: In the Calendar tab, and from a Team’s channel:

The Calendar Tab

You can find the Meet now option in the top right, next to the + New meeting button.
To start an instant meeting from the Calendar tab, you only need to select the Meet now option and then type the names of the teammates you would like to invite to the meeting, and then join it.

A team’s channel

There are three different ways you can activate the Meet now option from a team’s channel:

Option one: By selecting the Meet now option from the Meet drop-down menu in the top right corner of the channel. This option invites all team members from the channel.

Option two: By clicking on the Meet now icon under the message box of that channel. Selecting this option invites all members of the channel.

Option three: By clicking the Reply option from below any post in a team’s channel and selecting the Meet now icon. This option invites all team members from the channel, but lets you focus on specific posts that were shared.

Invitations to Meet now

There are two ways to invite people to the instant meeting you initiated from the Calendar tab: by personal invitation and by link.

- Personal invitation: After initiating a Meet now meeting and selecting Join now, you can send a personal invite to someone to join the instant meeting by navigating to the People pane in the top right corner and typing the name or phone number of a person or people you want to invite.

- Link: Once you have initiated a meeting from the Meet now option and selected Join now, you can provide users a link to join the instant meeting by navigating to the People pane and selecting the Copy for link in the top right corner and pasting it to a one-on-one or group chat or a different channel.

Instant success with quick catch-ups

Instant meetings are great when one-on-one or group (team) discussions should move a bit faster, if a comment needs clarity, or if you just want to hear from your colleagues in person rather than through messaging.

So, for a quick catch-up with your colleagues, grab a cup of coffee and try reaching them using the Meet now function in MS Teams.

If that doesn’t work, sign-up at 5miles for a free two-week trial now and continue learning about different meeting options through one of our four different Microsoft Teams tracks