Microsoft is currently rolling out the Live Reactions feature in Microsoft Teams Meetings. This Meeting Reactions feature allows users to react to participants during a meeting.

When meeting reactions are turned on, Raise hand icon in control bar will change to Reactions icon. Currently Reactions are available only on Teams Desktop and Teams Mobile apps. Support for meetings on web, breakout room systems, or surface hub will be available later in the year.

In a Teams meeting, participants can choose from four different reaction types – like , heart , applause , and laugh – and send it to meeting attendees from the new reactions and raise hand flyout in the control bar.

Meeting participants will see the reaction displayed over your position in the meeting stage area, and you’ll see the reaction displayed on your “ME” box at the lower right corner of meeting stage area. Here’s how it looks like:

When content is shared, the reactions will float over the content for more engaging experience. This applies to Desktop, Window, PowerPoint, and Whiteboard sharing.

How to Enable/Disable Reactions in Teams meeting?

Meeting reactions will be ON by default in your tenant. Admins can change whether users have reactions ON or OFF by default by using the AllowMeetingReactions policy.

To disable meeting reactions by default, you need to set –AllowMeetingReactions parameter to false using Set-CsTeamsMeetingPolicy cmdlet.

If admin turns reactions OFF by default for users, meeting organizers can still enable reactions in their meetings from the meeting options page.

Current Limitations

• Reactions are not supported in web, breakout rooms, or surface hub meetings.
• Limited reaction types (only positive reactions, no neutral and negative reactions).
• In large meetings with no content being shared, you will miss the reactions sent by people who are not positioned in meeting stage area.
• The person sharing a Desktop or Window will not see reactions unless they keep the meeting window open.

Additional Tip

When meeting reactions are turned on, Raise hand option will be moved to flyout menu. To quickly raise and lower hand you can use the Ctrl+Shift+K shortcut in Microsoft Teams.

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