In LearnWorlds, you can host live sessions and webinars by integrating your Microsoft Teams account with your LearnWorlds school. Once Microsoft Teams is integrated, you can begin adding Microsoft Teams Learning Activities to your courses, making live sessions an essential part of your course offerings. Learners enrolled in the course can easily join these sessions directly from the LearnWorlds platform.
This article will guide you through the process of creating and setting up Microsoft Teams Learning Activities, and offer tips on managing your live Microsoft Teams sessions.
Create Microsoft Teams Learning Activities
Once Microsoft Teams is integrated into your LearnWorlds school, you can add a Microsoft Teams learning activity to your course by following these steps:
1. Navigate to the course outline tab and click on Add activity.
2. Select the Live sessions category, then choose Microsoft Teams meeting as the activity type.
3. Click on Save, or on Save & Edit if you wish to modify the activity details immediately.
Set up a Microsoft Teams Meeting
Course authors can configure a variety of common settings for Microsoft Teams sessions, including:
- Course player details: Set how this learning unit will look like in the course player (title, short type description, icon).
- Teams Account: If you have multiple Microsoft Teams accounts connected (available in the Learning Center plan or higher), you can choose the account to associate with the learning activity.
- Meeting Topic: Provide a clear title for your live session.
- Date and Time: Schedule the session with a specific start time and duration.
- Reminder Emails: You can set up email reminders to notify enrolled users about the upcoming session.
- Recurring meeting: You can set this meeting to recur daily, weekly, or monthly. You can schedule up to 15 occurrences, each of which will be added as a separate learning activity in your course content. Be sure to select an end date to determine when the final activity will take place.
- Replay Video: If you plan to record the session, you can later add a link directing users to the recording.
- Options: With this setting, you can enable the lobby bypass option. This allows you to decide whether participants can join the meeting directly or if they will need to be admitted manually. You can also choose which users are allowed to bypass the lobby.
- Password Protection: You can secure your learning activities by adding a password.
Start and Manage Live Sessions
All upcoming and past live sessions can be managed through the Live Sessions administration page. This page provides a clear calendar view where you can review, edit, and manage all scheduled Microsoft Teams sessions.
You can also start a Microsoft Teams meeting directly from the Courses menu. Simply go to the course containing the Microsoft Teams activity, hover over the activity, and click on Settings. In the pop-up panel, click on Start Meeting to begin your live session.
As long as the admin starts the meeting, then depending on the lobby by-pass option, the participants will join the meeting respectively:
Let's see the available options,
a. Organiser → the learners should be admitted by the Admin first.
b. Everyone → the learners join immediately. In this case, upon the Admin starts the meeting, all the participants in the waiting room join the meeting automatically; there is no need for the Admin to admit them.
c. People in my organization and Guests → Learners must be admitted by the Admin first, as per the options above. This ensures that participants cannot join the meeting without being manually approved by the Admin.
d. People in my organization and Trusted → Learners must be admitted by the Admin first, as per the options above. This ensures that participants cannot join the meeting without being manually approved by the Admin
As an Admin, you will see a notification about the number of people waiting to Admit:
By clicking the "View Lobby" button, you can view a list of participants in the waiting room and choose whether to admit them or deny entry.
If the Microsoft Teams app is installed, both the admin and users will receive popup notifications. The admin will be notified when a learner enters the waiting room, while users will be alerted that the meeting has started.
Student Experience
Students can access live Microsoft Teams sessions only if they are enrolled in the course containing the respective learning activity. They need to:
- Enroll in the course (whether it's free or paid).
- Access the course through the course player.
- Click on the Microsoft Teams learning activity to join the live session.
- Once the instructor or admin starts the session, students will be admitted to the meeting.
Up until the date/time of the meeting is reached, the learner sees the following message
The learner can see the Join button 15 minutes before the start date/time.
As long as the Admin has not started the meeting, all participants, regardless of the Lobby option, will remain in the "waiting room" by default. When learners click the "Join" button from the course player, they will wait there until the Admin starts the session.
Once the admin starts the meeting, then depending on the lobby by-pass option, the participants will join the meeting respectively.
Participants joining via mobile devices must download the Microsoft Teams app, and they may need a Microsoft Teams account. If they don’t have an account, they’ll be prompted to sign up before joining. Please note that, when joining through the Microsoft Teams app, the system will be unable to track their progress, attendance, or time spent. Within the school’s system, it will appear as though they never joined. However, you can manually mark their participation as completed if needed.
Allow Users to Add Live Sessions to Their Calendar
LearnWorlds supports the Add to Calendar feature, enabling users to add live sessions to their personal calendars. To enable this feature, follow these steps:
- Navigate to the page of your choice. Click on Add section → Event Calendar and choose one of the available layouts.
- Enable the Add to Calendar option.
- Users can then click on Add to Calendar in the Events Calendar widget and choose their preferred calendar—Google, Apple, Outlook.com, Microsoft 365, Yahoo, or iCal. Alternatively, users can add the live session to their calendar directly from the course player by visiting the Microsoft Teams learning activity and clicking on Add to Calendar.
The event title, date, time, and direct Microsoft Teams link will be displayed in their chosen calendar, allowing them to join the session seamlessly.
Delete Microsoft Teams Meetings
You can delete a Microsoft Teams meeting in two ways:
- Delete the Microsoft Teams learning activity from the course.
- Delete the session from the Live Sessions page.
Deleting a session from the Live Sessions page will not remove the learning activity from the course, which means you can reuse it to initiate a new meeting. Similarly, deleting the Teams activity from LearnWorlds will not delete the meeting from your Teams account. If necessary, you can remove the meeting directly from your Microsoft Teams account.
Track User Progress/Attendance
LearnWorlds allows you to track user progress and attendance for Microsoft Teams learning activities. Once a user clicks the "Join session" button, their time in the session begins to count. Even if they leave the meeting but remain on the same page and activity, the timer will continue. Time tracking stops only when they move to a different activity.
Remember that if users join the session through the Microsoft Teams app, the system will not be able to track their time or verify if they attended, as they are using an external tool. Of course, you can also manually mark a session or activity as completed by following the steps outlined here.