In this article

​​​​​​​Set up Q&A

Set up Q&A for large, structured meetings, like town halls or webinars to help manage questions from attendees. 

From Outlook

  1. Open a new calendar event.

  2. Select Meeting Options at the top of the window.

  3. Go to Enable Q&A and select the Yes toggle.

Meeting Options button in Outlook 2013

From Teams

Before a meeting

  1. Open a meeting you organized in your Teams calendar.

  2. Select More options Microsoft Teams more options icon > Meeting options

  3. In Engagement  Teams Chat Tab icon, switch the Q&A toggle to Yes

  4. Select Save.

During a meeting

  1. Join a meeting you organized in Teams.

  2. Select More actions  Microsoft Teams more options icon in the meeting controls.

  3. Select Settings Settings buttonMeeting options  Meeting options icon.

  4. In Engagement  Teams Chat Tab icon, turn on the Q&A toggle.

  5. Select Save.

Note: Q&A is available to attendees during the meeting in the meeting window and as a tab in meeting chat.

Best practices for setting up Q&A 

In your meeting options, there are additional settings you can apply for a smoother Q&A experience:

  • In Roles  People or Show Participants button, add co-organizers in Choose co-organizers: Co-organizers can help you moderate and manage the Q&A.

  • Turn the meeting chat off (optional): If you don’t want attendees to use the meeting chat in addition to Q&A, select Off from the Meeting chat dropdown menu.

Moderate Q&A questions

Turn on moderation to review and approve questions before they appear in the Q&A feed.  Replies won't be moderated.

To turn on moderation for Q&A:

  1. Select Q&A  Q&A icon  in the meeting controls.

  2. In the Q&A pane, select Q&A settings  Settings button.

  3. Turn on the Moderate questions toggle.

  4. Select Save.

Notes: 

  • Once you turn on moderation, it can't be turned off.

  • Q&A moderation capabilities are limited to organizers and co-organizers.

If you've turned on moderation, you’ll see three headings in the Q&A thread:

  • In review: New questions will appear in the In review tab. Any moderator can review questions.

  • Published: Published questions will be moved to the Published tab and visible to all attendees.

  • Dismissed: Dismissed questions can be published later, if desired.

Attendee Q&A experience

Attendees can engage in Q&A from Teams for desktop, mobile and web. Attendees will only see a single Q&A feed, whether or not the meeting is moderated. There, they can post, reply, upvote, and react to questions.

When people post questions in moderated Q&As, they'll be notified that their question was received and will be published after a moderator approves it.

Note: Q&A won’t be available to view-only attendees who joined past the meeting capacity.

Upvote questions

Attendees can upvote a specific question when they support or agree with it. Each attendee can upvote each question once.

To upvote a question:

  1. Select Q&A  Q&A icon in the meeting controls.

  2. Select the arrow that appears at the bottom of the question.

Attendees can view questions with the most upvotes by selecting Sort ​​​​​​​> Most upvoted.

Turn off upvotes

By default, upvoting is turned on for Q&A but can be turned off.

To turn off upvoting in Q&A:

  1. Select Q&A  Q&A icon in the meeting controls.

  2. In the Q&A pane, select Q&A settings  Settings button.

  3. Turn the Upvotes toggle off.

  4. Select Save.

Allow anonymous questions

After you turn on Q&A, you can choose whether to allow attendees to ask questions anonymously.

To allow anonymous questions:

  1. Select Q&A  Q&A icon  in the meeting controls.

  2. In the Q&A pane, select Q&A settings  Settings button.

  3. Turn on the Anonymous posts toggle.

The posted question isn't associated with the attendee. Moderators can turn off anonymous posting at any time. Questions posted anonymously will remain anonymous. 

Note: Replies and reactions to anonymous questions aren't anonymous.

Archive questions

Archive questions in recurring meetings or events with Q&A to keep the main feed relevant and up to date.

Organizers can archive specific or all questions from the main Q&A feed. When a question is archived, it's moved to the archived feed. Organizers can unarchive questions and move them back to the main Q&A feed anytime.

To archive Q&A questions:

  • Select Q&A  Q&A icon  in the meeting controls.

    • To archive all questions currently in the feed, select Archive all  Archive all glyph> Yes.

    • To archive a specific question, select More options  Microsoft Teams more options icon > Archive  Archive Team button next to the question you want to archive.

To view archived questions, select Filter Avatar filter button and choose Archived from the dropdown menu. 

To unarchive a question, go to the Archived filter view and select More options  Microsoft Teams more options icon > Unarchive  unarchive icon next to the question you want to unarchive.

Download Q&A reports

After a town hall or webinar with Q&A ends, organizers and co-organizers can download the Q&A report. 

Q&A reports will download as .csv files that can be stored and edited in Excel.

Report details include:

  • Source: Whether a Q&A post was made by an organizer or attendee.

  • Type: Whether the post was a discussion, question, or reply.

  • Identity: The person who submitted a post or reply.

  • Timestamp: What time each post or reply was submitted.

  • Conversation ID: A unique number assigned to a specific post.

  • Reply to ID: The conversation ID of the post that a reply was responding to.

  • Content: The verbatims of each post.

  • Reactions: The total number of reactions in the conversation.

To download a Q&A report:

  1. Go to your Teams calendar.

  2. Select a past town hall or webinar and view its details.

  3. Select Manage event  Fluent 2 edit icon small.

  4. Select Reports.

  5. Select Download  Download button> Q&A report. ​​​​​​​ Screenshot of a meeting recording with details about the event, including date, duration, attendees, and options to access insights, reports, and join the meeting.

  6. The Q&A report will begin downloading as a .csv file.

Notes: 

  • The report download will contain questions and answers from the previous 28 days. Older content won't be available in the report but will still be available in the Q&A feed.

  • Downloading Q&A reports isn't currently supported for Teams meetings.

Related topics 

Get started with Microsoft Teams webinars

Get started with town hall in Microsoft Teams

Best practices for a large meeting in Microsoft Teams​​​​​​​

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