Get started with Teams webinars
Microsoft Teams webinars provide the tools to schedule your webinar, register attendees, run an interactive presentation, and analyze attendee data for effective follow-up.
How webinars are different from ordinary meetings
Ordinary meetings generally include a lot of back-and-forth among the participants: discussions, sharing, assigning and accepting tasks, making plans, maybe coming to a consensus.
Webinars, on the other hand, are more controlled, and the participants have clear roles: One or several experts (the presenters) share their ideas or provide training to an audience (the attendees).
Webinar steps
Before the webinar
The organizer:
Schedules the webinar well in advance, usually by several weeks.
Prepares a registration form that each prospective attendee must fill out before receiving the webinar join info.
The form can be used to gather all sorts of useful info for post-webinar sales contacts, for example, or for measuring training effectiveness.Sends out the webinar invite. If the webinar will feature additional presenters, the invite goes to them. (After this step, the registration link for potential attendees becomes active.)
Shares the event details and registration link with potential attendees. This can be on social media, on a web site, via email, or some other way.
Downloads the registration report for data about who registered and how they responded to the registration questions.
Attendees:
Register for the event.
Receive an email containing webinar info and the link to join it.
Note: People can join webinars on iOS and Android mobile and tablet devices, as well as on their computers.
During the webinar
When attendees select the Join link, they wait in the lobby until the organizer or a presenter lets them into the webinar.
In a public (open registration) webinar, attendee audio and video is turned off by default, and they can't share content.
The presenter controls audience participation. Polls may be used during the webinar to engage the audience and provide info for the presenter.
After the webinar
The organizer downloads the attendance report.
Who can schedule a webinar
By default, anyone who can schedule a Teams meeting can schedule a webinar. If you’re unable to schedule one, check with your IT admin.
Who can register for a webinar
By default anyone can register, but the IT admin can restrict registration to people in your org. You can also choose to restrict registration when you schedule the webinar.
Note: If you want to schedule a public webinar but can’t, contact your IT admin.