Microsoft Teams Live Event (Preview)

As you know Microsoft Teams delivers chat-based collaboration, calling, meetings etc. Microsoft has added Teams live event to expand the audience of Teams meetings. Currently Teams live event is in preview. If you have already used Skype meeting broadcast, then you will easily get use to with Teams live event.

Microsoft Teams live event is next version of Skype Meeting Broadcast and it will eventually replace the capabilities provided in Skype Meeting Broadcast.

Microsoft is going to continue support Skype Meeting Broadcast, with no disruption in service for new or future events. Since Teams live events are going to replace Skype Meeting Broadcast, you must try out Teams Live events to get prepared for Teams live events.

What is Microsoft Teams Live events?

Microsoft Teams live events is an extension of Teams meetings, enabling users to broadcast video and meeting content to a large online audience. Live event for broadcasting means one-to-many communications where the host of the event is leading the interactions and the audience participation is primarily to view the content shared by host.

Microsoft Teams provides the ability for the organizers to create a live event with the appropriate attendee permissions, designate event team members, select production method to invite attendees.

You can host Teams live event with two ways:

1. Quick start – This is easiest way to produce live meeting. Simply use laptop to produce the live event using Teams meetings, a lightweight option to create the event and invite remote presenters and panelists to participate. This type of live event doesn’t require big planning or external hardware. Refer below image.
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3. External encoder – This method is typically used in auditorium events, such as town halls, where a stream from a media mixer is broadcast to the audience. To Produce the live event using an external hardware or software encoder via Microsoft Stream. This type of live event does require planning and professional camera and sound setup with external hardware/ software. 
4. 

How attendees can watch live event?

With Teams live event you get opportunity to watch live event using different ways. Like, attendees can watch the live or recorded event in Yammer, Teams, and/or Microsoft Stream, and attendees can interact with the presenters via moderated Q & A or Yammer conversation.

What are the group role available for Teams live event?

Here is list of roles and their responsibility for Live event.

What is pre-requisite to create live event?

First you need to check if you are eligible to create live events, currently live event is in preview in regions, NOAM, APAC, EMEA, and Go Local Canada. In order to create live event, you must have following:

• Users should have Office 365 Enterprise E3 or E5 license assigned with Microsoft Teams.
• User is enabled for Microsoft Teams, Skype for Business Online, and Microsoft Stream.
• User is enabled for private meeting scheduling in Teams (TeamsMeetingPolicy-AllowPrivateMeetingScheduling is set to True).
• User is enabled for live event scheduling in Teams (TeamsMeetingBroadcastPolicy-AllowBroadcastScheduling is set to True). You can add permission to create live events via Microsoft Teams admin center as well.
• User must have permission to create live events in Microsoft Stream (for external encoder events).
• Person must not be a guest or from another organization.
• Live events require private meeting scheduling to be turned on in Team meeting policy.
• Skype for Business Online license enabled is a requirement to use Teams live events.

Who can attend live events?

As I mentioned earlier there are two types for events one quick start event and second is external encoder events, so there are different attendees can join these live events.

• Quick start events:

Anonymous users and authenticated Office 365 users with any license that includes Teams can join this type of events.

Also, organizer can customize event by allowing event recording for download, allowing video on demand and Q and A to the event.

• External encoder events:

Any authenticated Office 365 users with any license that includes Microsoft Stream, can join this type of events. Also, organizer can customize this type of by allowing video on demand and allow attendee to participate via Q & A to the event.

There are different live event permissions:

o   People and group: Only the specified people and groups can watch the live event, this event consider as restricted event.

o   Org-wide: everyone in your org can watch the live meeting (Sign-in required), this is close event for internal people who has sign-in information.

o   Public: This kind of live event will be open to anyone. Use when most of the attendees are outside your organization (no sign-in required), you can refer below image.

Thank you.