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About this lesson

Create shared meeting notes before or after the meeting commences. 

Quick reference

Meeting Notes

Take notes before or during a meeting and make them available to all meeting participants. 

When to use

We take notes whenever we want to document a meeting and share the notes with others. 

Instructions

Meeting notes are a useful way to document what's said at a meeting. Prior to Teams, we may have done this manually using a pen and notepad but now we can take digital notes in Teams and collaborate on them with other meeting participants. 

Set up Meeting Notes prior to a Meeting

Meeting notes can be created prior to the meeting commencing and made available to all meeting participants. Anyone invited to the meeting can view and edit the meeting notes, adding their own items if required. 

  • Open the meeting from the calendar. 
  • Click the Meeting notes tab. 
  • Click the Take notes button. 

We can now prepare our meeting notes. We can format the notes using the format toolbar above. We can also add sections to our notes by clicking the plus (+) symbol. 

All meeting participants can add their own items and ideas to the notes prior to the meeting commencing. 

Access Notes in a Meeting

If we prepared notes prior to the meeting commencing, we can access them in the meeting. 

  • Join the meeting. 
  • Click the three dots in the navigation bar. 
  • Select Meeting notes. 

Anyone on the call can add items to the meeting notes. If someone is editing a section of the notes, it will be locked until they are finished. 

Access Notes after the Meeting

Meeting notes can be accessed after the meeting has finished. 

  • Go to Chat. 
  • Select the meeting from the Chat log. 
  • Click the Meeting notes tab. 

Hints & tips

  • Only people in the same organization as the meeting organizer will be able to create notes. 
  • Meeting notes are only available in meetings of up to 100 people. 
  • Only people initially invited to the meeting will be able to view and edit meeting notes. 
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  • 00:04 Meeting Notes are a way to capture and share notes before,
  • 00:08 during, and after a team's meeting.
  • 00:11 And I know that when I'm in a meeting, I write a lot of notes.
  • 00:16 And prior to Teams,
  • 00:17 the way I would do that is I would simply take a notebook with me.
  • 00:21 However, it's a lot more beneficial to use the Meeting Notes feature in Teams.
  • 00:26 Because it means that everybody who's part of that meeting can collaborate and
  • 00:30 add to the notes when they're in the meeting.
  • 00:33 And also view those notes once the meeting has finished.
  • 00:37 So, let's take a look at this feature.
  • 00:39 Now, there are a few different ways that you can use Meeting Notes.
  • 00:42 The first way is you can set up Meeting Notes prior to the meeting commencing.
  • 00:48 And it means that everybody who is invited to that meeting can
  • 00:51 take a look at the notes and review them prior to the meeting,
  • 00:55 and also add anything that they'd like to add to discuss in the meeting.
  • 00:59 So what I have on the screen here is just a meeting that I'm setting up,
  • 01:03 it's a brand new meeting, the Marketing Team Catch-Up.
  • 01:07 So I'm going to send this invite out to Olivia, Ben, and James.
  • 01:11 So let's click on Send in the top corner.
  • 01:14 Now this meeting hasn't started yet, so
  • 01:16 what I can then do is reopen up this meeting.
  • 01:19 And notice at the top here, we have a Meeting notes tab.
  • 01:23 So if I click on this and click the button in the middle that says Take notes,
  • 01:28 I can now prepare Meeting notes ahead of the meeting commencing.
  • 01:33 And this is a really nice way of capturing notes.
  • 01:36 So maybe at the top here I want to add a title, and then I can add in some notes.
  • 01:43 Now notice as soon as I start typing,
  • 01:45 I then get a formatting ribbon running across the top.
  • 01:48 So if I want to bold things, make things italic, highlight things,
  • 01:52 change the font color, even add things like bullet points and numbered lists,
  • 01:57 I can definitely do that from here as well.
  • 01:59 I can even add tables and links into my Meeting notes.
  • 02:03 And one of the really cool things and
  • 02:05 one of the things that I really like about Meeting notes in Teams.
  • 02:07 Is the ability to add different sections to give your notes a bit of structure and
  • 02:12 just organise them.
  • 02:13 And this is particularly important if you have a very large set of Meeting notes.
  • 02:18 So if I want to add a new section into my notes, notice underneath we have this +,
  • 02:23 if I click it, I'm going to get a brand new section.
  • 02:27 So maybe I want this to say meeting,
  • 02:34 Minutes, and let's just add a very quick bullet pointed list.
  • 02:37 So we're going to go up to our formatting, we're going to add a bulleted list and
  • 02:40 we'll just put in here.
  • 02:41 Item 1, item 2, item 3 and item 4.
  • 02:48 So now that I have these notes set up, I could join this meeting.
  • 02:52 So if we click Join in the top right hand corner,
  • 02:54 it's going to jump me into the meeting.
  • 02:57 There I am again, hello, let's turn off my camera.
  • 03:00 Let's click on Join now, and
  • 03:03 I can reassess these notes from within the meeting.
  • 03:07 Now notice here, it's saying waiting for others to join.
  • 03:09 So we'll just give it a couple of seconds because I think Olivia is
  • 03:13 probably going to be the first one to join this meeting, she normally is.
  • 03:17 And here she is.
  • 03:18 So now if I want to access those notes when I'm in the meeting,
  • 03:22 all I need to do is click the three dots for more actions.
  • 03:26 And we have Meeting Notes just here.
  • 03:28 And that's going to open up my meeting notes in the Teams chat area.
  • 03:34 And now all participants who are members of this call can add their own
  • 03:39 things into these meeting notes.
  • 03:41 So Olivia could access the meeting notes in exactly
  • 03:44 the same way that I have just here and add her own items.
  • 03:48 Now notice, as soon as Olivia starts typing something into these notes,
  • 03:52 is coming up section locked if I try and edit anything.
  • 03:55 And as soon as Olivia comes out of her notes, I can then see her update.
  • 04:00 So you can see at the bottom, we have Olivia's comments.
  • 04:03 So that is how you can set up Meeting Notes prior to the meeting commencing and
  • 04:08 then work on them when you're in a meeting.
  • 04:11 Now what happens after the meeting is over?
  • 04:14 How can we access those meeting notes?
  • 04:17 Well, let's end the meeting.
  • 04:20 And as you would expect, we can find them in the Meeting Notes tab in the chat area.
  • 04:27 So at the top here, you can see Marketing Team Catch-up.
  • 04:30 I have a choice, I can rejoin that meeting if I want to, but
  • 04:33 this is where we're going to find all of the meeting notes.
  • 04:37 So everybody who was part of that meeting can jump in and access those notes.
  • 04:42 So, it's a really nice collaborative way of working.
  • 04:46 Now just a final few things to bear in mind when you're working with
  • 04:49 Meeting Notes.
  • 04:50 Only people in the same organization as the meeting organizer will be able
  • 04:55 to create or access the Meeting Notes.
  • 04:57 And Meeting Notes are available in meetings of up to 100 people.
  • 05:03 And only the people who were initially invited to the meeting will have
  • 05:07 access to the meeting notes.
  • 05:09 So if somebody other than the three people that I've invited into this meeting,
  • 05:14 if we add another participant when we're in the meeting,
  • 05:17 they're not going to have access to the meeting notes initially.
  • 05:21 They can request access to the notes afterwards, and
  • 05:25 the owner of the notes will be notified via Email.
  • 05:28 So just a few things to bear in mind there when you're working with meeting notes.

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