There are three reasons you might receive this error:
1. Your camera or mic is not being recognized by your system. - Try to use your camera with another application in this computer. (e.g. Zoom) - If it doesn’t work, read more on case #2 below. - If it works, then read more on case #3 below.
2. Your camera or mic is not connecting
- Double check your cable connection. - Try plugging it to a different port. - Try connecting it to a different device. Does it work there? If it does, maybe the camera / mic is not recognized by your system. Read case #1 below.
3. Your camera or mic is not being recognized by Tandem Tandem not detecting camera / mic. Error: NotFoundError
- If you’ve tried all the steps above, please report the call to us so we can investigate the call logs (see screenshots below)
Even though Tandem gives you a lot of presence context about your teammates, (if they're in a meeting, what they're working on right now, if they're away from their computer) it's still sometimes difficult to know if they're open to chatting. Waving is a great signal that you'd like to say hi and chat but it's not super urgent.
When you wave at a teammate, they receive a little wave notification. They can choose to click on it to initiate a call with you, or they can wave back at a later.
Experiment with co-working room types
One of the things teams love about Tandem is the fluidity of hanging out while working alongside your teammates.
Try out a few different approaches (you can tell your team how the room should be used in the title or the room description) and check in with your team afterwards to see what strikes the right balance between feeling connected without being too distracted. Here's a few models:
Silent co-working
Turn on your video but keep your mic off by default unless you have a question.
Music + co-working
If you and your teammates have Spotify premium, you can create a music room and one of you can DJ for the rest of the team while you work together.
Audio only co-working
Mic on and camera off! Pro tip: click on the three dots in the call box to access the volume slider for Tandem if you need turn down the volume of the call
Active co-working
Create a room title that is themed to an area your team tends to collaborate around frequently. Hop in there when you're working on that project/topic and others can join to check in, collaborate, answer questions etc.
Use crosstalk while co-working
If you have a group of folks working independently and want to ask someone a specific question without distracting everyone else, you can use Crosstalk to speak with them directly. Everyone else will be able to hear your convo at a reduced volume, and they can always join your Crosstalk if they wish!
To initiate a crosstalk, hover over a teammate's video square and click on the avatar icon in the upper left hand corner. At that point, they'll hear you at full volume but others in the call will only hear you at a reduced volume. Once they accept the crosstalk, others will only hear both of you at a reduced volume.
Keep Tandem open
Tandem only work effectively when your team has it open, so here are some tips so you can keep Tandem open without feeling like it's distracting you
Turn off room notifications for rooms you're not interested in (click on the three dots to disable notifications) so you won't get pinged when people join those rooms
Set a Do-Not-Disturb schedule in Tandem preferences so Tandem is offline when you're not working
Try out Tandem for meetings!
Teams that host their internal meetings in Tandem tend to have more water cooler conversations, quick calls before and after meetings, etc. because they have the app open and are using it regularly throughout the day.
If you're listening to music with bluetooth headphones and the audio quality sounds poor, it's probably because your bluetooth headphones are in "call mode." In call mode, your headphones are optimized for conversation as opposed to listening to music so music sounds pretty compressed and terrible. Here are two solutions.
Use a different mic
The simplest workaround is to adjust adjust your Tandem audio input (or you can change your default mic at the system level) so you don't use the mic from your bluetooth headphones. Using your build-in laptop mic is a great option. That frees your bluetooth headphones to disconnect from call mode and playback music at optimal sound quality while other people can still hear you speak.
Toggle bluetooth music mode on
On a per call basis, if you click on the caret in the upper right hand corner of the speaker icon you'll see an option to turn on Bluetooth music mode. This allows you to use the same bluetooth device for your speaker and mic, but deactivates your mic when you mute yourself so you can hear music properly.
In practice, this means that when you're unmuted and speaking to your teammates, music will sound bad but as soon as you mute, music will return to proper fidelity. There is a bit of a lag with muting and unmuting when using this setting.
Mic bleeding (in Music Rooms) solutions
This is specific to Tandem's Music rooms which use Spotify's API to synchronize the Spotify apps on each of your teammates' computers.
Because we use Spotify's API, music isn't being streamed from the DJ's computer to the other computers in the room. However, if one of your teammates aren't using headphones and their mic is active, the music coming out from their speakers COULD be streamed to your computer which would cause you to hear the music twice.
The solution here is to make sure that your teammate either has their mic turned off or uses headphones to listen to music.
Think of rooms in Tandem as always on themed meeting spots that you can join with a click of a button to connect spontaneously with your team.
Rooms work great for collaboration sessions, casual chats, long form co-working, or getting real-time support from your team.
Call mechanics
When you join a room you enter the call audio is turned on, and other people who are signed up to get notifications for that room will see that you that you joined, which can function as a gentle invitation of sorts. You can easily disable notifications for rooms you're not interested in.
While in a room you can do all the things you would expect to be able to do in a call in your room: turn on your video, share your screen, send chat messages etc.
Rooms can be easily created and edited, and you can tailor room membership if you wish which will still allow others to find join the room if they wish but won't show for them in their room list by default.
If you and your teammates each have Spotify premium, you can use Tandem's music rooms to listen to music together. The first teammate to join the room is the DJ, and when other's join and press play on their Spotify app Tandem will synchronize their player to the DJs.
If the DJ would like to make someone else the DJ, they can do so by hovering over their name.
To call a teammate directly, simply click on the talk button next to their name.
Calling a teammate activates your mic. If the answer the call you can turn on video, share screens, collaborate etc.
You can easily add others to a call and teammates are able to join your conversation if they wish. You can always lock a conversation or room if you prefer to avoid interruptions.
Sometimes you just want to say hello to a teammate but don't want to interrupt them if they're busy.
