I was really excited to see that you added support to create venues and meeting links for ILC Sessions for Teams, but there are a few things that would make this integration even better.
It would be better if the invite came as a "Teams Meeting" so that users can click the Join button from their calendars in Teams. Currently, the link to the meeting is showing up in the location field in the calendar invite. This means users have to copy and paste the link into their browser to be able to join the meeting. It adds an extra step for the user.
Make the Instructor a presenter or the organizer of the Teams meeting. I'm not sure if this one is possible, but since the noreply@absorblms.com address is the organizer, the Instructor doesn't have access to key Teams features (breakout rooms, control over participants mics, etc.). This is essential for sessions with a lot of participants and was a big let down.
This is NOT currently available:
It would be better if the invite came as a "Teams Meeting" so that users can click the Join button from their calendars in Teams. Currently, the link to the meeting is showing up in the location field in the calendar invite. This means users have to copy and paste the link into their browser to be able to join the meeting. It adds an extra step for the user.
The button does NOT matter much at this juncture, but it is surprising and disappointing that the body text cannot contain a properly formatted hyperlink. Blaming Microsoft doesn't work, because other meeting platforms--including Microsoft's--successfully deliver hyperlinks in the body of the meeting request.
Thank you all for your patience. This is a feature that the team at Absorb has long wanted to add to the Teams integration, but we did need to wait until Microsoft had published their API as final, rather than beta. Teams co-organizer functionality is now available, and you can learn more at this knowledge base link. Please see the kbase for information on how to enable this function on your portal.
As previously mentioned, our calendar invitations are application agnostic, meaning that they're designed to work across multiple calendar clients. We will investigate optimizations to our invitations, but at this time have no roadmapped improvements in this area.
Absorb is pleased to report that the API functionality from Microsoft is currently out of their beta and into production. As a result, we expect that in the near future that we will be able to offer co-organizer functionality via our Teams integration, allowing co-organizers the ability to end meetings, and create breakout rooms.
Absorb...Please provide an update on this.
I agree that it would be better if the invite came as a "Teams Meeting" so that users can click the "Join" button from their calendars in Teams. This would create a better Learner Experience for users that want to attend an ILC.
Is there any update on this? Will these suggestions move to the Roadmap in 2023? I hope so. Part of our companies decision to move to Absorb as our LMS was to utilize the Microsoft Teams Integration. However, almost a year later and we still cannot utilize the Teams Integration because Instructors cannot be made an Organizer. When an Instructor is added to a setting, by default the Instructor (or Instructors) should automatically be added as the Organizer and Co-Organizer. The noreply@absorblms.com address should not be listed as the Organizer. If needed, the email address of the first Instructor listed could be auto-populated into the address.
Is there any update from Absorb on the status of this idea? Really hoping that it gets some attention in 2023!
Microsoft has added support for the co-organizer feature, but the organizer of the meeting has to be the one to add the co-organizers. Since the organizer is still the defualt Absorb email address, we cannot add co-organizers. Is there something that could be done in Absorb to make the Instructor a co-organizer?
So the Teams meetings now can have co-organizers available, who can then create/assign breakout rooms, but that role still has to be assigned by the organizer. Is there any way for this to be implemented in the LMS? We still can't create breakout rooms for ILC sessions in Teams. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/roadmap?filters=Microsoft%20Teams&searchterms=81391%2C
I second the request to enable the Join button when viewing the calendar invite in Teams. Or if the link could at least be clickable, that would help!
In addition, a showstopper for us is the fact that dial-in information is not showing in the calendar invite. We have many clients who want to join our ILC sessions by phone. Could this info be passed through?
Thank you for bringing these Teams integration ideas forward.
We agree that the instructor should have access to key Teams features to better manage their live sessions. Microsoft is addressing this gap currently on the Teams application side, and once available we'll confirm that our integration takes full advantage. Additional information can be found at the following support link: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/roadmap?filters=Microsoft%20Teams&searchterms=81391%2C. Their target is November of this year.
Our calendar invitations today are application agnostic, meaning that they're designed to work across multiple calendar clients. We will investigate optimizations to our invitations, but at this time have no roadmapped improvements in this area in 2021.