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Microsoft Teams Blog
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Ask Microsoft Anything: Microsoft Teams - 11/10/16

Laurie Pottmeyer's avatar
Nov 16, 2016

On November 10th, 2016 the Microsoft Tech Community and the Microsoft Teams product team hosted an action-packed AMA to answer questions about the newly launched chat-based workspace in Office 365.  Below is a summary of what was discussed during the AMA.  We hope you join us live next time!

 

 

Topics
• Availability
• Chat
• Data
• Development
• Disabling/Hiding
• External Users/Public Teams
• Feature Requests
• Groups
• Integration
• Release Notes
• Roadmap

 

Availability
Q: Regarding availability, we have SharePoint Online but not Exchange Online, can we use Teams?
A: For the full Microsoft Teams experience, every user should be enabled for Exchange Online and SharePoint Online. Users' Exchange mailboxes can be hosted online or on-premises. Users with Exchange mailboxes on-premises will not be able to configure connectors, but can still receive messages from connectors configured by other users.

 

Q: Any updates when teams for education tenants will be available for us to use? This would be so helpful for me and my staff as we use Planner, Sites, OneNote, etc. to bring it all together.
A: We do have additional timing yet. I do know that we will approach this in stages - first for staff, etc. And then farther down the line student access.

 

Q: When are you opening up the beta for Education SKUs?
A: Right now Microsoft Teams is not available for Edu-licensed users. We're looking to add support in the future, starting with faculty and staff users since there will be additional work required to support student use. I'd love to hear more about Edu scenarios you would expect to use Teams for - please share via the feedback tool if you can. See here.

 

Chat
Q: From the FAQ it looks like chat and documents persist with the team. What tools are available to aid in the extraction of the chats/documents/links etc. when the team becomes subject to an eDiscovery search? Are there tools?
A: We agree that this is important functionality and are working on this.

 

Q: In the event we need to obtain chat history etc. of a user who has left the business - other than signing into their account is there a way we can easily obtain this?
A: We are currently working to support archival, legal hold and eDiscovery. The ability to obtain chat history of a user who has left the business will rely on these compliance features and will be accessible by tenant admins. If you have feedback on that approach, please let us know.

 

Q: What would be the expiration / deletion policies for Microsoft Teams? Is it going to be the same as the Office 365 Groups? How they will be reported in the Admin Portal?
A: We are currently working to support archival, legal hold and eDiscovery. The ability to obtain chat history of a user who has left the business will rely on these compliance features and will be accessible by tenant admins. If you have feedback on that approach, please let us know.

 

Q: In a Persistent Chat Room - Will there be an option to enable historical view, allowing a newly added user to see past posts?
A: Within Microsoft Teams, users can review all conversations that haven occurred.

 

Q: Can Yammer Now be replaced by Team Chat? think I have picked up from roadmap discussions, that the chat feature in Yammer, Yammer Now, will be replaced by the persistent chat from Skype for Business. To me, it seems to be much more logic to replace Yammer Now with Microsoft Team Chat. Can we expect this to happen?
A: We agree with your thinking that Yammer and Microsoft Teams are separate products. We recommend Yammer for social enterprise networks for scenarios such as finding best practices across the company and for CEO connections. Persistent chat for these discussions is valuable for others to leverage past learnings. Microsoft Teams is designed for highly engaged teams to work together on shared deliverables and project. Persistent chat in this scenario is useful as new team members join the team and for catching up on missed discussions.

 

Q: Lost history? Why would something like this happen? Any suggestions on preventing or reverse this? I had several Chat conversations today with people. About an hour ago I had to resign into Teams (it signed me out). Now all my Chats from today are gone. I can still see Chats from yesterday. This is true from the web app and the desktop app. Is there a way to get these Chats back?
A: This is not a known issue. I'll send you a private message to get details and follow up. Apologies for the issue!

 

Data
Q: Does Teams data reside in the data center of the tenant or centrally in the US?
A: Data in Microsoft Teams lives in the data center region where the tenant is created/located, and is _not_ located in the US unless the tenant itself is provisioned in the US.

Development

 

Q: I’m really liking the UI and UX with Microsoft Teams. What programming language was MS Teams built with? TypeScript, JavaScript, ...?
A: It is built using Angular and Type Script. And, lots and lots of open source!


Q: The desktop version is made with Angular and Cordova or Ionic or what do you use to make the desktop app?
A: We used Electron.

