Microsoft Teams and Canvas: Setting up the Integration and Creating Meetings

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Last week we talked briefly about the Microsoft-Canvas integrations. Today, we’ll be taking a deeper dive into one part of it — the Microsoft Teams integration.  

At first glance, it may seem that the Teams integration isn’t anything special. But on closer look, adding Teams to your course opens a new world of possibilities. You can host and record meetings and easily link the recordings back into your Canvas course. And you can take advantage of all the features within Teams itself — creating channels for groups to conduct small group discussions and work.  

The first step for using Teams with your course is turning on the integration. This will create a Team within Microsoft Teams for your course and will sync your Canvas roster to it.  

1. In Canvas, go to the “Settings” page for one of your courses.  
2. Select the “Integrations” tab.  
3. In this tab, click the switch to turn on the integration (its color will change from gray to green).  
4. Click the arrow on the left side of the toggle to expand the sync details.  
5. In this expanded section, click the button titled “Sync Now.” This will begin syncing the course roster to a Microsoft Team.  

In addition, you’ll now see “Microsoft Teams Meetings” listed in your course navigation. It’s likely near the bottom, but you can use the “Navigation” tab in your course settings page to move it to a comfy place.  

You’re now ready to create your first meeting. 

1. Click “Microsoft Teams Meetings” in your course navigation. You may be prompted to sign in — if so, click the button and move through the sign-in process.  
2. This page will typically display all scheduled meetings for the course. To create either a single meeting or a series of meetings, click the “New meeting” button in the top right corner.  
3. Fill in the fields on this page — all of the settings are adjustable.
   1. Add a title.  
   2. Add the attendees. Select “add entire class” to add everyone in the course roster to the meeting. 
   3. Edit the date(s) and time(s).  
   4. Choose whether you want this to be a one-time meeting or to repeat. It defaults to “does not repeat,” but you can select recurrence options using the drop-down menu. If you want to set up a recurring meeting, you likely want to choose the “custom” option so you can set an end date for your repeating meetings.
4. Save the meeting.  

Next week we’ll look at the next phase of this process — joining and recording meetings as well as uploading the recordings to your Canvas course.  

Questions? We’d love to help! Drop us a comment below or email us at ctl@cedarville.edu.  

Ryan Liming contributed to this post.  

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