Waving at a teammate send them a friendly notification which they can click on to chat. If they're busy they can wave back at a later time or they can reply with a quick message.
Integrating your Google Calendar allows for temporary meeting rooms to surface for your scheduled internal meetings in Tandem.
Meeting rooms make it really easy to see what your whole team is working on. You can tell at a glance if someone's previous meeting is running over, remind people who are late, and get notified when your meetings are starting.
It isn't currently possible to update your email address associated through the Tandem app, but this can be accomplished in two different ways.
Request an update
Message us in the app or email us at support@tandem.chat with your new email address and we will update it for you! If your company recently changed domains, this is the ideal route.
Invite your new email address to your Tandem team
If you want to use an entirely different email address you can either message us to update it or invite your new email address to your Tandem team.
From the main app, click on the + sign to the right of the team section and invite your updated email address to the team.
Because you will then have two of you in Tandem, you'll want to remove your older user. Admins can do this in the team settings by clicking on the three dots next to the user. If you are an admin, you'll want to make your new self an admin as well.
You'll then want to sign out of Tandem on your browser and the app.
Hosting meetings in Tandem is a great way to unlock usage with your team. It's also a great way to introduce people to Tandem who aren't on your team (they can join the meeting in browser!)
Note: if your company isn't on Gsuite, skip to the bottom for instructions on generating a Tandem meeting link
1. Integrate Google Calendar
If you're on GSuite and haven't yet integrated Calendar, connect it in Tandem preferences.
2. Download Tandem's Google Marketplace app
Downloading Tandem's marketplace app allows you to select Tandem as the call service for a meeting.
Note: if your company's admin restrictions prevent you from downloading our Marketplace app, see the option below to generate a meeting link in the desktop app.
3. Move an existing meeting to Tandem
If your are the organizer for an event (or have edit privileges) you can change a meeting to Tandem by clicking on the caret in the event.
Generate a Tandem meeting link
If you click "new meeting" in the Tandem desktop app you can copy a randomized meeting link which you can add anywhere you wish!
If you're working in the same physical room as one of your teammates and you both join the same Tandem call on your laptops, turning on this setting prevents you from hearing each other's Tandem audio stream through your laptops. This is useful if you are sitting close to someone and can hear them well in person.
Remote teammates may still hear an echo effect when when office teammates are speaking with multiple microphones unmuted at the same time. To prevent this, office teammates can either share a computer mic OR keep their mic muted when not speaking and use the space bar to "push to talk" to speak.
Tandem also has a global mute/unmute shortcut which can be customized in Tandem preferences. The default is shift-command-m (Mac) or shift-control-m (Windows)
If you want to say hello or chat with a teammate but don't want to disturb them if they're busy or in deep focus mode, you can wave at them by hovering over their name in the Tandem team list and clicking the wave button.
How to wave
When you wave at a teammate, they receive a desktop notification. They can click on it to start a conversation with you, hover over the notif and click the reply button to send you a message, or ignore the wave.
Missed waves / waving back
If your teammate doesn't respond to your wave, or if they didn't see it because they were away from their computer, they will see a little wave emoji notification next to your name in the main Tandem window.
By hovering over your name, it will remove the wave emoji. They'll also see an option to wave back which - you guessed it - waves at you!
Music rooms allow you to play music for your teammates as long as everyone participating has Spotify premium.
Integrating Spotify
In order to participate in music rooms, everyone will need to integrate Spotify in their Tandem preferences.
Creating a music room
To set it up, create a new room and toggle the Music Room option. Then, join a room and start playing Spotify.
DJs and listeners
The first person to join a music room will be a DJ. You can always see who the DJ is by looking at the main app. You can also see the current track they're playing in the main app.
Tandem synchronizes a listener's Spotify player to mirror what the the DJ is playing in real-time on their computer, the DJ isn't actually streaming music through Tandem.
This means that anyone can adjust the volume of their Spotify player independently from the rest of your team, without changing the volume of the Tandem call.
If the DJ wants to make someone else the DJ, hover over their name in the lower left hand corner of the call box.
How to listen
When joining the music room after the DJ, open your Spotify player (can be desktop app or on the browser) and push play. Tandem will then take over your Spotify player to synchronize it with the current track the DJ is playing.
Note: sometimes there may be a delay of up to 10 seconds before a listener's player is synced with the DJ.
Tandem provides three different ways to communicate with your team on Tandem. The call mechanics are mostly the same in each, but they serve the different ways teammates communicate with each other.
Rooms
Rooms are most valuable for unscheduled,spontaneous communication: coffee chats in the morning, water cooler convos, silent co-working, a room that teammates go to when they want help or feedback etc.
All rooms are visible and accessible to all teammates in your Tandem team, each teammate sees the same room list. Users can disable room notifications for rooms they aren't interested in.
Music rooms that allow you to DJ for your teammates, although everyone needs to have Spotify plus to utilize them. Music rooms are great for lightweight socializing or co-working.
When a teammate enters a room, others who are subscribed to room notifications for that room get a desktop notif "Hillary just entered Coffee Room" which can encourage others to hop in there if they have some free time.
To add an emoji to your room name type Control + Command + Space for Mac
Hybrid Spaces are a new feature that requires some setup for Hybrid (partly in-person, partly remote) teams. Please contact hybrid@tandem.chat if your team has an office and you'd like to learn more.
Conversations
Conversations are most valuable when you wish to talk to someone directly. Hover over their name and click "talk" or "video" to call them. This is a great way to reduce friction between your teammates when working remotely.
Meetings
Meeting rooms populate in Tandem when you or a teammate integrates calendar. Temporary rooms are created for internal meetings, they pop up a bit beforehand and disappear afterwards. When your whole team integrates their calendars, Tandem becomes a hub for all your internal communications and you can see at a glance what everyone is up to.
