Upcoming Enhancements to Microsoft Teams Meeting Chat Controls

on
There are many kinds of meetings, and Teams is a great tool to have virtual meetings in. As an example, it is possible to get to the chat of the meeting and start the discussion up front or continue the discussions or ask follow up questions after the meeting is over.  But sometimes, there are scenarios where organizer would want to keep the chat closed for comments outside of the meeting timeframe. And here is a new feature coming our way, to control exactly that behavior. The Teams admin center will soon allow setting up policies that will enhance your control over meeting chats. These new options are designed to give administrators more flexibility in managing how and when participants can interact via chat during meetings. These options will be available across all platforms, including Teams for Windows and Mac desktops, Teams on the web, and Teams for iOS/Android. This update is part of the Microsoft 365 Roadmap   If you are an admin, here is where you can find and contro...

New Microsoft Teams Experience: Chats and Channels are being consolidated into a single app

on
Already available in targeted release, Microsoft Teams has been "streamlined" into putting chats, teams, and channels into a single app. Here’s what you need to know about the new features and how they can benefit you.

Previously, users had to navigate separate Chat and Teams views, which could be cumbersome and time-consuming. With the new update, all conversations whether they’re individual chats, group chats, or team channels are now unified in a single Chat view. This means you can easily switch between different types of conversations without losing context.


The application also has a couple of new features like: 
  • Custom Sections: Organize your projects and topics with custom sections that can include individual, group, and meeting chats, as well as channels.
  • New Filters: Focus on what’s important with filters for Unread, Chat, Channels, Meetings, and more.
  • @Mention View: Quickly access all your personal @mentions in one interactive list.
You can tailor the new chat and channels experience to suit your preferences. By default, the combined Chat view is enabled, but you can choose to keep chat, teams, and channels separate if that works better for you. Simply go to Teams Settings to make these adjustments (there are no admin controls for this). Additionally, you can turn on message previews in Settings if you prefer to see a snippet of each message in your list.

As mentioned, this is already available for users in the targeted release, but it looks like it might take some time for the feature to reach all tenants. The latest Message Center message is indicating GA in January. This is related to the following Roadmap Item.