Make "Teams" and "Chat" the same Tab
There is no reason that Teams and Chat should be different top level categories in the left navigation. They are the same thing, perform exactly the same function, and making two different items simply confuses the navigation and makes badge notifications and discoverability much more difficult to use.
Please combine Chats into the Teams tab so that you can browse all conversations in one place rather than needing to navigate to different tabs to see different conversations.
Chats and channels perform essentially the same function, which is talk to some people and collaborate. Forcing the user to check two different lists to see if somebody is messaging them is a really bad experience, it is like having two different chat apps.
This is one usability issues that makes Teams less usable for collaboration than both Slack and Skype.
Samuel Sze
shared this idea
The team has not made a decision on whether to move forward with this feature. We will update when we have new status to share.
456 comments
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Cisco
commented
At the very least, can you please mirror the mobile experience and allow us to display pinned channels in the chat section.
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Anonymous
commented
Can we get an update from you Microsoft? Is this feature going to be implemented?
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Dominic Stenson
commented
This is a MAJOR oversight from Microsoft! Once again, this shows how they are developing to their own vision and NOT listening to their user base. The experience between chats and teams channels is dreadful and because MS have chosen not to act on this, I'm not surprised that people are flocking over to Slack! Just give the option to create a chat group from a team, give ALL of the same connectors and let us get the system that we deserve. We pay more than enough through licencing!
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John Porter
commented
All chats should appear under the "Chat" tab. Currently, if creating a meeting from a channel, all chat during those meetings goes to the "Posts' tab in that channel but does not show up in the "Chat" tab. This is causing all sorts of confusion for my teams, who post questions or links and then cannot figure out where they went.
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John Bohan
commented
I don't really use the Teams and Channel features as much as I use the Chat feature for my work teams. I normally have short term projects with cross-department members, and so I create a Chat with that team and pin it to the top. When the project is complete I unpin it. If I could drag a chat over to the project tab and have it pinned to the top there, it would be helpful.
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Anonymous
commented
I disagree. Chat and Teams are at entirely different levels, although the functions overlap. Teams is at the team level, and chat is at the individual level (even if with multiple people ad-hoc). The Teams pane is a bulletin board, while the Chat pane is a mailbox.
The challenge I see is naming things with commonly used words and then reusing the terms over and over. There's Chat, meeting chat (conversations) and Teams have chats (posts). It's like when I ask kids what they want for dinner, and they say "food."
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Derek_M
commented
I do not want these merged. If you have many Teams in your organization and many chats, this would be even more of a nightmare to manage. Chat and Teams needs to stay separate.
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Anonymous
commented
If it's not possible to merge the tabs, maybe include the ability to pin Teams and Chats on the same tab ?
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Anonymous
commented
Yes, please make the changes, very needed.
Thanks
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Jack
commented
yes, make the change.
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Johann Brink
commented
I'm thinking keep the seperate sections for Chat and Teams in place but replace the useless Activity feed with something that shows you highligted channels / teams that you are a member of as well as active chat conversations. I don't think anyone really cares about an activity feed for likes. @mentions is sort of useful in the activity feed, but showing a list of your channels / teams with the appropiate notification icons / highlighting the same as under the teams section along with recent chats will achieve both objectives.
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Star
commented
I like them separate, but navigation could probably be improved
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Richard D
commented
I'm sure we used to have this in the desktop, similar to the way the iOS app works, but it's gone. I'm finding it sooo frustrating having to shift between Chats and Teams for my few key channels.
It's actually why we aren't using teams as much because it's easier to create a multi-person chat than direct people to switch between Chats and Teams. -
George McRobbie
commented
Not sure i agree - it should be MUCH easier to move conversations to a team, but I like the idea of small group or 1-2-1 conversations and bigger team / project based threads.
Needs to be easier though.
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Erika
commented
I actually like Teams and Chat staying separate for how my organization works. I wish there was a way to pop out the entire CHAT function and scale to a smaller size.
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Crieloue Gilles
commented
Totally not usable as it is. I’m constantly skipping teams activity when I am in conversations.
Slack was so much better, just for that.I have to open another Teams window (thanks to the web version) to be able to track Teams activity…
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christine
commented
I completely agree! My org just moved over to Microsoft Teams from Webex Teams and the biggest frustration is having to toggle between Chats and Teams to stay updated. We should have the ability to have both if we want them on the same tab.
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claudio esposito
commented
Hey... thats Microsoft problem: they dont do any real field user experience feedback. That was the reason on Windows Phone fails: it was a beatufill looking interface... just not usable!
All of us are switching all the time between 2 lists "Contatcs and Chats" via a "COMBOBOX": '90 style :( -
roland
commented
Constantly clicking between teams and chats is annoying. I like how in slack you can see all chats and teams in one single window. Much less clicking and easier to navigate.
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Aditya Prasad
commented
I think a Home/Main screen that allows us to have a list of pinned/chosen (and maybe add in recently used conversations) Chats, Channels and Threads would be more beneficial. The Activity screen doesn't so much for me - I'd be more than happy if that was replaced or if this choice were configurable.
I am not sure if I want all chats and Channels to be on the same pane, the amount of information could be a lot to handle.