Prepare in the green room with other organizers and presenters before a Teams meeting or event to test content sharing, video and audio settings, and more. Return to the green room when the event ends to debrief and discuss the event.

To start a green room:

  1. Go to your Teams calendar and open a meeting or webinar.

    Note: If enabling green room for a webinar, set the lobby policy to Everyone for a public webinar or People in my organization for a private webinar.

  2. Select Options Settings button > More options.

  3. In Roles People or Show Participants button, change Who can present? to Specific people or Only me and co-organizers.

    Note: You must specify presenters to enable green room.

  4. In the Choose presenters field, enter the presenters' names. Presenters must already be invited as a participant to appear in the drop-down list.

  5. Select Security Privacy settings button.

  6. Turn on the Enable Green room toggle.

  7. Select Save.

Organizers can turn green room on or off while a meeting is active by selecting More actions Microsoft Teams more options icon > Settings Settings button > Meeting options Meeting options icon in the meeting controls, but the change won’t be reflected unless the meeting ends and restarts.

Note: Green room is currently supported in Teams for desktop and web (Edge and Chrome browsers only) and mobile Teams meetings on iOS and Android devices. The meeting organizer may call into the meeting but others who dial in, dial out, or use the Call me functionality may not be greeted with the proper voice prompt.

Before the meeting

From the green room, organizers can change meeting options and admit participants from the lobby into the meeting.

Both organizers and presenters can:

  • Chat. The chat available to the organizers and presenters in the green room is the global chat available to all in the meeting.

  • Manage what attendees see.

  • Turn on captions.

  • Add apps to the meeting, such as Q&A. When an organizer adds an app to the meeting, attendees will be able to access the app while they wait.

  • Access meeting notes.

  • See/remove participants.

  • See other presenter/organizer’s audio, video, and shared content.

  • React/see reactions.

  • Start the meeting. Only presenters and organizers who join using Teams for desktop or web (Edge and Chrome browsers) can start the meeting.

Organizers and presenters can’t change the meeting layout or turn on transcripts, recording, or Speaker Coach from the green room. They’ll be able to do so when the meeting starts.

There are some limitations when organizers and presenters join the green room:

  • CVI presenters who join will wait with attendees for the meeting to start and cannot interact with users in the green room. In this state, any audio shared by the CVI presenter will be audible to other attendees.

  • If a user in the green room is made an attendee, they will be unable to speak or share their video.

  • If an attendee waiting for a meeting to start is made a presenter, then other attendees who are waiting for the meeting to start will be able to hear them. We recommend removing a user if you would like to promote or demote them.

  • Compliance recording will not be available to those who join the green room or attendees who are waiting for the meeting to start; however, compliance recording will start for all specified participants once the meeting has also started.

Note: Green room capacity is limited to 100 presenters at a time.

During the meeting

Meeting recording and transcription will resume if they were paused due to the green room. If captions were enabled in the green room, they’ll continue to work as expected in the meeting.

Note: If automatic recording is enabled, captions won’t work until the meeting starts. To make sure captions are available in the green room, don’t enable the Record automatically meeting option.

After the meeting

Return to the green room after the meeting by selecting End event in your meeting controls.

Screenshot of a Microsoft Teams meeting or event with the End event button highlighted.

When you select End event, the event will stop recording and transcribing automatically. You’ll also see a notification that the event has ended and recording has stopped.

Screenshot of a meeting notification that says the meeting has ended for attendees and recording has stopped.

Attendees will return to the waiting room while organizers and presenters stay in the green room to debrief and discuss the event.

  • If Manage mode is turned on, organizers and presenters will be removed from the meeting stage when the event ends. They’ll see a message on the stage and can turn off Manage Mode if they want to.

  • Ending an event won’t interrupt an organizer or presenter’s screen sharing.

At the end of the event, organizers and presenters will still have access to the backroom chat.

Note: Presenters and organizers joining from mobile devices will return to the green room but won’t have the End event button. ​​​​​​​

Attendee experience

While the green room is active, attendees will be in the waiting room where they’ll be greeted by a waiting screen and can interact via chat or use enabled apps, like Q&A.

Attendees can’t turn on their mics or cameras or see and hear what’s happening in the green room. They also can’t access the participant panel but can view people in or invited to the meeting.

When you end an event, attendees will automatically return to the waiting room and see this message until they leave.

Screenshot showing the attendee view when a Microsoft Teams event ends.

At the end of the event, attendees will still have access to view and send messages in the global chat.

Note: Meeting organizers may receive a Start Meeting notification if a participant joins a meeting. This doesn’t mean the meeting has officially started. When the green room is enabled for a meeting, only presenters or organizers can start the meeting.​​​​​​​

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