Teams ❤ Stream ❤ Users

While Stream has been usable in Teams for a long time, I think it is not as widely utilized as it could be. Most used case is to add a video or Stream channel as a tab which is indeed the core of the Teams-Stream integration along with meeting recording.

When I had a chance to talk & think about Stream & Teams usage this week it woke up some thoughts that perhaps this subject should be revisited.

Users often find it difficult

To discover meeting recordings afterwards. Have you tried to find your meeting recording 6 months later?
To share the video to others
to download the original video
Get back to videos later
basically: to understand Stream-Teams relation

Stream adoption also needs work

Stream is a easy application. You can upload videos, your Teams meeting recordings are automatically added to Stream, you can check out your Stream home page to see what’s happening. Wait? What is the last one? Very often we use Stream embedded either in Teams, Yammer or in SharePoint that we forget it is it’s own application. It should be trained to users as well, because otherwise user’s don’t know about it!

Teams has also a Stream application.. not just a tab

When you are using Teams, are you aware that there is a Stream application available for users? Hands up if you use it actively.. Mmm.. I don’t see that many hands. One of the reasons is that the Stream app doesn’t do much yet.. but it DOES give you a view for your Stream watchlist. You can call it also “watch later”, “check these out”, “must watch these”, “I might get back to these” -list. The key thing: where-ever you add a Stream video to your watch list you can find it in your Teams app. Now, go ahead and open your Stream app. If you don’t find it – add it from Teams app store.

When you have the Stream app open you can easily start viewing those Stream videos. And there is a link to Stream in the far right. That takes you to the Stream portal (we’ll get back to that later).

When you have a Stream tab in Teams you can also add that video easily to your watchlist … and like it.

Stream has also a mobile app

Do you have Teams app installed to your mobile device? Very good if you said yes. Do you have Stream app installed to your mobile? No? Why not?

Stream app allows you to access your Stream watchlist and company videos directly using your mobile device. You can add videos to watchlist (handy if you are in a transit and you have a few minutes to check on latest company guides, all personnel meetings, people spotlights). Watchlist is my “watch later” or “saved” list.

From vertical … menu on each video you can choose to add a video to watchlist (saved) or to make it available for offline view. Yes! You did hear me right. You can take your videos offline with you to watch in a plane, for example. And before saying about a small screen on your mobile phone – you can add Stream app to most tablets too. (depending on your company of course).

A quick view to Stream portal

Before you get too lost in your Stream and videos you can also visit the Stream portal. You can get there from Office launch menu ..or directly from Teams Stream tab or application.

While the Home menu might or not be useful to you (really depending on how your company uses Stream) the Discover menu is definitely useful. From there you can get to

Videos (whatever anybody in your company has published in Stream.. and you have access to it)
Channels (video channels, it is very useful to create different channels for different videos)
Groups is also useful if you want to check out what and how many videos has been published in your teams/groups.

However the Videos part is the most useful to find a video, either a meeting recording or any other video in Stream. Change the sort by as needed (publish date is useful).

From the top menu “My content” is useful to find your own videos. Did you loose your own meeting recording? Go there and and choose Videos and start finding it out.

Also it is good to know what’s available in video’s edit screen

Permissions: share for the whole tenant (company) or add specific people or groups so they can watch the video
Title and description really help when trying to find out the video afterwards
Language is good….
You can upload your own thumbnail photo too.
Downloading the original video is also possible in this view.

There is also a Share option in that screen.. and it was also present on mobile Stream app.

Stream is a “evergreen” app

Stream is all the time getting new features it is getting better every quarter. While it does not get that kind of bunch of new features as Teams, it has some great stuff on it’s roadmap as well. For example upcoming recording of system audio in Teams meetings (you can play a video for audience), automated transcription for audio/video files in SharePoint, public anonymous link sharing and video creation/editing directly in Stream.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/roadmap?filters=In%20development&searchterms=stream

Some tips to recall easily meeting recordings (and other videos)

Create a video channel to your Team and add those recording there. Then add this channel to your project team. This is The Best Way. You need to use Stream portal for this (My content – channels).
Pin the meeting conversation (with meeting recording) in your Teams. That way it is easy to get back to it. Works only if you have only a few this kind of meeting to pin. Other option: save one Teams message to get back to it via “Saved messages”
Add Stream video to your watchlist. Use it as a “saved”.
Use channel meeting and include some keywords in the chat thread. You could use #meetingvideo or #projectnamevideo. Just remember your hashtags correctly
Create a channel and add meeting videos there as tabs. Useful in projects. You can add any video you have a permission to – not all viewers might have permission to all videos.
… if you have a long list of videos to save: copy video urls to OneNote. Not optimal.