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
This feature is still being reviewed by the feature team. No decision has been made yet. I’ll keep you posted.
-Warren
219 comments
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Anonymous
commented
it should be implemented to save display space, and icon can allow end-user to distinguish People and Team.
after this implement, on the top right corner, there should have a switch {All, People, Team}
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Sam Hall
commented
As a team leader, this is a terrible idea (I'd have thought that the reasons are obvious, I mean the clue is in the name of the product). A successful team collaboration tool should offer private IM features as an exception to the normal channels of communication. Blurring the distinction between the two features is not conducive to open and collaborative discourse. I would have to abandon using Teams as a team collaboration tool if this were implemented and I'd suggest you rename it to something less misleading if you did implement this.
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JohnMark Sill
commented
At least make it optional... Please... It would save me so many clicks!
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Anonymous
commented
I prefer to keep them separate, I use them for very different things.
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Anonymous
commented
I tend to not agree with this request. Teams and Chat are not the same because Chat does not have a subject.
I would rather rename "Teams" on the left sidebar to "Conversations" as it can be quite complicated explaining to some new users the difference between a new chat and a new conversation. Clearly they are not the same - chat you can not have a subject and roll-up the conversation.
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Chris
commented
Please fix this, it adds an extra click to almost every time I use Teams which is thousands of times a day.
Please make it configurable so can view it as single view, or for those that like it the way it is can have separate tabs.
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Oliver
commented
What's the current status of this request? Having the ablity to either convert a Team channel to chat or having chat as a tab would be beneficial to using both features.
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Timmothy Frink
commented
I like the delineation between team and chats. Make it an optional merge, if implemented, but allow us to keep them separate as well. Chats and teams/channels serve different purposes, in my mind.
I'm all for adding flexibility and customization though, so if it's a setting option, that is probably the best way to do it.
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Charles Breland
commented
Yeah, I agree with anonymous. I think many people have a logical distinction between they use/expect to use the two....like me :)
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Anonymous
commented
Please don't force this change. From a personal view I have multiple teams with plenty of channels under each, to through in all the chats as well would be a nightmare to navigate and you would be far more likely to comment in the wrong area.
I understand some would like this to happen to make the app more like others, but we do have a "settings" area, and it should be in there to enable/disable -
Ian Caldwell
commented
Chats and Team conversations are completely different - our company is looking at training people to focus on the Activity feed to keep up-to-date. That said, maybe chats should be more chat-like i.e. a side-bar so I can chat with someone while working inside a Team.
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John Smith
commented
Please do this - super annoying as is.
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Anonymous
commented
Yes please. I googled specifically for this.
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John
commented
Yeah, if this could be an easily enabled option that would be great. Having to switch gears in my mind and toggle between them is frustrating and slows me down. If some users dislike this make it optional, or make it so all of your "favourites" (across chats and teams) are available in the same place for quick access. Why this hasn't been enabled since this was raised in Jan 2017 baffles me.
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Nick
commented
Can't emphasize this one enough. If Teams is to compete with Slack (which I also use daily), it's absolutely essentially that users be able to easily see chats/team chats which have new messages in them.
Having teams and chats in two separate pages makes reviewing your messages obnoxious/confusing, but more importantly, it increases the risk that a message/thread will be missed. A suitable solution would be to place a list of Teams at the top, and then a list of Chats at the bottom (like Slack!), i.e. keeping Teams and Chats in separate lists but on the same page, as many others have pointed out is important to their user experience.
Regardless of how it is implemented, there absolutely to be a way to see all your conversations, from the same page/view. This is the main issue that makes me want to totally ditch MS Teams in favor of Slack right now.
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anon
commented
We just converted from hipchat to teams, and the first thing our teams did was quit using the teams part of teams. Why? Because they kept having to flip back-n-forth between "Chat" and "Teams" to check messages or hold conversations rather than having all their activity in one place. I don't know if combining them one one category -- even optionally -- is or is not the right solution however their definitely needs to be some kind of "dashboard" view, option, or capability that let's the user stay in one place to see and interact with everything.
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Anonymous
commented
There should be an option to have them in the same tab, but they should be divided like on Slack (Teams or Chats at the top)
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Anonymous
commented
Please implement this! At least make it an option. I am so sick of having to constantly switch tabs. What a terrible experience.
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Jose Ramirez
commented
I disagree with this request!! Both need to be separate. One is private the other is not. It will be confusing for people if they are combined. Where would I go to keep something private? Outlook?
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Rudy
commented
The problem for me is that when I have a group message my brain thinks team instead of chat and I ALWAYS go to the team tab confused because I can't find it. I would probably be ok if group chat and team were in the same tab, OR if they created a combined tab that just contained everything. The activity tab is nice to see what you have waiting for you, but not for finding the group you need to send a message to. Also when trying to switch from slack the functionality of teams is irritating at best. The simplicity of creating a channel that a few people can chat in about whatever you want is helpful in slack, but the only way to do that in teams is to create a team with a channel or a group chat. Both of which to me serve similar purposes but are in different tabs.