Take notes in meetings on Teams and write the minutes

Organizing your note-taking

Whether you use a computer or a sheet of paper, effective note-taking follows a method. The aim is not to write everything down, but to keep what the minutes will need: the topics discussed, the decisions, the actions and the questions left open.

• Prepare the structure in advance: copy the agenda and leave room under each item for decisions and actions.
• Write decisions down word for word: a decision that is poorly worded in the meeting will be poorly carried out.
• Write each action with its owner and due date: "Mark sends the quote on Friday" rather than "quote".
• Use consistent abbreviations, which you will spell out when you review.
• Appoint a note-taker: even when everyone can write in the same document, one person is responsible for the record.

Teams changes one thing above all: notes are no longer a personal document. Participants can access them, add to them and review them, which makes it easier to write and approve the minutes together. For general note-taking techniques, see our article on how to take notes for a meeting report.

What Microsoft Teams offers for meeting notes

Microsoft Teams is first and foremost a teamwork tool: in a single space, you exchange messages, share documents and organize your meetings. For note-taking, it offers several complementary features:

• Meeting notes: a shared notes space attached to the meeting, available from the invitation or the meeting chat. Participants from your organization can write in it at the same time. In recent versions of Teams, these notes are based on Loop components and include sections for the agenda, notes and follow-up tasks.
• The meeting chat: it stays available before, during and after the meeting. You can share links and files there, and mention a participant with @ to draw their attention to a point.
• Recording and transcription: when they are allowed in your organization, they let you find out what was said and check a wording.
• Files and tabs: a OneNote notebook or a shared document can be added as a tab in a channel, to keep the notes of a series of meetings together.

The names and location of these features change with Teams updates and depend on the settings chosen by your IT department. If you cannot find an option, it is often because it has not been enabled for your account.

How to take notes on Teams: before, during, after

Before the meeting

1. Open the meeting in the Teams calendar and create the meeting notes.
2. Write down the agenda, the date and the list of participants. Preparing the layout in advance leaves your mind free during the discussion.
3. Make sure participants can access the notes: they can add their topics or documents before the meeting.

During the meeting

1. Keep the notes open next to the video and follow the agenda.
2. Under each item, write down the gist of the discussion, the decision taken and the resulting actions.
3. Use the chat for links, documents and mentions: you can mention a participant so that they check or complete an item.
4. Restate each decision and each action out loud before moving on to the next item. It avoids diverging interpretations and makes writing easier.

After the meeting

1. Reopen the notes and the meeting chat so that nothing is forgotten.
2. Review: spell out abbreviations and acronyms, remove repetitions, check names and dates.
3. If the meeting was transcribed, use the transcript to check a wording or find a figure that was quoted.
4. Have the summary reviewed by the chair or a key participant before sending it.

Recording and transcription: what you need to know

Teams transcription is a valuable aid: it lets you concentrate on the discussion rather than on writing, and check afterwards what was said. It does not replace note-taking, though.

• It is started during the meeting, usually by the organizer or a presenter, and participants are notified that it is running.
• It records everything, including hesitations and digressions. An hour-long meeting produces a long text that still has to be sorted to extract the decisions.
• It depends on your organization: recording, transcription and automatic summaries are subject to the administrator's settings, and some features, such as AI-generated recaps, require a specific license.
• Participants must be informed: recording a meeting processes personal data. Announce it at the start of the meeting and follow your company's internal rules.

From notes to meeting minutes

Notes, even good ones, are not yet minutes. Minutes are a structured document, understandable by someone who was absent, that records the decisions and gets the actions started. To go from one to the other:

1. Follow the structure of the agenda: one heading per item discussed.
2. Summarize each item in a few neutral sentences, without reproducing the discussion word for word.
3. Set the decisions apart in a visible section.
4. Gather the actions in a table: action, owner, due date.
5. Add the practical information: date, participants, apologies, date of the next meeting.
6. Send them within 24 hours, in the meeting chat or by email, as a PDF if the document needs to be kept.

For the expected form and content, see our article on the definition of meeting minutes, our sample minutes to send to participants and a complete example of executive committee minutes. Our guide to meeting minutes brings methods and templates together.

Tips for organizing your notes in Teams

• Choose a precise team and channel name, for example "Executive committee" or "ERP project", so that meetings and their notes are easy to find.
• Attach recurring meetings to a channel: notes, chat and files stay in the same place from one meeting to the next.
• Keep the same notes outline for every meeting in a series: the minutes are quicker to write and easier to compare.
• Track actions separately: an action written in the minutes is quickly lost from view. Copy it into a shared action plan and review it at the start of the next meeting.
• Archive the teams of completed projects, to lighten your workspace without losing the history.

Requirements for using Teams

Each participant needs a computer, tablet or phone and an internet connection. To use all the collaboration features (shared notes, files, channels), a Microsoft 365 work account is required; external participants can join a meeting but do not always have access to the notes. To get familiar with the tool, Microsoft's online tutorials and a test meeting with a colleague are often enough.

If you want to go further, Perfony works inside Teams to turn your meetings into minutes and action plans: the meeting is transcribed, decisions and actions are identified, and the minutes are prepared automatically.