Find out how to use one of Microsoft Teams' best hidden collaboration features. In this quick tutorial you will learn how to share remote control of your mouse and keyboard with other Microsoft Teams users.

Getting Started

The benefits of being able to share screen control in Microsoft Teams

Transitioning from working in-person with your team to being fully remote has been frustrating for many. Luckily, there are plenty of virtual tools that you can add to your kit to make this transition a bit smoother.

One of them is Microsoft Teams’ screen control feature, that enables you to share your mouse and keyboard while sharing your screen. Follow along below, and in just a few easy steps you can take collaboration with your team to the next level.

In this quick tutorial you’ll learn

  • How to share your window or desktop in Microsoft Teams.
  • How to give and take control of shared screens in Microsoft Teams.
  • What to do if request control is greyed out in Microsoft Teams.
  • How to enable multiple users to share and control mouse and keyboard at the same time while in a Microsoft Teams meeting using CoScreen.

How to share your screen in Microsoft Teams

1. You need to share your screen in order for someone to interact with it. Select the Share Content button in meeting controls. You will be prompted to select from a variety of windows, or share your entire desktop. Microsoft Teams also has the option to select a whiteboard, or connect with powerpoint to share documents.

Click on "share content" in meeting controls in Microsoft Teams

2. If you are using Teams on a Mac OS, you will see a message prompting you to grant security and privacy permission to the app. Go ahead and click Open System Preferences and check the box next to Microsoft Teams.

Enable Microsoft Teams if using on macOS

3. You can close out System Preferences and continue your Teams call with the addition of the screen share feature.

How to give control in Microsoft Teams

To be able to share screen control in Microsoft Teams you first share your screen then you give control through the content sharing menu.

1. At the top of the screen you’ll see the content sharing menu. Hover over it and select Give Control. You can then select who you would like to give control to.

Click on "give control" in Microsoft Teams

2. To gain control of your screen back simply select Take Back Control from the same menu bar (learn more here and here).

What to do if 'request control' is greyed out on Microsoft Teams

There are multiple reasons why you might not be able to use the “request control” feature in Microsoft Teams. Here are the details:

  1. Potential reason 1: The meeting organizer has disabled the ability to give or request control from external participants. Learn how to fix this.
  2. Potential reason 2: Your device may not have a GPU or hardware acceleration enabled. Learn how to fix this here or here.
  3. Potential reason 3: You cannot grant or request control from guest users joining from the web app. This is due to the fact that joining via the web app does not require any authentication to join the meeting. Learn more about this issue.

Congrats! You were hopefully able to activate Microsoft Teams’ remote control feature. Now, other users can remotely control the window or screen that’s being shared using mouse control and keyboard control. If you weren’t able to resolve your issue please check out sharing screen and remote control using CoScreen in the next section.

How to enable multiple users to share and control in Microsoft Teams

In small group meetings, you might even want to be able to enable multiple users to share windows at the same time, side-by-side from each other, and to interact with them remotely using mouse and keyboard without having to go through the above flow every single time.

Take Microsoft Teams to the next level with CoScreen

https://www.coscreen.co/getting-started

Here are the steps to use multi-user screen sharing & remote control using the CoScreen application in parallel to Teams:

  1. Launch a meeting in Microsoft Teams.
  2. Launch the CoScreen application (download here: https://coscreen.co/download).
  3. Create a CoScreen.
  4. Paste the link to the CoScreen in the Microsoft Teams chat so all other participants can join.

Congrats! Now any participant can share one or multiple windows and anyone can interact with them using mouse and keyboard without having to request control. In parallel, you can still communicate using Microsoft Teams and use its features as you know it.

If you don’t need to see others across the entire screen, you can also use CoScreen’s built-in audio and video chat feature instead. If you want early access to the CoScreen/Microsoft Teams integration that makes it even easier for you to join CoScreen from Teams - request it here.

Learn more about the various use cases, or check it out at coscreen.co.