Automatically move & rename Teams meeting recordings

An incredibly common scenario we see these days is a recording of a Teams meeting being stored in someone’s OneDrive.

While access to the recording is somewhat manageable and even the content of the recording can be viewed in context through the Meetings app in Teams – unfortunately we still have an existential crisis to deal with: the file has a meaningless name and is most likely stored in the wrong place.

The Challenge

When a “private” meeting (i.e. one that is not in a channel) is recorded, the recording is saved into the Recordings folder within OneDrive.

And more often than not, this is where the recording stays.

The other issue is that the name usually has the structure of:

"Call with <person name>-<date>_<time>-Meeting Recording"

A real version of this would look like:

"Call with Loryan Strant-20240930_165520-Meeting Recording"

(“Call with…” is usually for 1:1 ad-hoc calls, whereas a recording based off a meeting invitation usually has the meeting title in it.)

Unfortunately, the combination of these two outcomes results in a bunch of content that doesn’t really mean anything without context and will often be lost over time.

Realistically, we want some of these video files to have a meaningful name like “Project kick-off call with vendor” and should live in the project channel or Team. (Let’s ignore the elephant in the room about the fact that people could organise meetings in channels to help with this.)

Without having the right file name in the right location, it can make things harder for our colleagues and more frustrating as people search for recordings in various locations.

So, how do we fix this? Ideally the answer is user training combined with behavioural change. And while unfortunately adoption & change management have been neglected by many organisations, even with the best intentions and initiatives, people are still fallible and forget to do things.

The Solution

In my previous role my nickname was “Captain Automate”, and while some people think that automations are about saving time – in reality, many automations are more about saving brain space and not having to remember to do little niggly things that add to your cognitive load.

While something like renaming and moving a recording is in reality a very small task that should only take 30-60 seconds, it’s more of a case of having to remember to do it in the first place. And THAT is what I want to automate out of existence.

What I’ve built is a guided chat experience in Microsoft Teams that, every time a new recording is created in OneDrive will take the user through these questions:

This is achieved using Adaptive Cards in Power Automate and using the Workflow chat functionality in Teams.

There are 4 different outcomes possible here:

• Rename and move the file
• Move the file without renaming it
• Rename the file and don’t move it
• Do nothing

The user experience

Rename and move the file

When a new file is created in the Recordings folder of the user’s OneDrive, a chat prompt will appear in Microsoft Teams asking if they want to rename the file:

If the user says yes, a further prompt appears asking for the name:

Once they press Submit, the file will be renamed and a link provided to the folder. From there, the user is asked if they want to move the file to a different location:

If they select “Yes”, the user is then prompted to select a Team they want to move the file to:

Once a Team is selected, the workflow extracts a list of folders in the Documents library of the corresponding SharePoint site:

Once the user selects the relevant folder and presses “Select this folder”, the workflow performs the move of the file and provides the user with a link to the folder in case they want to move it to a sub-folder:

If we press the button to open the folder, we see it in the browser:

Move the file without renaming it

Here we have the same initial prompt, but this time we’ve pressed “No” as we don’t want to rename it. The workflow moves to the next prompt to ask the user if they want to move it:

From there it asks the same questions as in the previous example to list Teams, then folders, and when all relevant choices are made, moves the file for us:

Rename the file and don’t move it

And if we simply want to rename the file to be more meaningful but don’t want to move it elsewhere, again we’ll start with our file in the Recordings folder:

The same prompt comes up, and we say “Yes” to rename it:

We’ve specified a new name, the workflow changes the name, and prompts us if we want to move it:

This time we press the “No” button, and that’s the end of the workflow.

If we open our Recordings folder, we’ll see the file has now been renamed:

How it works

Here is a breakdown of the process next to the workflow itself:

I won’t dive into details about how the workflow works, but you can download it from my PowerThings repository on GitHub.

No extra licensing is required, no admin permissions – it’s all out of the box. All you need to do is import it, make a small tweak, and let it do the work for you.

Getting it running

This is largely a case of next-next-next, so in theory it can be achieved by people with practically no experience of Power Automate.

Unfortunately, due to the requirements of the trigger to start the workflow, it will need to be adjusted after you complete the import – but I’ve got you covered in the instructions below.

Importing the workflow

Simply head over to https://make.powerautomate.com and then to the “My Flows” section. Once there, select the “Import” drop-down, and make sure you select “Import Package (Legacy)”:

Once you’re there, press the Upload button and select the file you downloaded from the link above. It’ll take a few seconds to import, and then you’ll be met with the related resources screen:

From here, click on the “Select during import” link (or the wrench icon) to select a connector. If you don’t have an existing connector set up for the related resource, you’ll see this:

From here, press the “Create new” button which will open in a new screen, and from there press the “New connection” button:

To make it easier, you can search for the connector name in the top right corner of the screen.

IMPORTANT: When adding the OneDrive for Business connector, make sure you actually specify that one, and not the “OneDrive” connector:

Press the “Create” button, select your account, and away you go!

You’ll then be taken back to the previous import page, where you may need to press “Refresh list” to see your connection appear:

Select the newly created connector and press Save.

You’ll need to repeat this process for each of the connectors until your related resources listing looks something like this (but with your email address, not mine):

Once that’s done, press the Import button and wait for it to finish importing. It can take as little as a few seconds, or up to a minute (which can feel like an eternity).

When the process is complete, the page should update with this at the top:

Click the link to open the flow. If it doesn’t already take you to the editing screen, press the “Edit” button at the top, because you’re going to need to make a quick update for it to work properly.

When the workflow opens, click on the “When a file is created” trigger at the top and delete anything in the Folder field, then press the folder icon to the right side of the input area.

It should show up with “Root” under OneDrive for Business. Press the arrow to the right of that:

Scroll down until you see the “Recordings” folder, and press on its name:

Make sure you press the Save button at the top of the editing area. You can then press the back button (top right corner) to take you to the workflow details page.

Most likely the workflow will be turned off by default, so make sure you press the Turn on button:

And that’s it!

The final step is to pat yourself on the back and buy yourself a thank-you gift for being a good information management citizen who cares about where your content lives.

I expect your manager may even put on a celebratory event, present you with an award, and even tell your colleagues how they should take inspiration from you. You deserve it. 🙂

 

P.S. The workflow lists all of the folders in the default document library of the SharePoint site associated with the Team. While technically you could argue that not all of these are channels, for the average user who often only knows of Teams and channels (and not of SharePoint sites and libraries), I figured this was a simpler approach.

P.P.S. I have not attempted to make this work with private or shared channels, as they are a separate SharePoint site collection from that associated with the Team. I could instead of listing Teams, choose to list all SharePoint sites – but that might be overwhelming.

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Also published on Medium.