Skip to main content

Phase 1: Before the event

Get started with choosing your virtual event experience for your custom produced event, including setting up your event and getting everything ready in Outlook and Microsoft Teams.

Selecting your event experience

Advanced events

Large scale, multi-day events may be a combination of Teams meetings and live event experiences. Match the interaction and broadcast method to the audience need.

Live events

Keynotes

  • All audience content
  • Primary conference speakers
  • Option for pre-recorded content
  • No competing content scheduled

Choose experience by audience size and interaction model

Breakouts

  • Core conference content
  • Organize into subject tracks
  • Select experience by projected attendance
  • Use moderators to increase Q&A satisfaction

Teams meetings

Interactive

  • Two-way feedback sessions
  • Interactive topics like feedback, ask-the-expert panels, hands-on-training
  • Allowing attendees to unmute or share video
  • Free flowing chat

Tips for a successful event:

  • Provide navigation and awareness signposts on your primary attendee website or digital brochure.
  • Make content available for attendees as soon as possible after the event. Use Stream for Microsoft 365, Microsoft Teams, or other popular online video portal technology to ensure a content lifecycle.

Selecting your event experience: Teams meeting

1What type of event? 2What type of attendee experience? 3How many people will watch the event live?* 4What level of video production?
Single event Open 2-way discussion Up to 1,000 Simple webcam and screenshare
Event series Managed Q&A Up to 20,000* Multiple presenters
Part of an engagement community No attendee discussion or Q&A Up to 100,000 Custom production

Microsoft Teams icon

Recommended:Teams meeting

Build community and authentic connection

  • Provides open discussion features via audio and video for attendees
  • Provide meetings as a part of a team to provide continuing engagement
  • Support interactive chat during and multiple presenters in the meeting
  • Familiar content and video sharing controls
  • Use Yammer for your Teams produced meeting as a part of a community experience or series with continuing conversation

*Attendee limit increases over 10,000 are temporarily available until December 31, 2023. Events above 20,000 attendees require Live Events Assistance Program (LEAP) Engagement.

Selecting your event experience: Teams webinar

1What type of event? 2What type of attendee experience? 3How many people will watch the event live?* 4What level of video production?
Single event Open 2-way discussion Up to 1,000 Simple webcam and screenshare
Event series (coming soon) Managed Q&A Up to 20,000* (coming soon) Multiple presenters
Part of an engagement community No attendee discussion or Q&A Up to 100,000 Custom production

Microsoft Teams icon

Recommended:Teams webinar

Share ideas, get leads, or provide training to an audience

  • Provides a registration report to help gauge who is likely to attend
  • Provides a structured meeting, with clearly defined meeting roles
  • Provides attendee engagement data
  • Use interactive chat during and includes multiple presenters in the meeting
  • Familiar content and video sharing controls

*Attendee limit increases over 10,000 are temporarily available until December 31, 2023. Events above 20,000 attendees require Live Events Assistance Program (LEAP) Engagement.

Selecting your event experience: Live events

1What type of event? 2What type of attendee experience? 3How many people will watch the event live?* 4What level of video production?
Single event Open 2-way discussion Up to 300 Simple webcam and screenshare
Event series Managed Q&A Up to 20,000* Multiple presenters
Part of an engagement community No attendee discussion or Q&A Up to 100,000** Custom production

Live Events icons

Recommended: Live events

Manage the attendee experience

  • Multiple live event options for maximum flexibility
  • Broad scale and highly managed content experience
  • Supports self-produced to custom production scenarios
  • Live events can be publicized as a part of an engagement community

*Attendee limit increases over 10,000 are temporarily available until December 31, 2023. Events above 20,000 attendees require Live Events Assistance Program (LEAP) Engagement.

Next step: Follow the live event selection decision tree

Which live event experience is right for me?

1How many people will watch the live broadcast? 2Are there external attendees? 3What type of attendee experience? 4What level of video production? 5Type of live event
Up to 20,000*
Live event app icons
Include people from outside your organization Moderated Q&A Simple webcam and screenshare or Custom production Live event in Teams
Only people from inside your organization Open discussion Simple webcam and screen share or Custom production Live event in Yammer
Persona iconStart your live event experience No attendee discussion or Q&A Only Custom production Live event in Stream
Up to 100,000** Include organization-wide and outside your organization No attendee discussion or Q&A Simple webcam and screen share or Custom production Live event in Teams

To view the the full guide on selecting which event experience is right for you, visit this page in your desktop browser.

*Attendee limit increases over 20,000 are temporarily available until December 31, 2023. Events above 20,000 attendees require Live Events Assistance Program (LEAP) Engagement.

**100K attendee live events can be delivered outside an organization when planned though the LEAP team. It’s a case-by-case, temporary service to help customers communicate at scale.

Custom production scenarios including external encoder and multi-camera configurations will be covered in additional documentation.

Production concepts

High level process flow

Producing with an external app or encoder requires multiple components:

  • Skilled production staff. Advanced productions often require technical producers alongside communications and on-air talent staff.
  • The scheduled live event for production and attendee experiences.
  • The external app/encoder (such as OBS Studio, Streamlabs OBS, Wirecast, vMix).
  • An active source of content ingested into the external app/encoder.

The content being presented can be sourced from a variety of locations. In this playbook, we will show how to use a Teams meeting as the source of content provided to the external app/encoder (OBS).

