take control of presentation in teams

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Manage who can present and request control in Teams meetings and webinars

• 2 contributors
• Applies to: Microsoft Teams

As an admin, you can manage who can present in meetings and webinars and whether participants and external participants can request control of the presentation.

Manage who can present and request control

To manage who can present and request control, follow these steps:

• In the Teams admin center, expand Meetings and select Meeting policies .
• Select the policy that you want to edit or create a new one.
• Navigate to the Content sharing section.
• Select your desired values for Who can present , Participants can give or request control , External participants can give or request control (described in the following sections).
• Select Save .

Manage who can present

Who can present lets organizers choose who can be presenters in a meeting or webinar. To learn more, see Change participant settings for a Teams meeting and Roles in a Teams meeting .

This setting is a per-user policy that and lets you choose the default value for the Who can present setting that organizers see in their Meeting options. The Who can present policy setting affects all meetings and webinars, including Meet Now meetings.

To specify the default value of the Who can present setting in Teams, select one of the following settings in the Who can present policy:

After you set the default value, organizers can still change this setting through their Meeting options in Teams to choose who can present in their meetings and webinars.

Participants can give or request control

This setting is a per-user policy that controls whether users with this assigned policy can give, be given, or request control of the shared desktop or window. To give control, your users can hover over the top of the screen.

You can toggle this setting On or Off in the Teams admin center or manage this policy in PowerShell.

When this assigned policy is On for a user, the Give Control option is displayed in the top bar during a sharing session.

When this assigned policy is Off for a user, the Give Control option isn't available.

Let's look at the following example.

Daniela can give control of the shared desktop or window to other participants in a meeting or webinar Adele organizes. However, Adele can't give control to other participants.

To give and take control of shared content during sharing, both users must be using the Teams desktop client. Control isn't supported when either user is using Teams in a browser.

Use the -AllowExternalParticipantGiveRequestControl parameter within the PowerShell CsTeamsMeetingPolicy cmdlet to control whether or not external participants can give, be given, and request control during meetings and webinars.

To allow users to give, be given, and request control during meetings and webinars, use the following script:

To prevent users from giving, being given, and requesting control during meetings and webinars, use the following script, use the following script:

External participants can give or request control

This setting is a per-user policy. This policy controls whether external participants can give, be given, or request control of the sharer's screen in meetings and webinars organizers with this policy create.

External participants can give or request control doesn't control what external participants can do in meetings and webinars they attend. The organizer's Who can present and Who can bypass the lobby settings in their Meeting options determines what external participants can do in their meeting or webinar.

External participants in Teams meetings can be categorized as follows:

• Anonymous participant
• External access users

For external access users to give control to other external participants, both you and the other org's admin must have this policy set to On .

For external participants to give, be given, and request control in meetings and webinars organizers with this policy create, use the following script:

To prevent external participants from being given, giving, and requesting control in meetings and webinars organizers with this policy create, use the following script:

Related topics

• Teams policy reference - Meetings
• Assign policies to your users in Teams
• Teams PowerShell overview
• Plan meetings
• Plan webinars

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Home / Blog / Tips and Tricks / Give or take control when screen sharing on Teams

Give or take control when screen sharing on Teams

Microsoft Teams for personal use is an excellent collaboration tool. A notable new feature is the ability to give and take control during screen sharing. This proves extremely useful during presentations on Teams, allowing multiple speakers to advance slides or collaborate on documents in real time. It’s also beneficial for assisting a less tech-savvy friend with their computer or including them in an online game without complicated setups.

In essence, this feature enables you to share your screen control with another person during a meeting, which improves collaboration, facilitates troubleshooting, and provides guided assistance.

Learn more about screen sharing in Teams.

Give control while screen sharing

Should you wish for another meeting participant to alter a file, assist with your presentation, or provide a demonstration, you have the option to grant them control. Once granted, they will have the ability to select, edit, and make various changes to the shared screen. Control of the sharing will be shared between you, and you can reclaim control at any moment.

To begin, share your screen and then hover over the screen sharing indicator at the top of your screen.

Then select ‘Give control’ from the presenter toolbar, which will appear when hovering over the screen sharing indicator.

Warning : Only grant control of your app to individuals you trust. Those with control can issue commands that may impact your system or other applications.

Take control of a shared screen

To take control while another person is sharing, select ‘Take control’.

The person sharing can approve or deny your request. Make selections, edits, and other modifications to the shared screen while you have control. Select ‘Release control’ to stop sharing control.

You share, we listen.

We are always grateful to receive your feedback and suggestions to make Teams better.

