[NFBCS] Questions about using MS Teams

Tue Jul 12 01:52:20 UTC 2022

Here are just a few tips.

After you hit control+4 to go to the calendar, you should be placed on the current event. You can use the tab key to jump from event to event just like you can in the Outlook calendar. I have a join meeting button after each event that I can hit enter on. Once I hit enter on the join meeting button, I get a dialog where I can select whether my video and mike are on or not. I usually just back tab once and press enter to take the defaults.

Depending on how many people are in the meeting your mike will be muted. To toggle the mute, I usually just hit control+shift+mute. Alternatively I can tab around to the action bar and arrow over to the mute button to find out the mute status and toggle it between on and off. This always works for me, as long as the meeting is in focus.

To mute the chat, you might try closing the conversation panel. This will be in your action bar, which you can get to if you hit the tab key enough times.

You might also want to try checking out the settings to change things a bit for you, but I'll warn you that the number of settings can be kind of daunting, like with most Microsoft products.

--
Christopher (AKA CJ)
Chaltain at Outlook

-----Original Message-----
From: NFBCS <nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of John via NFBCS
Sent: Monday, July 11, 2022 5:13 PM
To: Nfb-science <nfb-science at nfbnet.org>; nfbcs at nfbnet.org
Cc: John <johnmillerphd at hotmail.com>
Subject: [NFBCS] Questions about using MS Teams

Hello, Many companies and organizations are using Microsoft Teams for meetings.

I use Microsoft Teams on a Windows PC at work.

Microsoft and others offer YouTube tutorials.  On google I used keywords "microsoft teams accessibility blind tutorials YouTube shortcuts" and found https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fyoutu.be%2FQ0gO8BjKl2Y&data=05%7C01%7C%7C4bea9f5671a242b01c8a08da638ad4ce%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637931745173119852%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=IPJJ5ol7%2FAMiEnGv%2Fuy1xgjXmSW8BGOb91H1mV7P06g%3D&reserved=0 .

If you have suggestions on how to perform the following 6 actions, please email NFB-Science at nfbnet.org or email me personallyjohnmillerphd at hotmail.com

Built into Teams is the shortcut Ctrl-4 to go to the calendar. I do not have any questions about how to go to calendar, I just want to share how useful this shortcut is. It is important to have the discussion among blind users about effective methods to join a Teams meetings with proper settings. To go to calendar, press Ctrl-4, then you can down arrow to move time by the half hour.  You can press enter on an event and press tab to navigate to the join meeting button, then press enter on the join meeting button.  You can check and uncheck dialog box options such as video off, mic on, and select connect. You will now be placed in a meeting. You can give the command Alt-F4 to leave a meeting, there are other ways to leave a meeting as well.
When Microsoft Teams went down, the IT department suggested a remedy of logging out and logging back into Teams. I got sighted assistance to do these actions but have not succeeded in doing them without sighted assistance.
This is a piece of advice about changing windows credentials in Teams.
I have noticed that when I change my Windows credentials, Teams is no longer working for me. IT steps in and does something to fix the situation. I have learned to change my Windows credentials early in the business day and to setup a test meeting with a colleague after my credentials have been changed to make sure that Teams will connect me to a meeting properly.
When I join a meeting using JAWS for Windows, I feel there are lots of steps to verify that video is off, and microphone is on.  It seems to me that, depending on who created the meeting, sometimes mic is on by default and sometimes it is off. I have encountered the experience that if the mic is off before I connect, that I often cannot toggle the mic on during the meeting. Instead, I need to leave the meeting, check the mic on checkbox and the enter the meeting.  This allows my colleagues to hear my audio just fine.
My sighted colleagues can see the visual indicator for background noise for a particular participant.  This allows them to suggest that a participant unmute themselves when they are speaking, and the group does not hear their audio. I would like to know the blindness technique for observing this indicator.
In some meetings, there is a high level of traffic in chat. The screen reader notifications from chat can interrupt the speech of participants.  There is an ellipsis symbol under conversation with a choice for mute conversation.  Without sighted assistance, I have not learned how to access this feature. I would like to learn how to do so.  Multiple blind people have asked how to do this solution.  It is quite disruptive when the mute feature is not applied.
Very Best,

John Miller

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