The new chat and channels experience is redefining and redesigning communication in Microsoft Teams. It’s been here for a few months and is coming quickly to the general channel and will be available for everyone. Let’s dive into new options and check if it’s really ready for production.
Introduction
Teams and channels are key elements in Microsoft Teams. We know them and use them every day. That’s why the latest change is the biggest and one of the most important in the history of Teams. Entire communication has been simplified and unified under one application – Chats. You can find here all your personal conversations, group chats, and channel chats as well. No more switching between apps to find a conversation that you need right now.
That’s not all. The new experience redefined also filtering and message discoverability. With a new filter, you can quickly find chats or channels that are important to you. You can change the default configuration and adapt it to your work style, so you won’t miss important communication.
Configuration
The feature is not mandatory yet and you can control whether it’s enabled or not.
- Open the Teams Setting pane and select the Chats and channels section
- Select the preferred view for chats – Combined or Separate
You can switch whenever you want. If you switch from Combined to Separate one Teams asks you for feedback – enter your feedback and any comments you want. It’s important because the Teams Product Group uses it to enhance this feature and fix some annoying “bugs”.
The Chat app
The Chat app is now the main place for all your communications inside Microsoft Teams. Personal chats, group chats, channel messages, meeting chats, and teams. All in one place.
The app is divided into 5 sections:
- Filters
There are 5 filters that you can use – Unread, Channels, Chats, Unmuted, and Meeting chats. You select multiple options so you can quickly get what’s most important for you.
- Mentions/Discover
In this section, there are 2 options – Discover and Mentions. The Discover section shows suggested posts while Mentions shows those where you were mentioned. You can hide the Discover one -select ellipsis (…) and then Hide. You can unhide it from the Teams Settings.
- Favorites
The main section with all your favorite chats and channels. Teams automatically put here all your pinned chats and channels from the old view. You can remove a chat from the Favorites section, Hide it, or Move it to a different section! This is a huge change – now you can create more sections (for example, for important projects or departments) and assign chats/channels to them. Each section can be collapsed or moved up or down.
- Chats
This section displays all chats that are not attached to any sections (Favorites or custom ones). You can find here all your new chats, old chats, and meeting chats.
- Teams and channels
You can find here all your teams. It works in the same way as the old Teams app. You can select a channel inside a team you need and work inside it. You can chat, add files, and customize channels and teams.
There was 1 annoying issue – the + button in channels was missing. It wasn’t so simple to add a new tab. Now it’s fixed! This is also a small reminder – this feature is really new and has a few areas that need to be polished. Keep this in mind.
Main settings
The new app merged the Chats and Teams apps into one and all settings and additional options were also merged. On top of the Chat app you can find 3 options:
- Ellipsis(…) with basic features such as Customize view, Collapse all sections and hide/unhide options at the top.
- Search – you can search for a chat, a channel, or a team.
- Create new – In this section you can start a new message but also create a new channel or a new team. There is also an option to create a new section which you can use to manage chats and channels. This is the one-stop for all chats, channels, and team creation options.
Availability
The new experience is available in a Public preview but it’s quickly coming to the general channel. If you can see the feature you can try to enable a Public preview.
- Select Settings and more (…) next to your user profile.
- Select Settings > About Teams.
- Under Early access, select the Public preview checkbox.
If you can’t see the options it means that Teams administrators disabled it and you need to talk with them.
It’s available in the Teams desktop client, in the web client, and on the mobile. It’s a very good move from Microsoft – the new experience available to all types of clients at the same time. People won’t be confused with different interfaces and options!
Summary
The new Chats and channels experience has been available since October 2024. It was released in a Public Preview and has been fixed/polished since then. Now it’s coming to the official channel and soon it will be available for everyone.
Is it good? Is it bad?
The change is big – many people can be scared or shocked. Where are my teams? How to find my latest channel message? The new unified view is something completely different from the previous 2 separate apps. People need time proper training and guidelines to understand it and to learn how to use it properly.
For me, it’s a huge positive change. I was really tired of using the old Teams app. I must admit that I focused purely on private and group chats. I checked channels only when I was mentioned. And it wasn’t only me! My colleagues did the same!
The new experience resolved many issues and now I can quickly jump through chats and channels, and review a project team or a meeting chat. I can manage and arrange chats in the way I want without the 15-chat limit in the old favorite section. Finally!
Of course, there are still some issues and little bugs. Some functions are hidden while others are placed in weird areas for me but I love it anyway! More pros than cons for sure, and missing functions are coming together with some new enhancements and goodies.
Resources
The new chat and channels experience adoption site