• Report bugs and glitches by sending us relevant feedback using the in-app form. Please include diagnostic logs and screenshots to help us to investigate your issue. Learn more how to send feedback or suggest a feature in Teams (free)
• If you have suggestions for new features or changes to the existing ones, you can vote and submit ideas on  Microsoft Teams (free) Feedback Portal .
• You can always create a post on the Microsoft Support Community as well.

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No more “next slide please” with Microsoft Teams PowerPoint Live Presenter Mode

One of the great meeting features of Microsoft Teams is PowerPoint Live Presenter mode. For me, the killer feature is that anyone can “Take control” of presenting the deck seamlessly.

In my opinion, it really breaks the flow of a presentation for the presenter to keep prompting someone with “next slide please”. It became a running joke with the UK Government updates that they were constantly prompting for “next slide please”

PowerPoint Live Presenter Mode won’t be suitable for every meeting type, as you may not want everyone in the meeting to have the power to “take control” but for internal “All Hands” type meetings, where multiple presenters have a couple of slides each to present, each presenter can just “take control” in turn and drive the slides.

Using PowerPoint Live Presenter Mode

Firstly someone uploads the PowerPoint deck. Teams will show recent decks that the user has edited to make it easy to find the right deck to upload, but you can also browse OneDrive or the local computer.

The person uploading will be the initial “deck presenter”; they will initially have control to move the deck forward for everyone in the meeting

Presenter Options in PowerPoint Live Presenter Mode

The presenter gets a nice view of the overall deck and the current slide you are presenting. You will also see slide notes. This is so useful if you are presenting from a single screen. You can also see all the chat while presenting. This tight integration with PowerPoint is something that steps Microsoft Teams apart from other online meeting platforms.

You can also use the new “standout” mode (not sure about that name, I prefer “weatherman mode”) to appear over the slides which can help promote engagement. Note, standout mode person overlaid on the slides won’t come through on a recording, The recording will show normal bottom right video.

PowerPoint Live Attendee Features

Attendees can even personally move forwards and backwards in the deck, this is useful if they want to see what is coming up

the presenter can turn off this feature if they prefer

Attendees can also personally put the slides into “high contrast mode” for improved accessibility. This only affects their view of the slides.

“Take Control” – the “next slide please” killer

Often in meetings with multiple presenters, before PowerPoint Live, one person presents the deck for the whole meetings, probably via screen sharing, and as the current talker asks that person to move the slides forward; “Next slide please”. Saving the pain of one person screens sharing, then another, then another.

With PowerPoint Live, In the meeting, everyone other than the current person presenting the slides will see the slide the presenter is presenting, but they also have a “Take Control” button.

The person that presses that button then gets the presenter view and control, and the original presenter gets prompted that someone has taken over. They can see who took over as the current presenter is shown in the bottom left.

This allows seamless transfer of presenters with no interruption for the “viewers” of the presentation for a much slicker meeting.

See the banner prompt notifying the previous presenter that someone has taken over presenting and in the bottom left I can see it’s Tom Morgan now presenting

Note, PowerPoint Live won’t work well for meetings where presenters need to “screen share” outside of a single PowerPoint deck. If someone does drop the presentation to share their screen, or for any other reason, when the original deck uploader shares the deck again, it prompts them with the option to resume at the same point in the deck.

About the author

A Microsoft MVP and Microsoft Certified Master, Tom Arbuthnot is Founder and Principal at Empowering.Cloud as well as a Solutions Director at Pure IP.

Tom stays up to date with industry developments and shares news and his opinions on his Tomtalks.blog, UC Today Microsoft Teams Podcast and email list. He is a regular speaker at events around the world.

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So they have finally caught up to WebEx and Adobe Connect

Not bad. Would definitely need to be able to share other things like videos outside of PowerPoint. Also, other online meeting tools have this feature but if the original presenter tries to use their own screen, it overrides what the remote user is doing. Does this happen in Teams Live as well?

The original presenter can press take control, like the others.

[…] No more “next slide please” with Microsoft Teams PowerPoint Live Presenter Mode. One of the great meeting features of Microsoft Teams is PowerPoint Live Presenter mode. The killer feature is that anyone can “Take control” of presenting the deck seamlessly. […]

Can you stop selected participants from taking control as well as moving forwards?

Yes, in the meeting settings

can you please give us more details how to do so?

thank you in advance!

Do you know of any way to make the Powerpoint slides bigger for the participants? The full screen command does not really go full screen anymore and all the zoom shortcuts zoom in on the controls, not the presentation – help!? I can’t find this anywhere – the old key commands that used to work now do not in Powerpoint Live. We are on laptops btw – not bigger monitors – hence the problem.

