For the past year, we have been using Microsoft teams as an internal communication tool, there is no doubt that it is the best conference tool that I have used till now, it's fast, reliable, I can chat with other people, invite external people as well.

Everything was going well until I started to use the call recording feature recently, I did a call with my team, recorded the meeting and I was able to see that recording in a couple of minutes in my team's app, it was smooth but I didn’t know what I was about to face after that.

The struggle

Till here everything was good but the problem arose when I wanted to share this video with another team member who was not in this meeting. I clicked in the three dots to see what all options are available and viola there was a share and get link option.

But when I clicked on the share button, it asked me that if I want to share this with the whole organization?

But I don't want that, I want to share this with selective people this is where the flow broke. I got a little annoyed why there is no option here to select the member’s from my team. — Problem No. 1

Then I thought maybe I can share the link of the video with my team member using the other option of “Get link”.

I copied the link and shared with the team member but, he was unable to view the video as he had no permission. While creating the link there is no option to configure the permission which I think is a deal-breaker as we can see this feature in all the google apps for the past many years. Whenever you are creating a link to share anything, at the same time google asks you to configure the permissions. — Problem No. 2

I was struggling to find a way to share the video with other team members, then I thought maybe I can do it from Microsoft Stream as all the videos are stored there, the first option in the three dots menu in my team's group.

Microsoft Stream opened in my browser, and I could see my video there along with a couple of options, I am highlighting all the options which I think can be relevant to share this video with other team members selectively, but sadly I couldn't find it. I am a UX professional and if I can’t find an option to share, I don't know how other people are really dealing with this.

There are 4 options from where I thought or anybody will think that I can share this video:

1. Share
2. Three Dot Button
3. View Settings
4. Invite Others

I will briefly talk about the thought process that went inside my head while I clicked on those options and what I expected from them.

1.Share: Everybody is going to think that this is the way to share this video with other people, and yes they give you a link to share the video, but people can’t really access the video because they don't have permission.

And there is no option to configure the permission, all the options that are there are kind of irrelevant. Below is the screenshot of the share popup. There is no option to manage permission but they are giving an option to embed the video! I really don't understand when and who will be using this feature, and even if they try to use it, it won't work because of the permission issue which is missing.

Possible Improvements: There should be an option to go to the permission page from here or I can give permission to selective members directly from this popup.

2. Three dot Menu: I expected here I will find an option to manage permission but I was wrong. I also noticed an option to “Linked groups/channels” and I think this is something that should not be in a popup, people add videos to groups so that they can easily sort all the recording in a much more structured format and later it's easier for them to go through all the other relevant videos.

Possible Improvements: One more option of “Channels” can be added next to the “Details” accordion or below the “Details” section, where I can see all the videos in this channel or multiple channels.

Also, I think the “Manage Permissions” option should be either in this popup or can be added in the accordion next to “Details” and “Channels”

3. View Settings: Although I knew I would not find that option, still I gave it a try as till now I was frustrated and furious with teams. Who knows where the option is hidden.

I am personally not a fan of Theater mode as I think it doesn't provide that much value or solve any problem really because people can use the Full-Screen feature anytime where they want full attention on the video.

Also, I don't understand why this Theater mode has been given too much importance that there is not even a single option to manage permission but two options to toggle the theater mode, one that we see in the above section, and the other is in the video next to the full-screen button.

4. Invite Others: I found this option in the top right corner, that tooltip said invite other, I thought I finally found it, viola! But this was not to share this video this feature was to invite other members to Microsoft Stream, which is not really relevant to this video at all.

Possible Improvements: Well since I don't know which audience Microsoft is catering to with this tool, and how many people actually use this feature so I really can’t say for sure whether this feature is not in the right place or not, if people are using this enough times then it makes sense, but if it's not the case then this needs a rework.

Here is my take on this as per my understanding of other tools, I have been using other complex platforms like Google Ads, Google analytics, Facebook ads. Inviting someone to the tool is not something that people will be doing very often, it’s only when a new employee joins in, so this feature won’t necessarily have to be in the header and given so much importance. This can be put under settings or Manage Users sections or somewhere else. And this place can be used for something that’s more relevant to that specific screen and used more often.

The breakthrough

After I wasted an hour on finding the Manage Permissions section which I couldn’t find on Microsoft Stream, I decided to take a step back, go to Microsoft Teams and relook again. While looking at all the options again, I found a small Three-Dot button in the share popup, which anyone can barely notice.