Drag chat messages to merge them into one reply thread
Since a lot of people type messages in quick succession, it'd be helpful to have the ability to drag and merge them together into individual "reply threads".
Alex Chantavy
shared this idea
Thanks everyone for the clarifications to this request. Upon further technical review, we have decided to decline this request at this time.
Please continue to contribute your ideas — they push us to innovate, problem solve, and really understand your needs.
Thank you!
Suphatra
100 comments
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Joe
commented
In response to:
"Upon further technical review, we have decided to decline this request at this time."Part of effective client support / customer service with a product or service is communicating some semblance of effort to find a solution to the reported issue beyond problem determination.
If the specific ask is unfeasible, providing the reasoning why would help, such an explanation of excessive development time required and how long that is.
On the user side, it's foreseeable that a proposed solution is too time-consuming to program. Easier alternatives could be considered, or instead figuring out a way to mitigate the issue moving forward.
As CE commented below, solving the UI issue to mitigate the issue moving forward is an alternative.
Example: Make starting a new thread less welcoming and make replying to a thread more welcoming. Maybe:
> Remove the text field for starting a new thread and replacing it with a colored button, that has to be clicked to start a new thread/conversation or see a text field to enter.
> A more welcoming reply section (larger area, larger text, with the label "Click here to reply" to threadsIn general, it may be better for users to report the issue instead of propose the solution based on the technical requirements to achieve whatever objective, perhaps suggesting some ideas (even though it is MS Teams Support's job to do this).
Alternatively, we can just keep opening new threads (not upvoting existing ones), like the user below did for this issue, which may merely end up wasting everyone's time as a sort of battle of attrition:
https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/38833024-combine-multiple-threads-or-at-least-improve-the -
Phil
commented
It's time to reconsider the declinement!
A hole company of untraining members who can't repley the right way ... gross!
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Todd Hensley
commented
It is absurd that there are numerous requests for the ability to somehow move a comment to the proper conversation thread, each with over 400 votes, yet it has gotten declined. There's an obvious UI problem here that is leading people to posting a new message instead of a proper reply, yet no fix for that and no way to clean up posts after the fact? Nice.
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CE
commented
If you're not going to do this then you REALLY need to solve the UI problem. People keep sending new messages when what they should be doing is replying to a thread.
The problem isn't threads or users. Its your UI that doesn't make it obvious what the right way to reply is.
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Harriet
commented
I need to be able to move and delete messages - even if it's by having the same edit/delete rights as users have over their own messages available to me as the owner/admin. It's far too easy for people to start new conversations instead of replying, and these need to be kept together / given a title so you know what the conversation is about.
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Jamie Bullen
commented
Please reconsider. I was about to suggest this
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Anonymous
commented
I agree - This should be reconsidered. We are getting multiple forks in threads and its causes confusion and difficulty looking through the history. The idea of Teams is to replace email for communication on topics requiring multiple people / responses and over a period of time. Without this feature, Teams is no better than dealing with it in email. In email, you can easily create rules to move discussions into dedicated folders. In Teams, you have to wade through the noise and stitch things together in your head.
PLEASE RECONSIDER!
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Pedro Mac Dowell Innecco
commented
Declined why? Please show some respect to your paying customers by providing us with a reason why.
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Sreekanth Acharya
commented
Would you mind telling us the reason for the decision to decline this request? The moderator of a channel should have the power to control the flow of the conversation. Not all users are savvy to the new Teams and don't understand that they need to reply instead of starting a new conversation and it would be so much better if the moderator can move these new conversations to a thread. So, it would be nice to hear the logic behind the decision to decline this request.
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Jer Harwood
commented
This is about as frustrating as reporting bugs to MS support only to be told after multiple calls and screen sharing that it's "by design" when it clearly is a bug. I can't tell you how many times I've sent a private chat to users instructing them how to "reply" to a discussion instead of starting a new one. Many times the same users...
If someone creates a new suggestion, please add a link to it so we can all vote it up!
Uservoice - the black hole for your contribution ideas...
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Anthony Crain commented
Perhaps the problem is that the original request was a design constraint: "Drag".
We need a way to add an orphaned reply to a thread back into the thread. Drag, or any other way they'd like to implement it. Because this is in the declined state, I am going to create a new request. If any of you 400+ folks who voted for this one want to vote for the new one... yay!
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Surly Dev
commented
"Please continue to contribute your ideas — they push us to innovate, problem solve, and really understand your needs."
You really AREN'T understanding our needs if you decline this request. It is a perfectly valid (and much needed IMHO) request. Now, if it's been accepted in one of the similarly named requests then that's a different matter, and should be worded differently.
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Pete
commented
Declined for unexplained "technical" reasons.. oh please come on. This is sorely needed.
Team owner could indicates which thread remains and which gets merged into it. The merged items could appear in the thread they are moved to with a symbol which, when moused over, gives info who merged the threads and when. The merged thread and its replies could be shuffled into the remaining thread by the date/time each was written. At time of merging, give the person doing so option to choose certain replies for deletion.
If threads are reordered every time one of them is bumped then you must also give us a way to move these isolated reply threads back into the thread they were intended for.
Right now, I'm seeing a complete mess in our channels - people are starting new threads to reply to existing ones, others are replying to previous threads with new topics, and it end up looking like scrambled egg.
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Anonymous
commented
Please reconsider!! More we are trying to adopt Teams, more we see the need of this kind of feature. Now even one person can create a big mess for all others.
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Edmund
commented
Please reconsider. Trying to implement in my company, and too many people don't understand the concept of threads. Users randomly post message in different channels and messages, and it is hard to keep track of conversations without the ability to move messages around. Training attempts don't seem to click.
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If you are going to decline this sime and logical request you should at least make it more apparent (and separate the NEW and REPLY functionality more. It is obvious our error4 but it happens al the time where one thread is split up amongst multiple posts by people missing the reply??
Thanks everyone for the clarifications to this request. Upon further technical review, we have decided to decline this request at this time.
Please continue to contribute your ideas — they push us to innovate, problem solve, and really understand your needs.
Thank you!
Suphatra -
Steve
commented
I ask that you reconsider the ability to merge multiple conversations into single threads, similar to how you've merged multiple ideas into this one. This allows efficient organization of information to allow better discussion and collaboration on a single topic, rather than have ideas and discussion scattered around. This is also similar to many discussion boards that have the ability to merge threads to keep all the relative information in one place and easy to find.
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Paul Noble
commented
the mistake of starting a new thread happens to pretty much every user every day in every conversation, thread merging would save so much time and effort and stop people feeling dumb because the ui decisions at ms make it difficult to use.
1 change vs infinite errors, this should be a no brainer.
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Mitch Etter
commented
This would fix a real issue we see frequently when people (for whatever reason) start a new thread in reply to a previous thread, and it fractures the whole conversation. In the least, please suggest a work-around. Maybe you could detect this behavior and suggest people be trained on proper chat etiquette
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Christian Gustafson
commented
This is a great idea - please reconsider!
