The Covid pandemic has caused a worldwide surge of work from home. Working remotely is, of course, very convenient, and as a matter of fact, many people who have never worked remotely before are now saying they just don’t fancy returning to the office. And now that many of us are working remotely, certain things are, however, harder to pull off logistically. That includes team meetings. How do you organize a team meeting if your workers all live hundreds of kilometers away from each other?
Luckily, the solution to this problem turns out to be quite simple, and it’s online video meetings. Thanks to the Internet and the development of new, video-based communication tools, we can now host a virtual meeting from the comfort of our home. There are various apps and services perfect for just that, such as Microsoft Teams and Stork, that do not only offer you the capability of hosting a video conference, but you can also record meetings and watch them again later, which will allow you to analyze the new ideas the team came up with, and make more complex notes.
In today’s article, we will be focusing on just that. Going further, you’ll learn how to do this on various devices, who can actually record those meetings, and why you should do that. The most important question is, however, whether Microsoft Teams really is the best tool to do this?
Benefits of video meetings recording
For now, we'll focus on why it’s always a good idea to have your team meeting recorded. There are various, vastly different reasons, so let us go over them one by one.
No one will have to skip the meeting
It’s understandable that sometimes a worker can’t be present during the team meeting, especially when family or health are the issues at play. However, when you record meetings, you can then download the clip, and provide it to the workers who couldn't attend. That way, they won’t be left out, and will still be able to participate in the project and pitch new ideas.
Avoid losing or forgetting details
It’s not a secret that sometimes our ability to memorize things fails us. Often we forget things we discussed just a few hours ago! Thankfully, with a meeting recording, we can always refresh our memories by going back to watch the video of the previous meeting. Also, keep in mind that a simple audio meeting recording won’t do the trick as it’ll lack the important visual cues and presentations that happened during the Teams meeting. The only way of capturing a virtual meeting in a satisfying and honest way is to record both audio and video.
Use recordings to brief new members of the team
Surely, you know that during even a single project new members can join the team, while old members leave to pursue other goals. To maintain productivity, it is important that new workers are introduced to the general concepts of what they’ll be working on in a fast and convenient way. A Microsoft Teams recording will do just fine - and some others might do even better.
Gain new insights, both on the team and the project
Recording, and then reviewing Microsoft Teams meetings recordings will help you gain new insights, which you would have often missed had the meeting been held behind closed doors. You’ll be able to reflect on how the Teams meeting was conducted, how much the team members established during that time and note the general morale and friendship of the team. Non-verbal language is exactly as important as the spoken one, and reviewing a Team's meeting will help you notice the visual cues indicating the relationship between members. Remember - if the team morale or relationship is weak, the project will prove harder to finish and less effective.
Of course, these are hardly all the reasons why you should start recording your Team's meeting ASAP; these are simply our picks for some pretty important ones, so feel free to disagree with them or add some of your own to this list. For now, though, let us continue with our guide. The next question is “How do I actually record a Microsoft Teams meeting?”.
How to record teams meeting from different devices
The good news is that you can easily record a Microsoft Teams meeting, no matter what device you are using, even if you only have access to the basic, free version of the tool.
The only people capable of doing meeting recordings are you and the people in your company. The only exception is when a participant from another company or organization has a policy for compliance recordings. In such a case, they will be able to start or stop recording at any given moment, to the extent described by the compliance policy.
Furthermore, each person wanting to record the meeting must have one of the following business subscriptions: Office 365 Enterprise E1, E3, E5, F3, A1, A3, A5, M365 Business, Business Premium, or Business Essentials. Any person wishing to start recording must first be approved by an IT admin designated by the Organization hosting the meeting.
Windows
Did you know that there’s a way for you to record a Microsoft Teams meeting without anyone finding out? To do this, you’ll need a screen recording app. For this guide, we're going with iTop Screen Recorder, but feel free to choose any app that you wish.
- Open the iTop Screen Recorder
- Choose a recording mode - full screen, select region-only, etc.
- Customize the recording settings to your liking
- Press the “rec” button to start your recording
- Upon stopping the recording, the file will save automatically - you can find it in “My Creations”
Choosing this method will make you anonymous. You will, most likely, have to spend quite some time researching the correct recording settings, so you better test the app before the meeting.
