How to Schedule a Meeting in Teams (and Set It Up Properly)

You can set up a Teams meeting without ever opening Outlook. The Teams calendar creates the invite, adds the join link and emails everyone for you.

1. Open Teams and click Calendar on the left.
2. Click New meeting at the top right (or just click an empty slot in the calendar).
3. Give it a title.
4. Under Add required attendees, type names or email addresses. Anyone outside your organisation gets an invite by email.
5. Set the date, start and end time.
6. Add a location if some people are meeting in a room, and type an agenda in the box at the bottom.
7. Click Send.

Everyone receives a calendar invite with a Join link, and the meeting appears in your Teams and Outlook calendars.

Click the box that says Does not repeat and choose Every weekday, Weekly, Monthly or Custom. One invite covers the whole series, and the join link stays the same every time.

Click the Scheduling Assistant tab at the top of the new meeting form. It shows everyone's calendar side by side, so you can drag the meeting to a time when nobody is busy. (This only works for people in your organisation.)

If the meeting is for a whole team, click Add channel and pick one. The meeting is posted in the channel, every member can join, and the recording and chat are kept there afterwards.

Once the invite is sent, open it and click Meeting options (or ⋯ > Meeting options). Here you can decide:

• Who can bypass the lobby — everyone, only people in your organisation, or only you.
• Who can present — everyone, or just you and the people you choose.
• Whether attendees can unmute, turn on their camera or use the chat.

For a small team catch-up, leave the defaults. For a public session or a nervous client, lock things down.

Open the meeting from the calendar, make your changes and click Send update. To cancel, click Cancel meeting and add a short note. Everyone is told automatically.

Someone says they didn't get the invite. Open the meeting, check the attendee list, and click Send update to resend it. Ask them to look in their junk folder.

I can't see the Scheduling Assistant for an outside contact. Their calendar isn't shared with your organisation, so Teams can't see it. Suggest two or three times by email instead.

The meeting is in the wrong time zone. Teams uses your Windows or Mac time zone. Check it in your system settings, then edit the meeting.

Calendar > New meeting, add people, pick a time and click Send. Use Scheduling Assistant to avoid the back-and-forth, and visit Meeting options whenever you need control over the lobby and who can present.