2 easy ways to bulk invite your team to a Microsoft Teams meeting

Microsoft Teams allows you to schedule meetings in advance— when scheduling a meeting, you’re able to send invites for your participants. The issue is that nobody wants to manually invite each meeting member individually; albeit, that’s not your only option.

The following methods can be used to invite multiple meeting participants easily:

Invitation methodExplanation
Invite users via Outlook contact listsTeams meetings can be scheduled in Outlook. Listing your contact list as a required member will notify all contact list members.
Invite users via SharePoint sitesYou can list a SharePoint site as a meeting member when scheduling a meeting for Teams— doing so will invite the site’s members.

At this time, there are two easy ways to bulk invite members to a Microsoft Teams meeting. The first is achieved by using Outlook’s contact lists; The second is achieved via SharePoint’s sites. If you haven’t already used these features, you should consult our third and fourth step-by-step guides.

Here are the step-by-step guides for today’s post:

How to bulk invite to Teams meeting via contact list

When scheduling a Teams meeting in Outlook, you gain the ability to treat contact lists as invitees— this is perfect for bulk inviting your team.

Step 1 — Open your Outlook calendar

First off, open up Outlook and head for your calendar. You can access the calendar via the sidebar on the left— it resembles (expectedly) your specific calendar.

Step 2 — Schedule a meeting

Click a calendar date for your meeting (you may need to double click). A meeting does not require a title; however, it will help your team know what they’re being invited to. Below the title field, you can specify who you’d like to invite to the meeting— enter the name of your teams’ contact list. After, hit “Send.” lastly, assuming the “Teams meeting” toggle is enabled, you only need to ensure the date and time for your meeting are correct.

Step 3 — Ensure your message was delivered

If done correctly, members of your contact list will receive similar messages to the one shown below. Mobile application users will additionally receive an alert informing them about the meeting within the application.

How to bulk invite to Teams meeting via SharePoint site

If your team utilizes SharePoint, you can simply invite your site as opposed to individually inviting each site member.

Step 1 — Begin scheduling a meeting

In any channel of your Team, click the downward-facing arrow adjacent to the “Meet” button in the top-right. Doing so will produce a dropdown; click “Schedule a meeting” from the menu.

Step 2 — Begin scheduling a meeting

Enter your site’s name in the second text field. While additional fields are not required, I recommend ensuring you have provided the correct date, time, and title for your meeting.

Step 3 — Ensure your message was delivered

As with distributing invites to a contact list, your SharePoint site members will receive a similar message regarding your scheduled meeting.

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How to add members to a contact list in Outlook

A contact list is a group of correspondents who can be contacted simultaneously. While this is not recommended for general chats, the feature has significant use when distributing news or announcements to a large number of contacts.

Step 1 — Head to the people page

Under the calendar in your left sidebar, you can see a “people” icon; click the icon to proceed to the “people” page.

Step 2 — Begin creating a new contact list

The “people” page features a blue “New contact” button with an adjacent dropdown button. Open the dropdown and select “New contact list” to proceed.

Step 3 — Create your contact list

First, provide a name for your contact list— it should be memorable and appropriate. Next, use the “Add email addresses” box to input team members for the contact list. Lastly, hit “Create.”

How to add members to a SharePoint site

A SharePoint site often serves as a hub for your organization’s files, news, announcements, and project updates.

Step 1 — Open your site’s member list

In the top right of your corner, you will find the member count under your avatar. Click the member count to reveal a side panel.

Step 2 — Hit add members

From the “Group membership” panel, select “Add members.” The button will be listed above your existing site members.

Step 3 — Save your new member list

Use the text box in the “Add members” panel to specify which contacts you would like to add. After adding each of your contacts, click “Save.”

Blog post recap

When you schedule a meeting in Microsoft Teams, you can specify “required” or “optional” participants who will receive an invitation via email. However, many users are dissatisfied with this feature due to the idea of manually inviting each member of their team one by one; thus, various means to bulk invite meeting participants were discovered.

The first method exploits meeting scheduling in Outlook, where users can specify an entire contact list as a meeting participant. In doing so, they can distribute an invitation to each contact list member simultaneously.

The second method depends on your SharePoint site— unbeknownst to some, Teams accepts SharePoint sites as invitees. As such, you’re able to distribute invitations to every site member at once quickly.

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Jack Mitchell

Jack Mitchell has been the Operations manager at telecoms and MSP Optionbox for more than 4 years. He has played a crucial role in the company, from marketing to helpdesk, and ensures that the IT requirements of over 300 clients are continuously met. With his innate passion for technology and troubleshooting and a particular interest in Apple products, Jack now delivers the most comprehensive tech guides to make your life easier. You can connect with Jack on LinkedIn.

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