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)

When to wave

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.