[NFBCS] Work meetings using WebEx or Microsoft Teams

Fri Apr 17 11:06:27 UTC 2020

At work we use webex and are about to shift to Microsoft teams.
My team has been testing and playing with MS Teams.

Some suggestions:
Both webex and teams have a desktop and mobile app in addition to a web app.  Your experience is quite a bit quicker and less steps if you have these installed because it then uses the native app when you click the links to join.  Teams is far easier to use in terms of being connected.  I know that in the calendar events that teams generates the first item in the description area for the calendar event is a link to join with teams.  If you have the desktop app this should trigger the app to load.

The item you are mentioning regarding webex and people seeing who calls requires you to connect using the desktop app and not the teleconference.  What people are doing in webex is they login and as part of the app is an option to select to use either PC audio or to have it call you.  This is after you login to the app.

Hope this helps.

-----Original Message-----
From: NFBCS <nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Humberto Avila via NFBCS
Sent: April 16, 2020 4:59 PM
To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Humberto Avila <humberto_avila.it104 at outlook.com>
Subject: Re: [NFBCS] Work meetings using WebEx or Microsoft Teams

Hello,

I'd like to jump in here as well, because my experience is just a tad different.

Prior to JAWS 2019, I used to be quite frustrated with Outlook 365, as emails were displayed with the regular PC cursor and not the Virtual PC cursor, as they do now under 2019 and 2020 versions. Back then, when I got fancy mails like in those meeting invites, all I could discern was, 'Table 9, nonuniform table. row 1, column 1 of 1.' So under those circumstances I just pressed enter on the given  message and did an ALT+H then A, for Message Actions, and B for 'View in Browser.' From then I could just generate a links list by hitting Insert+F7 and hit, for example, H for http://... whatever the join meeting link is, at least in the case of Zoom and Skype for Business.

Of course now things are more efficient since don't have to do the whole view in Browser deal, and can just do the links list, or just hit Tab.

I also use the calendar a lot, especially my personal one, and Tab and Shift Tab moves me back and forth through appointments. Day view works best for this and I get there by hitting Alt+Control+1. Focusing on a particular one I can just do Control+D to delete, if the meeting invite was cancelled or updated.

Just my $0.02

“Positive thinking leads to a positive attitude which leads to positive actions which lead to positive outcomes.”
— ME

On Apr 16, 2020, at 1:07 PM, Steve Jacobson via NFBCS <nfbcs at nfbnet.org> wrote:

John and Tracy,

We all have different ways of working and we are probably all using different versions of Outlook as well.  Therefore, I'm going to throw some things out here but I am not saying what might work for me is best for everybody.

John, I do not know if there is a way to assign your name to a phone number when you dial in that is permanent.  However, for Microsoft Teams, it might be worth a call to the Microsoft Disability Answer Desk in case they know of a way.  It is not impossible that there is a way to have a phone number associated with your Microsoft Teams account.  As I have gotten older and don't hear high frequencies as well as I once did, I have found that connecting to Teams meetings on the computer is worth the hassle to get better audio.  Of course, my name is then associated with my session.  I would guess that the same is true of the Teams app for the iPhone.  It might be worth trying the app if you don't want to connect through your computer.  The app will likely require you to provide your account credentials and will then display your name to the participants and the audio will likely be a bit better as well.

Regarding moving and collecting information about invitations and such, my experience is similar to Tracy's.  When I get an invitation for a Teams or a Skype for Business meeting in my in-box, I have options as to how I want to respond.  If I accept, the invitation is automatically moved from my in-box to my calendar without me doing anything.  If I receive a cancellation, it comes to my in-box, and when I have the cancellation open, the first button on the ribbon is to "Remove from Calendar".  If I press that button, the cancellation notice is gone from my in-box and the event is removed from my calendar.  I just don't do anything with trying to save invitations to a separate folder.

If your system does not act this way and you wish it did, it is possible that there is a Microsoft Outlook setting that can be changed.  I believe there is a setting to automatically accept meetings for example, which is fine if one is careful to look at their calendars all of the time.  However, since I work part time now, I want to see invitations in my in-box before I accept them.  You may have options that you might find to be useful.

Regarding finding links to join meetings, there are multiple ways to join Microsoft Teams meetings that you might find easier than finding the dial-in numbers, if you choose to try that.  Besides the links within the notes attached to a meeting, there should be a button to join that occurs quickly when one access the ribbon.  Also, if you have reminders set, there will likely be a link within the reminder itself.  These make joining a meeting from a computer and presumably from the Teams app fairly easy.  I realize that won't help with dial-in access, though, and as we have discuss3ed a while back, I understand that Tracy's situation is different since Webex is involved.

