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
243 comments
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Pär Zebergs Brånedal
commented
I disagree on this.
Chat and Teams are not same things.
Chat are ad hoc chats
Teams are structured chats -
Dustin Massop
commented
I like teams and chat being separate but I wish that teams channels had a mechanism that behaved more like chat and less like conversations. I think this could be accomplished by being able to pin a conversation to a channel tab, so that tab would behave more like a chat but you could still see it from the conversations tab.
Another solution could be to be able to toggle the channel to have either chat, conversations, or both. -
Anonymous
commented
I still think it would be a great feature to be able to include the individual chats I have with my team members into the different teams we are part of, since switching around always takes up a lot of time.
Of course these chats would still need to be kept private and not become visible for other team members. -
Jaime Olivares
commented
I see a lot of comments saying Chats and Teams have different purposes. Some of us just want to have the possibility to see all of that without switching tabs. If it is optional, that's OK with me.
Currently I use individual chats and groups and not the Teams tab, just because switching is impractical.
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Johannes Pauls
commented
No, please not! Our Users would drive crazy, if this happens.
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Dwayne Alton
commented
I disagree with this. Chats are like IM (unthreaded). Teams messages are threaded. There are different use cases for each.
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Anonymous
commented
I don't agree with this in general, but would be fine with the option for this for groups where they would prefer this.
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Anthony Rockwell
commented
This should be configurable in the administration for the global and/or per team IMO.
We want to keep Chat private and Teams 'public' and like the two separate. However I can see the value presented here and would like the option based on how each team is using Teams. -
Emily B
commented
I'm not sure I agree with this. "Chat" is private messages and "Teams" is way more than just the Conversation tabs; they should be separate, but I'm guessing the real problem is less the switching and more that switching closes whatever you were doing. If the tab didn't reset when you switched areas, it wouldn't be such a hassle. Either the tabs need to cache what you're doing and not close your files and whatnot when you switch sections, or maybe chat needs the option of being undocked from the client so you can have individual windows for your chats and you won't have to leave the main client.
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Anonymous
commented
At minimum, the option to leave these configurable is a must.
We currently use chat for "private" messages and see the danger of having all of the communication within one tab becoming unruly for larger setups where people might be a part of multiple teams. Also, less observant users thinking they are in "chat" but posting to the main channel could pose problems.
Again, if this were to be implemented it needs to be configurable for either the user or the organization.
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Adam Cloud
commented
Don't want this change either. It should be an option at the administration level to make the decision for the organization.
We use Chat for private chats and Teams for public conversations.
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Koen
commented
I see a lot of downvotes in the comments, but I found this page in search in favor of this. I really like the panel layout in slack where you see channel and direct messages in one view, and being able to mark favorites for the ones to keep visisble.
How about a compromise? Make a distinct tab which would allow me to pin channels and chats together I use a lot together. For all I care it could even be a separate app, so it wont populate the tabs for the people that dont want it.
In our organisation we use team chats to keep each other posted, but direct messages for 1 on 1 work without bothering the rest. Especially when working remotely. I'm currently losing it because I have to keep switching between tabs, and to make it worse, the teams are collapsed by default, so I don't have an overview of the chats I care about and constantly use.
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Anonymous
commented
I can't second this enough. The context switch necessary to go from being in "chats" mode to "channels mode" is very distracting.
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Anonymous
commented
How big of a change would this really be? What does that say about your architecture?
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Bill R
commented
I personally don't see the benefit. Teams and Chat are fundamentally different things. Heck the chat you do in Teams is different than Chat. IF this feature was ever put in place, it needs to have the option to keep them separate.
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Roy Tinker
commented
The primary problem to me is that Teams channels work more like old-school forums and less like chat rooms.
If a new type of "Chat" channel could be created (formatted like Slack channels), then Chats/Teams tabs could be merged.
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Anonymous
commented
I just got out of a customer meeting. they asked for this feature... again.
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Becky
commented
Is there a uservoice uservoice? I need a down vote option for this...
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Charles Bitter
commented
Make this a personal preference. Some of us love one tab. some don't. Making it an option would give Teams a feature Slack does not have.
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Liz Robinson
commented
No! Chat is private and Conversations are public. We need both. It's hard enough for larger teams to keep up with all the conversation as it is. They definitely do not want to see a ton of chats that don't concern them as well.