This configuration allows you to bring in guests from multiple locations into a single digital experience.

Remote participants

Extracting content from Teams meeting using NDI screenshot 1

Teams meeting

Extracting content from Teams meeting using NDI screenshot 2
Source icon

Source
This system joins the Teams meeting and uses NDI to extract the isolated video feeds and mixed audio feed.

Enable NDI in the Teams client (Settings -> App Permissions).

Extracting content from Teams meeting using NDI screenshot 2 Extracting content from Teams meeting using NDI screenshot 3

Ensure video feeds are active in the Teams client.

  • Pin select videos as desired (max of 9 video feeds; however, this is influenced by hardware and network, and generally will not exceed 2-3 per machine)
  • Invoke the Large Gallery (optional, if desired)
  • Invoke the Together Mode (optional, if desired)

Enable Broadcast over NDI in the Teams meeting

NDI feeds contain mixed audio of all participants, except the user on the Source machine – check the Isolated Audio checkbox to enable individual audio for each NDI feed

Produce your broadcast from a secure virtual stage

Production machine – Streaming to the audience

Streaming app
(OBS)

Extracting content from Teams meeting using NDI screenshot 2

graphics

Production machine icon

Production machine
This machine runs the production software (OBS, Wirecast) to produce the desired layouts. From this machine, you can send the feed to your external audience.

Audience

Microsoft 365

Streaming apps icons

Production software can output to various audience locations

Scheduling in Teams
Live event scheduling -> select Teams Encoder or Stream Encoder

Platform will provide the Server/Stream Key information

Streaming app screenshot 2

Teams Encoder Events -> RTMP ingest URL and key are provided in Meeting Options

Stream Encoder Events -> RTMP ingest URL and key are obtained when producer joins the event.

Stream to third party platforms (Facebook, YouTube, etc.)

Scheduling a live event for use with an external application

Schedule a live event from Teams

First time scheduling live events from Teams? This section will guide you through how to organize a live event and determine which roles your team should play in the production and moderation of the event.

Schedule a live event from your Calendar in Teams by clicking the drop-down menu next to New meeting button and selecting Live event.

Setting up a live event

The New live event screen is where you define the following details about your event:

  • Title of your live event
  • Date, Start and End times of your event
  • Who you will invite as Producers and Presenters for the event

The Invite people to your event group area is where you define the roles for your event team members. The following roles are available:

  • Producer: As a host, makes sure attendees have a great viewing experience by controlling the live event stream. There is usually one Producer, but you can have multiple for backup of the primary.
    • Starts and stops the live event
    • Shares own video
    • Share participant video
    • Shares active desktop or window
    • Selects layouts
  • Presenter: Presents audio, video, or a screen to the live event, or moderates Q&A. There are usually multiple presenters, and some may only have the role of moderating the Q&A as an example.

Once you have completed all the fields, click Next to continue.

Important note: We have not defined who will be viewing the live event as an attendee yet, only defined who will be producing and presenting in your live event.

Live event permissions

Next you will choose who can attend your event based on the following permission types:

  • People and groups – The event can only be watched by people, contact groups, or Microsoft 365 groups you name.
    • This permission type is ideal for confidential live events that should only be viewed by the specific people or groups defined here.
  • Org-wide – Everyone in your organization can watch the live event, including guests.
    • This permission type is best for all other live events where the content is not confidential.
  • Public – Anyone can join, both people in your organization and those outside of it.
    • This permission type would apply to a scenario where you intend for the general public to attend a live event, such as your customers or shareholders.
    • Note: In many organizations, this option is disabled by IT but can be permitted to certain individuals based on a policy.

Before clicking Schedule, scroll down to reveal options that pertain to How will you produce your live event. These will be covered on the next section.

TIP: If using a Stream Encoder event, your video stream cannot be viewed by guests of the tenant.

How will you produce your live event?

Finally, you will select a number of available options for how your live event will be produced.

  • To produce the event in Teams, keep the default option of Teams.
  • The other options, An external app or device, are generally produced by a formal audio and visual department or outside AV company.

Teams Encoder

  • Recording available to producers and presenters: A recording is available to producers for download for 180 days after the event is over.
  • Recording available to attendees: Attendees can watch the event on demand using DVR options for 180 days.
  • Captions (encoder captions or post event AI captions): Live 708 Captions (provided by the encoder) or post-event AI captions are available to event participants.
  • Attendee engagement report: You can download a report that tracks attendee participation.
  • Q&A: Attendees can interact with producers and presenters in a moderated Q&A.

Stream Encoder

  • Recording available to attendees: Attendees can watch the event on demand using DVR options for 180 days.
  • Captions (available after the event): Captions are available to event participants after the event concludes.
  • Q&A: Attendees can interact with producers and presenters in a moderated Q&A.

Now that you have selected all of the options you desire, you can click Schedule to continue.

TIP: If your public event is supporting anonymous Attendees, and you select “Recording available to attendees”, the attendees will be able to view (but not download) the recording on-demand using the original join link.

Scheduling your Teams meeting (“Source”)

Now that you’ve scheduled your live event, it’s time to schedule a Teams meeting to use as your virtual stage (referred to as “source” for the rest of the playbook). To do so, schedule your meeting as you normally would, either in Outlook or Teams, and use our core Virtual Event Playbook as reference if needed.

For an improved experience, visit this page on a desktop browser

Custom Production Virtual Event Playbook: Before the event