The Q&A feature enables organisers to hold a moderated or unmoderated question and answer session, making it particularly useful for large scaled online events. Please note the Q&A feature isn’t available in the web version of Teams.
Enabling the Q&A feature in a Teams Meeting
The Q&A feature needs to be turned on within the meeting options. This can be done before the meeting or during the meeting. Click here for more information on how to do this.
When the Q&A feature is turned on, the Q&A icon on the Teams meeting control bar.
Asking and Answering Questions
Organisers/Presenters can choose to start a discussion or ask a question. Clicking on the 3 dots next to each question gives you more options in terms of what you can do with the question.
When attendees see the question, they have the opportunity to respond by clicking on the speech bubble at the bottom or react to the question by clicking on the thumb icon.
Attendees can also post questions or start a discussion, which are either published straight away or reviewed and then published or dismissed by the Organiser/Presenter, provided ‘moderate attendee conversations’ has been switched on in the Q&A settings. You can only moderate responses, you can’t moderate responses to questions.
Q&A Settings
You can custom how you want to structure the Q&As and the attendees interaction abilities during the meeting by going into the Q&A settings. You can switch these options on and off at any time, giving you greater control of the meeting.
To customise the Q&A structure, click on the Q&A icon on the meeting control bar and then on the settings wheel next to Ask a question.
In the settings you can allow attendees to ask new questions, respond to conversations or post anonymously by ticking in the box text to the option and then clicking save.
Moderating conversations allows the Organiser/Presenter to review posts before they are published. When moderation is switched on, the Organiser will see three columns, In review, Published and Dismissed.
When an attendee posts a question, it will go in the ‘In review’ column. The attendee will be notified that the question is being reviewed. The Organiser/Presenter can then choose to either publish the question or dismiss it.
If there are duplicate or irrelevant questions, the Organiser/Presenter can delete them to keep the meeting questions organised. When you dismiss a question, you can go back and restore it. This puts it back in the ‘In review’ column and then you can choose to publish it.
Anonymous Posts
Attendees can ask questions anonymously but this option needs to be switched on in the Q&A settings first. Please refer to the guidance above which explains how to do this.
Underneath the question box, the attendee must tick the box next to Post Anonymously before posting their question. Neither the meeting Organisers/Presenters or other attendees will see who has posted the question.
Attendees view Organiser/Presenter view
For more information on the Q&A feature, visit the official Microsoft Teams guidance site – Teams Q&A is now Generally Available – Microsoft Tech Community