Mac
To record a Microsoft Teams meeting while using Mac, you can also follow the steps described for the Windows version. Alternatively, you may want to use a different screen recorder app. Don’t worry, there are different options available, such as the Vidmore Screen Recorder, or the EaseUS recorder. Once again, using a third-party recorder also means no other member will be notified of you starting and stopping the recording, which will no doubt be a huge relief for some. Here’s a quick guide on how to do this using the aforementioned Vidmore Screen Recorder.
- Launch the app - there will be 3 available options to choose from: video recorder, audio recorder, and game recorder. You, of course, should pick “video recorder”
- Choose the recording region by clicking “customize"
- Choose “record audio from computer” rather than the microphone
- Press REC to begin the recording - keep in mind that the app will only record the chosen region of the screen
- When you’re finished, simply click the “stop” button
- You’ll be able to preview and save the file
Don’t worry - using a video recorder is completely safe and anonymous.
Desktop App
Of course, you can also record the meeting thanks to the Microsoft Teams desktop app provided by Microsoft. This is the “standard” and free way of doing things, but, keep in mind, there are some quite important limitations which we’ve described earlier. For instance, a meeting recording like this is NOT anonymous!
To start the meeting recording, you must first join one, so do just that. Next, upon entering the meeting you wish to record, make sure you have been given the ability to record the screen by your organization’s IT admin. Now, here’s what you’ll want to do:
- Upon joining a meeting, click on the three horizontal dots at the top of the window
- From the available list, select “start recording”
- You (and everyone else) will get a notification confirming that the recording has been started
- Keep in mind that starting a recording will also begin live transcription
Well, that’s what you have to do to start recording. What if you want to stop
recording further? Don’t worry - all you have to do is this:
- Once again click on the three horizontal dots
- Select “stop recording” or “stop transcription”, if you just want to stop this process
Keep in mind that stopping the transcription doesn't stop further meeting recording. To do that after you’ve stopped the transcription process, you’ll just have to repeat the two steps described above.
Excellent - now you know how to record a Microsoft Teams meeting via the official app. Let’s now move to mobile platforms.
Phone
You can record your teams meeting via mobile devices, too and it does not matter whether your phone runs on Android or iOS operating system. Right now, the safest way to do this is via the official app, which is why this is the method we’ll be describing. You can try using 3rd party screen recorders, but we can’t guarantee they’ll work as well as on your PC/Mac computer. Keep in mind that the same “limitations” that the official MS teams PC app has still apply here.
On iOS and Android, do the following to record your meeting:
- To begin recording, open the app and go to meeting controls. There, click on the three horizontal dots, and then click “Start recording”
- You and everyone else will be notified that the recording has started
- To stop your recording go to meeting controls, click on the three horizontal dots, and select “stop recording”
- The recording will be saved to Microsoft Stream before it becomes available for playback
This about sums up the various methods you can record your Microsoft Teams meeting. However, there is one more question we haven’t touched on yet: is MS Teams really the best choice for hosting and recording your meetings?
How to record video meetings and transcribe them with Stork
When it comes to keeping track of your online meetings, another option to use is Stork. It is yet another app made for hosting and recording company meetings - and, best of all, you can get its basic version for free from the official website. Stork offers pretty much the same services that Microsoft Teams does, albeit in a more convenient way. And, when it comes to recording and transcribing your meetings, it is pretty much leagues ahead of its major competitors. Why is that, you ask?
Note the title of this paragraph - it’s “how to record video meetings and transcribe them with Stork.” Well, how do you do that? The answer is incredibly simple. You don’t have to do anything.
With Stork, all meetings are automatically recorded and transcribed, without you having to give the app any commands, or using third-party screen recorders. The moment you start or join a meeting, the recording and transcription also start. This means:
- You don’t have to manually start and stop the recording
- There is no need to download any 3rd party apps
- You don’t have to be granted special access to get access to the meetings
- Likewise, if you are a host or organizer, you don’t have to manually approve every single team member, unless you use a private channel
- Stork can also record and transcribe private calls if that is what you want
After saving them, your recordings are available to playback at any given moment, and from any device. You can use the browser version of Stork, or download the official app available for Windows, Mac, Android, or iPhone devices. We heavily recommend you go ahead and give it a try completely free of charge.