How To Give Control in Teams to Switch Presenter

Microsoft Teams continues to add new features and ways to engage meeting attendees. Sometimes when you’re a presenter in a Teams meeting, you’ll want to allow someone else to present or give control to someone else in the meeting. We’ll run through the different ways to present and how to give control in Teams to someone else.

The information below applies to all Microsoft Teams meetings, including breakout sessions and webinars. Some features, like PowerPoint Live, are only available while using the desktop version of Teams and cannot be accessed if you’re running Teams in a web browser.

Sharing Content in a Teams Meeting

When you’re in a Teams meeting and select the Share button, you can choose to share content in different ways:

• Share your screen : This option will allow meeting attendees to see anything that’s on the monitor you select.
• Share a specific window : This option will only allow attendees to see the specific window you choose to share.
• Create a Whiteboard : This option will launch the Whiteboard app so meeting attendees can collaborate. 
• Share a PowerPoint : Select a specific PowerPoint file to present to meeting attendees.

When you choose to share a PowerPoint presentation (rather than sharing the specific window the PowerPoint is in), meeting attendees will get a few extra features, and so will you.

When you share a presentation using PowerPoint Live, attendees will be able to move through the slides in your presentation at their own speed. Don’t worry—meeting attendees won’t control what other attendees see. You’ll still be in control of your presentation . However, if an attendee wants to skip a few slides ahead to see what’s coming, they can. When they’re ready, there’s a sync button which will sync them up with the presenter.

If you don’t want attendees to move through the presentation on their own, you can toggle that feature off by selecting the eye icon on the control panel that appears on the presentation.

When you share a presentation via PowerPoint live, you’ll be able to see your notes, slides, and the audience while you present. This is a feature that Teams users have been clamoring for, and we’re thrilled to see that Microsoft listened.

You’ll also get access to multi-colored laser pointers, pens, and highlighters to aid in your presentation.

Roles in Teams Meetings

First, let’s get clear about the various roles available in Teams meetings. The person who creates the link to join the meeting is the organizer. That person has ultimate control and can do things that no other attendee can do like manage breakout rooms .

The organizer can designate other meeting attendees as presenters. Only the organizer and presenters can share content during the meeting. Besides the organizer and presenters, everyone else in the meeting is called an Attendee.

The organizer can set presenters in advance of the meeting or on the fly during the meeting. To set presenters in advance of the meeting, the meeting organizer should select the Meeting Options link in the calendar invitation for the meeting.

A web page will open where you can choose who will be able to present during the meeting.

If you choose Specific people , next type in the names of the people who you want to be Presenters.

How To Promote an Attendee to Presenter in Teams

If you’re the meeting organizer, it’s easy to promote a meeting attendee to presenter during the meeting itself.

• Find the attendee in the participant list.
• Select the More options (three dots) link next to the attendee’s name.

• Select Make a presenter .

Now that person will be able to share content during the meeting.

Presenting vs. Taking Control

It’s important to understand the distinction between presenting in a Teams meeting and taking control of shared content.

Apps like GoToMeeting and Zoom have ways for meeting attendees to take control of another attendee’s computer. This usually happens in remote support sessions. So far, Microsoft Teams has not provided that functionality. However, Teams does allow presenters to give limited control to another attendee, and attendees can request control from presenters.

Obviously, you should only give control in Teams to someone you trust.

How To Give Control in Teams

In Microsoft Teams, if you want someone else in your meeting to edit a file you’re sharing or take over your presentation, you can give control to that person. It’s like adding a second, simultaneous presenter. You’ll both be able to control what’s being shared. You can take back control any time you want.

You can only give control to someone else in your Teams meeting when you’re presenting. Mouse over the content you’re sharing to activate the sharing toolbar and select Give control .

From there, select the person you want to give control to. The person you want to give control to will receive a notification letting them know that you want to share control of the presentation with them. When you share control with someone else, they’ll be able to make edits and other changes to the shared screen.

If you want to take control back from them, simply select the Cancel Control button.

How To Request Control in Teams

Requesting control while someone’s presenting in Teams works similarly. Simply select the Request control button. The presenter can then choose to Allow or Deny your control request.

When you no longer want control, you can select the Release control button.

Get Comfortable with Microsoft Teams

Love it or hate it, it doesn’t look like Microsoft Teams is going away any time soon. If your employer uses Teams, it’s worth learning a few Teams tips and tricks to get more comfortable with all its features. 

You can read about several ways to run polls in Teams meetings or learn how to hide your mess by changing your background in Teams.

Maggie Marystone is a freelance technology writer, human rights worker, and storyteller based in Chicago. Read Maggie's Full Bio

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