Set up for live events in Microsoft Teams

When you're setting up for live events, there are several steps that you must take.

Step 1: Set up your network for live events in Teams

Live events produced in Teams require you to prepare your organization's network for Teams.

Step 2: Get and assign licenses

Ensure you have correct license assignments for who can create and schedule live events and who can watch live events.

Step 3: Set up live events policies

Live events policies are used to control who in your organization can hold live events and the features that are available in the events they create. You can use the default policy or create one or more custom live events policies. After you create a custom policy, assign it to a user or groups of users in your organization.

Create or edit a live events policy

1. In the left navigation of the Microsoft Teams admin center, go to Meetings > Live events policies > Manage Policies tab.

2. Do one of the following options:

   • If you want to edit the existing default policy, choose Global (Org-wide default).
   • If you want to create a new custom policy, choose +Add.
   • If you want to edit a custom policy, select the policy, and then choose Edit.

   Here are the settings you can change to fit the needs of your organization.

   

You can also manage live event policies using Windows PowerShell, and, currently, GCC High and DoD customers must use this method. For more information, see Use PowerShell to set live events policies in Teams.

Assign a live events policy to users

If you created a custom live events policy, assign it to users for the policy to be active.

You can assign a policy directly to users, either individually or at scale through a batch assignment (if supported for the policy type), or to a group that the users are members of (if supported for the policy type).To learn about the different ways that you can assign policies to users, see Assign policies to your users in Teams.

Step 4: Set up a video distribution solution for live events in Teams

Playback of live event videos uses adaptive bitrate streaming (ABR) but it's a unicast stream, meaning every viewer is getting their own video stream from the internet. For live events or videos sent out to large portions of your organization, there could be a significant amount of internet bandwidth consumed by viewers. For organizations that want to reduce this internet traffic for live events, Microsoft offers a first-party solution, Microsoft eCDN (enterprise content delivery network). Live events solutions are also integrated with Microsoft's trusted video delivery partners offering software defined networks (SDNs) or eCDNs. These SDN/eCDN platforms enable organizations to optimize network bandwidth without sacrificing end-user viewing experiences. These solutions can help enable a more scalable and efficient video distribution across your enterprise network.

• Microsoft eCDN Microsoft eCDN is integrated into Teams and is also compatible with Stream and Viva Engage. It employs peer-to-peer technology within a corporate network to offload bandwidth from the WAN connection.

• Purchase and set up your solution outside of Teams Get expert help with scaling video delivery by using Microsoft's trusted video delivery partners.

The following SDN/eCDN solutions are preintegrated and can be set up to be used with Teams streaming:

• Hive Streaming provides a simple and powerful solution for live and on-demand enterprise video distribution. Hive is a software-based solution that requires no extra hardware or bandwidth and provides a secure way to enable thousands of simultaneous video viewers without affecting to your network. For customers looking to understand the impact video is having on their network prior to purchasing an SDN/eCDN solution, Hive Streaming also provides a browser-based analytics solution for Microsoft customers. Learn more.

• Kollective is a cloud-based, smart-peering distribution platform that uses your existing network infrastructure to deliver content in many forms (live streaming video, on-demand video, software updates, security patches, and more) faster, more reliably, and with less bandwidth. The world's largest financial institutions trust our secure platform and with no extra hardware, setup and maintenance are easy. Learn more.

• Ramp OmniCache provides next-generation network distribution and ensures seamless delivery of video content across global WANs, helping event producers optimize network bandwidth and support successful live event broadcasts and on-demand streaming. The support for Ramp OmniCache for live events produced in Teams is coming soon. Learn more.

• Riverbed, the industry standard in network optimization, is extending its acceleration solutions to Microsoft Teams. Now Microsoft 365 customers can confidently accelerate 365 traffic including Teams along with a wealth of other leading enterprise SaaS services to increase workforce productivity from anywhere. Teams acceleration can be enabled through an effortless setup that comes with all the assurance of Riverbed’s world-class support and ongoing investment.

After you set up the SDN or eCDN solution, you're ready to configure the provider for live events in Teams.

Next steps

Go to Configure live events settings in Teams.

Related topics

What is Teams live events?

Plan for Teams live events

Configure live events settings in Teams