Last Updated March 10, 2025
Microsoft Teams does not have a Personal Meeting Room, so the recommended method when hosting virtual Office Hours would be to create a standing, recurring meeting during your office hours. Because the meeting will be recurring, the meeting link will not change.
Terms to Know
Recurring / Series - a way to schedule a meeting with the same details to occur on multiple days
Meeting Link - a link that a person can click to join a Teams meeting
Organizer - the organizer of a meeting is the person who schedules the meeting (in this case, the faculty member)
Attendee - a person who is joining a meeting hosted by an Organizer (in this case, a student)
Lobby - a virtual space for attendees to wait, where they cannot see or hear any details of the meeting taking place until they are permitted entry into the meeting
Note: if you have office hours on multiple days, but they do not occur at the same time every day, (Example: Office Hours Monday 2-4, Tuesday 1-3), then each day with a different time will need its own meeting, which will generate its own link.
Creating the Meeting
Open Microsoft Teams and go to the Calendar tab
Click “+ New Meeting” in the top right corner
Set the details of the meeting to include a title, and the preferred Date/Time. Make sure that the “Online meeting” option is toggled “on” in the Location field, so that a meeting link will generate.
Locate the “recurrence” field, which is a drop-down menu that says “Does not repeat.” Select this drop-down menu, and choose “Custom.”
Set the repeat depending on when your office hours occur. For example, if you have office hours on Tuesdays and Fridays from 2-4, you will set the recurrence as “Repeat every [1] [Week],” which will give you the option to select the days of the week. These meetings can repeat indefinitely, or you can set an “End Date.” As a best practice, it is recommended to set an End Date for the end of the semester. When you are satisfied with the recurrence, click “Save.”
During Office Hours, students sometimes bring up private concerns. As a best practice, it is recommended that you utilize the “Lobby” feature when setting up these meetings. This will make it so that students wait in the Lobby until you admit them into the meeting. To do this, on the right-hand side locate the “Who can bypass the lobby” drop-down menu, and select the option labeled “Only organizers and co-organizers.”
Check that all of your meeting details are set as you wish, then click ‘Save’ in the top right corner.
You should now see the Office Hours meeting on your Teams calendar.
Sharing the Link
Locate the meeting on your Teams Calendar and click it once to see an abbreviated view of the details.
Locate the link and click the “copy” icon on the right-hand side of the link. The meeting link has now been copied to your clipboard.
Paste the link (Ctrl+V or Cmd+V) in a location easily accessible to your students, such as in your Syllabus next to where your Office Hour availability is listed, or in an Announcement on Canvas.
Letting Students into the Office Hours meeting
If you followed the instructions in Step 6 above, your meeting is set up so that any potential Attendee is sent to the Lobby first, before they can enter your meeting. To allow an attendee into the meeting, follow the steps below.
Join your meeting.
Select “People” from the Ribbon in your meeting window
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In the menu that appears, if you have a student waiting in your lobby, you should see two sections: “Waiting in the lobby” and “In this meeting.” Under Waiting in the lobby:
Select the check mark next to someone’s name to admit them.
Select the X next to someone’s name to remove them.
Select Admit all to let everyone in from the lobby. This option will only appear if you have more than one person in the lobby at once.
Depending on your selection of the check mark or the X, the attendee should now be in your meeting.
