Scheduling a Meeting on MS Teams

[jackofall84]

I work for a fairly small Company (around 10 people) and I undertake some of the IT stuff. We use Teams as our main Video calling app and it works ok for the most part. However we cannot schedule meetings. I've been trying to find a solution for this, and it looks like as we all use old (office 2013) standalone licences this option isn't available. Does anybody know if that's correct or if there's a way around it?

[Radec]

I normally do it through the calendar and Teams meeting option from Outlook.

However on Teams if you click on the calendar icon in the left toolbar there should be an option for schedule meeting at the top right where you can create one too.

Is this option not showing for you?

[Mr Pointy]

This is what mine looks like in Teams:



You can do it from Outlook as said, but this is 365 so maybe not in 2013:

[jackofall84]

No, We don't have the calendar icon on the left hand column of apps and if you try to schedule the meeting through the outlook calendar it comes up with 'Sorry, but we can't connect to the server right now. Please try again later.'

[HappyMidget]

I would think you would need at least an E3 M365 license per user. Think they are about £5pm per user.

[jackofall84]

HappyMidget said:

I would think you would need at least an E3 M365 license per user. Think they are about £5pm per user.

I think you're probably right, I was hoping somebody might know a workaround as my MD doesn't want to pay for monthly 365 licences for everyone.

[bitchstewie]

jackofall84 said:

I think you're probably right, I was hoping somebody might know a workaround as my MD doesn't want to pay for monthly 365 licences for everyone.

I never get the sort of MD who's happy to pay 10 salaries but thinks a tenner a month for enterprise class productivity tools is too much money.

365 Business Pricing

[HantsRat]

Do you have any Microsoft Licences? Are the mailboxes Microsoft? If so even the basic business package which is £4 something a month would allow users to schedule meetings and use Teams.

[jackofall84]

bhstewie said:

I never get the sort of MD who's happy to pay 10 salaries but thinks a tenner a month for enterprise class productivity tools is too much money.

365 Business Pricing

He's a great boss on the one hand, flexibility and working from home are never a problem and we get some very interesting projects here (what keeps me interested in staying here and not moving on) and he's pretty good at looking the other way when mistakes happen. Parting with cash is definitely not one of his strong points though!

[jackofall84]

HantsRat said:

Do you have any Microsoft Licences? Are the mailboxes Microsoft? If so even the basic business package which is £4 something a month would allow users to schedule meetings and use Teams.

Our mail servers are not Microsoft, the current licences are from standalone office packages such as office 2013.

[bitchstewie]

jackofall84 said:

He's a great boss on the one hand, flexibility and working from home are never a problem and we get some very interesting projects here (what keeps me interested in staying here and not moving on) and he's pretty good at looking the other way when mistakes happen. Parting with cash is definitely not one of his strong points though!

Pretty common story.

I'd get a 365 trial as from what you've said so far it should sell itself and even the lowest tiers give you a ton of functionality that make everyone's lives so much simpler.

How are you doing email and collaboration internally and externally right now?

[vaud]

jackofall84 said:

He's a great boss on the one hand, flexibility and working from home are never a problem and we get some very interesting projects here (what keeps me interested in staying here and not moving on) and he's pretty good at looking the other way when mistakes happen. Parting with cash is definitely not one of his strong points though!

He would be delighted at the outputs of the increased collaboration + tooling. Ask him for a trial with a small user group.

[Mr Pointy]

I'd say 10 users on 365 is a no brainer really & once you get Teams working properly productivity will go up as it's way more than a video calling app. It's not perfect, but it's incredibly useful for groups. If nothing else 365 will give you more control of email.

[vaud]

Mr Pointy said:

I'd say 10 users on 365 is a no brainer really & once you get Teams working properly productivity will go up as it's way more than a video calling app. It's not perfect, but it's incredibly useful for groups. If nothing else 365 will give you more control of email.

And probably compliance, resilience, etc. I'm not the biggest MS fan but 365 is pretty good.

[paulrockliffe]

You can guarantee that a business run like that is doing absolutely stacks of stuff that could be automated, simplified, replaced or go rid of entirely with a proper O365 setup. Even if you did nothing but setup Power Automate to post Chat messages to Teams when people do stuff it'll pay for itself.

I have an E5 tenant that I don't pay for, but if that stops I'll pay for it just for personal use, I can't imagine doing something commercial and not underpinning it with cheap easy productivity.

[vaud]

paulrockliffe said:

You can guarantee that a business run like that is doing absolutely stacks of stuff that could be automated, simplified, replaced or go rid of entirely with a proper O365 setup. Even if you did nothing but setup Power Automate to post Chat messages to Teams when people do stuff it'll pay for itself.

I have an E5 tenant that I don't pay for, but if that stops I'll pay for it just for personal use, I can't imagine doing something commercial and not underpinning it with cheap easy productivity.

Indeed.

It's how you change the mindset of an MD like that from "extra cost" to "productivity and efficiency gains"

[Sheepshanks]

HappyMidget said:

I would think you would need at least an E3 M365 license per user. Think they are about £5pm per user.

I might be missing something here but they're £20+, aren't they?

[bitchstewie]

Sheepshanks said:

I might be missing something here but they're £20+, aren't they?

E3 yes but there are plenty of cheaper packages that give you tons of functionality from as little as a fiver or whatever it was.

Really it’s a no brained for what it gives you.

[Alex Z]

Business Standard is £10 a month. You can very easily get ten quids worth of productivity benefits from that without trying.

[sociopath]

When a business is doing well, the boss will tell you they don't need to upgrade IT as they're doing fine without it.

When a business is doing badly, the boss will tell you they don't can't upgrade IT as it is too expensive.

I'm glad I retired.