Dan St. Hilaire

Possibly the biggest change in Microsoft Teams history? Teams without the Teams? Public preview in November to desktop, mobile, iOS, and Android. Here is what you need to know: 🟣 Microsoft is introducing a new combined chat and channels experience. Meaning chat and teams/channels will show up under the "Chat" sidebar icon. No more dedicated Teams sidebar button. 🟣 Teams and Channels will have their own section in chat. 🟣 Group your chats and/or channels however best works for you with favourites and custom sections (up to 50 sections and 50 items per section) 🟣 “Unread,” “Chat,” “Channels,” “Meetings,” and “Muted” Filters 🟣 New message can initiate a new chat or new channel post 🟣 New @mention view gathers all your mentions into a single interactive list. 🟣 At launch, a self-service, guided onboarding will help users discover the new experience and configure it to their preferences (on or off) 🟣 Users who prefer to keep chat and channels separate can easily do so during the onboarding process or at any time later. So far, it looks like there are no IT/tenant-level override controls. This experience change is targeted at getting more users using teams/channels. Most Teams users live in "chats", not teams/channels. There will undoubtedly be some pushback from users who use teams/channels well and like having the mental separation of teams/channels vs chats. I've been fortunate to be using it for a while, and I'm personally a big fan; my use of the correct channels has gone way up, and now I can find them all in one place in the app, particularly on mobile. I'm now much more likely to see channel conversations I need to see. What do you think? #MicrosoftTeams #Microsoft365