As far as agendas go, of course not all invitations have to have agendas.  For me, though, the part of an Outlook document that has the notes is accessible to me using the arrow keys.  Usually, any comments written by the author occur before all of the call-in information.  In reading what Tracy has written before about her Webex meetings, I am not sure what happens for her.  I believe that JAWSkey plus F5 was recommended to get a list of fields so that she could find a link more quickly.  In my experience, that key generally only works when the arrow keys also work.  Getting the list of fields to find the link is a good way to find it more quickly, but if there is an agenda, it should be in the same section as the link to join the meeting, but it won't show up on a list of fields.  It is remotely possible that the dial-in numbers may show up as a field, so it is worth trying JAWSKEY F5 to see if that helps at all.  Otherwise, experimenting with the "find" that Lewis mentions might be a workaround to get there faster.  Again, there may be other options that will help you as well.  Experimenting with the JAWS Touch Cursor can also get one to certain pieces of information faster.  I'll be honest, it went against my principles, if you can call it that, to have to use the touch cursor to get at information that I could not quickly get to with the JAWS commands I was used to.  I've come to recognize that some of these things happen whether I like them or not and over time I am adapting.  It is not easy, though, to change one's patterns, especially when you get to be my age which is a good deal greater than yours.

Again, I am just throwing out some ideas in case they open up a path that has not been considered.  Comparing notes on how we do our jobs is very useful.

Best regards,

Steve Jacobson

-----Original Message-----
From: NFBCS <nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of John Miller via NFBCS
Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2020 10:08 PM
To: nfb-science at nfbnet.org; NFB in Computer Science Mailing List <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
Cc: John Miller <johnmillerphd at hotmail.com>
Subject: [NFBCS] Work meetings using WebEx or Microsoft Teams

Hello,

I sometimes participate in a meeting using Webex from the company Cisco.

My colleagues complete some webex information so that webex calls their phone at the meeting start time.

I, on the other hand, call in to the toll-free number or to a long distance number with my cell.

When you log-in to webex your name appears on the screen during the meeting.

Webex allows the host to share their desktop with the meeting's participants.

Usually an agenda powerpoint is presented during the meeting.

When you call in as I have been doing, you appear as "user?" where ? is a number.

Participants seem to like to know the list of current participants displayed within the webex application and it would be desirable if I could figure out the configuration so that my name was also listed during the call.

What is more important is that it is currently quite time-consuming for me to collect the call-in phone number and access code from a meeting invite.

>From a fresh meeting invite in Outlook 2016 I can readily find the information.

I prefer to accept meetings and move the meeting invites out of my inbox.

A large percentage of standing weekly meetings get cancelled.

A meeting might move to several time slots before it finally occurs.

So keeping all the invites in the inbox can be confusing.

A work-around might be to move a copy of a meeting invite into a subfolder but then to also place it on the calendar.

I do not know if Outlook 2016 supports this feature, though.

In some good news, when I go to calendar, I did just find the call-in information for a meeting yesterday afternoon.

It was in the body of the meeting description dialog box.

At this location was a brief agenda.

At the bottom past the agenda was a bewildering collection of nonuniform tables.

I could see it was a table because my braille display displayed "r1c1" or "r2c3" next to various pieces of information.

I used down-arrow to scroll through this information.

Eventually, I landed on the phone number and in a cell shortly thereafter the access code.

Doing a select all and paste into notepad preserved the agenda but did not copy the call-in information.

Is there a JAWS find mode that would quickly move me to the field I want inside Outlook calendar such as searching for "phone"?

Is there a JAWS jump to next table or move to next row command that works in this context?

The down-arrow got me there but I was browsing for 3-4 minutes to harvest the data.

Separately, where in JAWS is the configuration to shorten the default "display braille messages" time?

While I was verifying the phone number information a few minutes prior to the meeting, other team members decided to e-mail each other with several messages about team deliverables.

During the arrival of each e-mail, the braille display would freeze and stop displaying the phone number/access code I was reading and writing down in hardcopy.

Obviously I will be harvesting the call-in

information in future a good bit before the meeting begins to avoid this problem.

One work-around is that I have found each host has a phone number and access code that is constant across multiple meetings.

I am collecting this information in one file for ease of access so I will be ready to go for the next meeting called by a particular host.

I would like to hear about anyone's experience using Microsoft Teams for the host sharing the desktop and setting up a group audio call.

I would also be interested if anyone is able to contrive a fake meeting with a call-in number and no longer valid access code using webex.

I would be interested to hear from experts such as Curtis Chong or Steve Jacobsen if upon receiving such a meeting invite they were able to find an efficient way to collect the call-in information from Outlook 2016 calendar.

I would appreciate any thoughts about participating in scheduled work meetings.

Best Regards,

John

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