The easiest way to hold an Office Hour is on Microsoft Teams:
- Open Teams
- Click on the Teams tab at the left
- Navigate to the 'ECON_teaching' team
- Click on the 'Office Hour' channel
- Click the 'Meet' button in the top right hand corner
- Give your meeting a suitable name, like Dr X's Office Hour
- Click 'Join Now' and the meeting will start.
Now you can do something else while waiting for students to visit you.
Waiting Room/Lobby
By default anyone entering your Office Hour will immediately join the conversation you are already having. If you would like to only talk to one student at a time, you can enable a 'Lobby' which works like a waiting room. To do this
- On the toolbar at the top click on the Participants icon
- In the Participants toolbar which opens at the right, click on the three dot and choose 'Manage permissions'
- This will take you to a webpage with settings for your meeting. Change 'Who can bypass the lobby?' to 'Only Me'
- Click Save and close the page.
Now everyone who enters the meeting will join a lobby and will appear on the Participants list accordingly. To admit them to the meeting, click the tick next to their name.