The new chat and channels experience is now available to Teams users in commercial environments and will be rolling out to customers in GCC and other clouds over the coming weeks.

As an MSP and Microsoft Solutions Partner, we understand the importance of staying ahead of our clients’ evolving needs. Efficient tools are essential to keep up with the fast pace of work. When designing the new Teams experience, Microsoft had two main goals:

1. Help users catch up and stay on top of all their collaboration efficiently in one place.
2. Enhance collaboration by reducing fragmentation and enabling users to work better in fewer places.

The new experience is designed to be simple by default, ensuring that everyone can stay on top of what matters. It’s also powerful on demand, allowing users to organise information and communicate in their preferred way.

Through an extensive private and public preview program with millions of users over the last six months, it was observed that users are visiting more of their teams and channels and reading more messages targeted at them compared to before the new experience.

This is just the beginning and Microsoft is committed to making Teams more productive and simpler with enhancements like threaded conversations coming soon.

To help you make the most of the new chat and channels experience, here are some best practices to consider:

• Encourage regular check-ins: regularly check your Teams and channels to stay updated on important communications.
• Promote efficient organisation: CSG can help you set up your Teams and channels in a way that minimises clutter and maximises efficiency.
• Make the most out of powerful features: we help you make the most out of the powerful on-demand features to organise information and communicate effectively.
• Stay informed on updates: stay informed about upcoming enhancements like threaded conversations to ensure they are always using the latest features.

By following these best practices, you can ensure that you get the most out of the new Teams chat and channels experience, leading to improved collaboration and productivity.

Efficiently triage all your incoming messages

Effective message triage is crucial for maintaining clear and responsive communication, especially in environments with high volumes of messages. It helps prevent important messages from being missed and ensures that all communications are handled appropriately. Below are some best practices to help you manage your conversation list!

Mentions view

Mentions are used to call your attention to essential messages and ensure that these messages don’t slip through the cracks. This view helps you prioritise what needs your immediate attention. Click on each message to view the additional context of a channel or chat in a side pane and react or reply directly before proceeding to the next mention.
Select @Mentions view to see messages you were tagged on. Then select a specific message, on the far-right side of the screen, the context of the selected conversation is displayed, allowing the user to reply directly.

View all unread messages

When returning from a meeting or a break, filter your conversations to show only unread messages. Now you can see in one view all the messages that you haven’t yet reviewed. If you need to further narrow the results by conversation type, select Chat, Channels or Meeting chats filter. Select Unread at the top of the chat and channels list.
Select Unread filter to view only unread messages, then select Channels and view your unread channel messages only.

View channels as a list, instead of grouped by team

To efficiently catch up on the latest in your channels, you can organise your Teams and channels list to show only channels, instead of grouping them by team. Go to the Teams and channels section, click on the ellipsis, select Channels only from the Display section, and then choose to sort your channels by Recent, Unread only, or A-Z. This way, you can stay updated on channels with new messages easily, or order channels across teams in alphabetical order.

Stay on top of new messages

To manage your communications effectively, you can rearrange the order of your sections and sort your conversation list to show unread messages only. Setting a section to “Unread only” ensures that previously read conversations do not clutter your chat list.

New messages will automatically become visible, helping you address them promptly and prioritise essential information. This feature is especially useful when combined with the shortcut Ctrl/Cmd + G for quick navigation.
Click on the ellipsis next to the section name, select unread only and view only unread conversations.

Organise your chat and channels list

Navigating and finding specific information can be challenging in a cluttered work environment. The new chat and channels experience provides tools to structure your conversations, streamline access to important information, and reduce the cognitive load associated with navigating a cluttered workspace

• Sections: group all relevant 1:1, group chat and channels by project or topic, to help you find conversations easily and reduce the time you spend searching for conversations. We recommend starting with 1-3 sections of your most important topics or projects.
  From the new message drop-down menu select new section and name it. Drag a chat and a channel to the new section.

• Keep your digital workspace tidy: periodically cleaning up your workspace makes it easier to find what you need. As top-of mind topics change, remove chats and channels that are no longer needed from your favorites and delete sections after projects are completed for a cleaner and easy-to-manage environment.
  Click on the ellipsis next to the chat and select Remove from section.

• Keep your Chat app and Teams app separated: if you prefer to keep your chat and channels separate, you can easily do so without needing IT assistance. Select the ellipsis next to the Chat header, select Customise view from the drop-down menu, and choose the Separate view.
  Select the ellipsis next to the Chat header, select Customise view from the drop down menu, and choose the Separate view.

• Get a detailed overview of your conversations: when you need a complete view of your chat and channels list, use the expand and collapse all feature. From the Chat ellipsis drop-down menu, select collapse all sections. Use this view to sort and organise your sections as needed.
  Click the ellipsis next to the Chat header, then choose Collapse all from the drop-down menu. Click on a section with bolded font and an ‘@’ icon to expand it and view the conversations.

Navigate quickly

Finding a specific conversation can take time as you scroll through chats and channels or search. The new chat and channels experience helps you navigate efficiently without switching contexts.

• Access your channels quicky: you don’t need to scroll through all chats to find your channel conversations. When in the unified chat and channels list, simply click on the Teams and channels quick navigation bar to jump to your channels list. If a channel requires your attention, the navigation bar will change to reflect it. For example, if you were mentioned in a channel, the text on the bar will become bold and a ‘@’ icon will appear.
  Quick navigation bar at the bottom of the chat list enables you to quickly access your teams and channels. The navigation bar is bolded with video camera and mentions icon. Click on the navigation bar to jump directly to your Teams and channels.

• Go-to: use the go-to search bar to jump directly to any chat or channel conversation with a new keyboard shortcut Ctrl+G (Cmd+G on Mac).
  Use Ctrl+G (Cmd+G on Mac) keyboard shortcut, type the name of the conversation you are searching for, select and open it. (Note: asking designer to fix the box saying Ctrl G was used).

• New message: a streamlined new message experience, enables an easy way to send a new message to both chats or channels. Use Ctrl+N on Windows or CMD+N on Mac to start composing your message, you can search for and find people, chats, as well as channels from the same place.
  select new message, type the name of the channel you need and post your message.

Be productive on-the-go

Our work preferences shift when using mobile devices due to being on-the-go and viewing messages on smaller screens. The new chat and channels experience offers enhanced settings, allowing you to customise your mobile use and stay efficient anywhere.

• Mobile-specific settings: you can choose to have a different layout for your chat and channels list on mobile versus desktop. Customise your layout to suit your preferences, deciding whether to separate or combine the chat and channels list, and whether to show message previews. This makes it easier to navigate and manage communications on a smaller screen.
• Message previews: triaging your conversations on small mobile screen can be challenging. With message previews, on by default in mobile, you can quickly and efficiently manage your conversations on the go, by getting a glimpse of incoming messages without needing to open each one.
• Mobile notifications: you can customise the type of notifications you receive on your mobile device, whether it is for all calls, chats, just mentions and more. This helps you stay informed about the messages that matter most to you.
• View all conversations by most recent: to stay updated with the latest conversations, sort all chats and channels into one list by most recent. This allows you to catch up quickly on the latest updates, ensuring you don’t miss any important messages while on a smaller screen. On your mobile device, simply tap the toggle button, which is left to the filters at the top of your chat list. Tap the toggle button again to return to your sections layout. Teams on a mobile device showing the new chat and channels experience, with a favorites section and a chats section. Select the sort at the top left of the screen and view your chats by most recent.