How to cancel a meeting in Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams allows users to hold ad-hoc meetings and it allows them to schedule a meeting well in advance. A scheduled meeting in Microsoft Teams will appear in the calendar for all invited users provided they have an Exchange calendar set up. Users are also sent invites and if the meeting is posted in a channel, they will be able to view it.
How to cancel a meeting in Microsoft Teams
Meetings, scheduled or otherwise, can be canceled. With an ad-hoc meeting, canceling is easy. All you have to do is click the ‘Leave’ button and select the End Meeting option. This option will be visible if you’re the one who started the meeting i.e., other participants cannot end a meeting that you started.
For scheduled meetings, it’s a bit different.
Cancel a meeting in Microsoft Teams – Scheduled meetings
In order to cancel a meeting in Microsoft Teams;
- You must be the meeting organizer
- The meeting must be scheduled and saved (should not be a draft)
- The meeting must not have started (be mindful of different time zones if you work with geographically dispersed teams)
Follow these steps to cancel a meeting in Microsoft Teams.
- Open Microsoft Teams.
- Sign in with the account used to organize the meeting you want to cancel.
- Go to the Calendar or Meetings tab in the column on the left (it may be hidden in the more options overflow menu).
- Look for the meeting in the calendar.
- Click it and select Edit from the menu.
- On the meeting details screen, click Cancel Meeting at the top.
- Enter a reason for canceling the meeting.
- Click Cancel meeting.
Canceled meeting and invitees
All invites may or may not be alerted that a meeting has been canceled.
- If an Exchange calendar has been set up, the canceled meeting will disappear from everyone’s calendars.
- Invited users will be sent a message that the meeting has been canceled with the reason that you provided.
- If invitations were sent from outside Microsoft Teams e.g., the link was used, invitees will not know the meeting was canceled unless they click on the link at the time of the meeting.
- If invitees added the meeting to an external calendar app e.g., Google Calendar, canceling the meeting will not remove it from Google Calendar.
To avoid confusion, it is always a good idea to;
- Announce in the relevant channel when a meeting has been canceled.
- Send an email to all those invited that the meeting has been canceled.
Conclusion
Microsoft Teams has an intelligent meeting management system but it only works well if everyone is connected to Microsoft Teams, uses it as their primary communication tool, and tools like Exchange calendar have been configured for a team. In the absence of this, keeping everyone on the same page will always involve more work and extra steps.
