The Future of Teams Meeting Transcripts

Upcoming changes might finally make eDiscovery a bit easier

Photo by Sigmund on Unsplash

I can’t remember the first time I tested the native M365 eDiscovery tools handling Teams meeting transcripts, but I know I’ve tested it many times. It’s been the source of much consternation and plenty of time spent explaining what was happening.

It’s gone from being unsearchable to searchable but only returning the MP4 recording, not the transcript, to finally, last year, magically recreated in Purview Premium eDiscovery when you collect the video recording.

I’ve written about the details of how it works currently here -

However, I didn’t spend much time on what happens if you transcribe a meeting but don’t record it. This is partly because I didn’t know anyone who would not record the meeting in that case but also because that took us back to the beginning, a transcript that was stored in the Exchange substrate but unsearchable and uncollectible for eDiscovery.

According to recent roadmap items, we should see significant changes in transcripts.

1. OneDrive storage. Microsoft Teams: Improvements to the view, download, and delete experience of Teams meeting transcript files. This roadmap item, scheduled for May, indicates that transcripts will soon be stored in OneDrive for Business and Exchange and eventually only in OneDrive.

2. Microsoft Teams: Tenant-wide policy for permission to download meeting transcripts and user-level controls for who can view and edit meeting transcripts. - We also get granular control over who can do what with transcripts, which are scheduled for May.

3. Premium Teams users can choose who can start recording and transcription - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/roadmap?featureid=116819.

4. Finally, could Microsoft be solving the mystery of who recorded the meeting? Microsoft Teams: Teams meeting recordings will be saved to meeting organizer’s OneDrive for Business.

A few points on eDiscovery: