Harrisburg University IT Helpdesk

    Starting in Spring 2022, HU has rolled out Microsoft Teams as the new virtual collaboration environment for undergraduate and graduate students.  With this change, a new Microsoft Team is created for each class to be used for virtual instruction and class/group collaboration. With this rollout we have received great feedback from faculty and identified some security issues that require some changes to how Teams meetings operate.  

One primary issue we have identified, is the ability to join Teams meetings as an anonymous or guest user without permission from the meeting organizer. This can cause issues with attendance reports and more importantly can lead to security issues within the meeting. 

The second identified issue is the ability of anonymous or guest users to perform advanced actions within a meeting such as muting others, sharing screen, and kicking users. Again, this can cause a frustrating experience for both instructors and students.

To strengthen the security of Microsoft Teams meetings, HU will roll out some new Teams meeting policies. These policies will restrict anonymous or guest users’ ability to join meetings without being admitted, and ability to use advanced features like mute others, start/stop recording, and screen sharing. These important changes will affect your Teams meeting experience so please familiarize yourself with these changes.

Important Note: 

          These changes only affect new Teams meetings and will not apply to any previously created Teams meeting or recurring meeting.  Additionally, these settings will apply to any meeting created including non-class meetings such as Outlook Teams meetings with external participants.  

          These changes will only affect anonymous or guest access to Teams meetings.  An anonymous or guest user is defined as someone who does not have an active HU account, or a user who joins a meeting without first signing-in to their HU account. 

          Organizers and attendees who join the meeting from their signed-in HU account will not be affected.

New Meeting Lobby Settings

• Any new Teams meeting will have the lobby turned on for anonymous or guest attendees by default. This setting will require any user who joins the Teams meeting, without an active signed in HU account, to wait in a virtual lobby until they are admitted.  In this virtual lobby, attendees can setup their camera/microphone settings, but cannot chat or talk with other attendees.  Once the meeting organizer has joined the meeting, they can view the lobby to admit any waiting anonymous or guest users. Any anonymous or guest attendee who arrives late will trigger a popup where the organizer can admit entry.   Below is an example of the lobby experience for anonymous or guest users.

Anonymous or Guest Attendee viewpoint

1. Join the meeting – The attendee will still join the meeting through the normal methods of joining via Teams, calendar, or email.
2. Wait to be admitted – Once the meeting has opened, the attendee will sit in the virtual lobby.   There will be a message on screen informing them that the meeting organizer will be notified and will need to let them in. 

1. Admitted – Once admitted by the meeting organizer, the attendee will join the meeting with no further action required.

Meeting Organizer viewpoint

1. Start the meeting – Open the meeting through the normal methods or joining via Teams, calendar, or email.
2. View Lobby – Once in the meeting, the organizer will see a purple window indicating there are guests waiting to be admitted.  Clicking the view lobby button will open the participants panel where they can admit attendees one by one or all at once using the ‘Admit all’ button.   

1. Late attendees – After admitting the attendees in the lobby, the meeting organizer will see a popup to admit any late arrivals.  

New Meeting Anonymous Attendee Restrictions

• Any new Teams meeting created will only grant presenter permissions to users with active and signed in HU accounts. This will remove any anonymous or guest attendees’ permission to mute others in the meeting, start/stop recordings, and share their screen.  These policies are intended to prevent anonymous or guest users from interrupting the meeting, however, are restrictive to collaboration.  Fortunately, there are methods to allow these users to present or be promoted to a more administrative role in the meeting.   Below is an example of the new meeting permissions.

Anonymous or Guest Attendee viewpoint

• The attendee will still be able to view and share their camera and microphone as normally expected, however, they will notice a few options are missing. Notably the share screen button, chat button, and recording button will be gray.

Meeting Organizer viewpoint

• The meeting organizer and other HU participants will still have the normal capabilities of share screen, start/stop recording, mute others, and more. 
• If an attendee wants to share their screen the meeting organizer must “promote” the attendee to presenter.  To promote, find the participants pane and then the user you want to make a presenter.  Hover over the users name and ‘3 dots’ will appear to the right.  Click the ‘3 dots’ button to see more actions, then select ‘Make a presenter’. 

• Choose ‘Change’ in the popup window, confirming you want to promote the attendee to presenter.

• Once promoted to presenter, the attendee will be notified via a banner message and can now share their screen. 

Important Notes on these Changes

• While very helpful in controlling your Teams meeting experience, some of these settings can feel restrictive for collaboration outside of the HU community.  Also, due to current limitations, this policy is applied to all Teams meetings created by teaching faculty, inside or outside of a course.  This will include any Teams meeting scheduled by teaching faculty via Outlook, Teams calendar, or Teams channel meeting.  
• Not all meetings created will require this level of security, and there are methods in place to remove these settings from your Teams meeting outlined below.

Changing Meeting Options before joining a Teams meeting

• The meeting organizer can remove the lobby and presenter restrictions by changing the Teams meeting options.  To change the meeting options before joining, follow the steps below.

1. Open the meeting details – Find the Teams meeting either in Outlook or the Teams Calendar.  In Teams or Outlook, go to the calendar tab, then double click the meeting.  In the meeting details window, where you can edit the meeting name, date/time, attendees, find the ‘Meeting options’ button.   In Teams it will appear up top.  In Outlook it will appear below the meeting details. 

Outlook above, Teams below

1. Change options in meeting details – Clicking the meeting options button will open a browser page.  In this page, change ‘Who can bypass the lobby?’ to ‘Everyone’ and ‘Who can present?’ to ‘Everyone’.  

Changing Meeting Options while in a Teams meeting

• The meeting organizer can remove the lobby and presenter restrictions by changing the Teams meeting options while in the Teams meeting.  To change the meeting options in a Teams meeting, follow the steps below.

1. Find meeting options in the Teams meeting – In the Teams meeting, click the ‘3 dots’ button to the left of the camera and microphone buttons.  In the more action menu, select the ‘meeting options’ button.   

1. Change options in meeting details - In this panel, change ‘Who can bypass the lobby?’ to ‘Everyone’ and ‘Who can present?’ to ‘Everyone’.