 

Q: What technology do you use to create the mobile apps? Cordova, Ionic, Xamarin?
A: All mobile apps are native to their platform, we do not use any of the mentioned frameworks in our mobile applications.

 

Q: My developers miss the ability to format their pasted code like they used to in HipChat. Any plans on adding this soon?
A: Yes, this is one of our most highly requested features and we will be adding support for code formatting very soon. Stay tuned!

 

Disabling/Hiding
Q: How can we disable user access to create new groups?
A: Admins can restrict who can create Office 365 Groups, which in turn restricts who can create teams. You create a special security group containing people who are allowed to create groups. More info here.

 

Q: Can we Hide Teams in Teams and also can we Hide them in the GAL?
A: We're looking into that. You can unfavorite a team so it shows under "More" in your UI. But it is still visible to its members, until/unless it is deleted. Currently you cannot hide a team from the GAL.

 

Q: Can logging be disabled for chats?
A: We don't currently have any way to disable logging for chats. Would you mind submitting this feedback to here so we can properly prioritize the request based on others feedback?

 

Q: Is it possible to turn on Microsoft Teams without every user being able to access it via a URL? We would like to turn it on a for a few users in the IT department, but we are afraid if we do some users will start using it because they know the URL to the product. We do not want to disable groups or limit who can create groups, so is there another option to test Teams without controlling who can create groups and who cannot?
A: Shortly we will have a service plan that you can enable/disable on a per-user basis, like you can do with Exchange, Sway, etc. You can also restrict who can create a group (=team), right now, see this.

 

External Users/Public Teams
Q: Is External access to a Team Possible or is it restricted to our Office 365 tenant?
A: External access is not available in Microsoft Teams preview. We are working on several ways to expand the value of Microsoft Teams to more diverse types of organizations and teams, including the ability for guests outside the team or company to participate in a meaningful way.

 

Q: Do we know when we can test public team groups? We've updated the privacy in Mail, but it's not changing the group in Teams. Could this be a problem with our configuration or is it that public groups will only be released later?
A: Can you clarify? I think you might be asking about external users (folks not in your org) - we currently do not support that during Preview but its definitely high on our list.

  • Q2: We really need a public Teams for whole company or members of an AD group are automatically added. We also need Team to be discoverable and request membership. If you request membership to the o365 group and it is granted you DO NOT get access to the team. Very confusing.
    A2: We are also working on surfacing a directory of teams, but do not have it currently. In the flow you described, requesting access from mail then getting that approved, it will reflect in teams currently with a delay of 12 hrs. We are updating this to be less than two hours right now.

Q: Here at Pierce County, we are looking at reducing email, but also communicating across a variety of devices with team members both inside and outside the organization. The goal would be to receive information from an email or other form and have that start a team conversation that doesn't necessarily include the submitter of the original correspondence.
A: Microsoft Teams currently does not support External Users (folks not in your org/public), but its definitely high on the list. if you are enquiring about email integration, we are looking at ways to do this. Stay tuned. You could look at using "Connectors" to bring things from somewhere else into your Teams conversations.

  • Q2: What sort of things can the "Connectors" bring in?... we have not enabled Teams yet, so I cannot get a real preview at the moment.
    A2: Connectors are ways to bring things from other products like Twitter for example into your Teams Chat or Outlook Conversations. You can also create your own.

Feature Requests
Q: If you had the ability to get one and only one 🙂 feature, what would you ask for?
A1: Shared & Common Navigation across the Office 365 Groups construct - break down the product silos. I prefer the concept of manageable tabs that Teams has brought in, but as soon as I leave the product I get a different Nav experience.
A2: Make the tabs "optional", so you can turn off a product service that you don't want. E.g. I want a Group but not a SharePoint site. Allow us to turn off the service (or just hide it from the menu) so users don't accidentally go there, or start building stuff somewhere you dont necessarily need them too.
A3: I'm not an "information worker", I'm a developer and seconds count as far as distractions and trains of thought are concerned. Changing conversation tabs in Teams takes 1.8 seconds in the desktop client. The same action in Skype for Business happens instantly (or at most half a second if there's a lot of content). Teams already behaves for us a lot better than SFB ever did, which is why we've switched over to it full time, but if you're having conversations with multiple people then changing tabs really hampers progress.
A4: Better - and more consistent - navigation - is the most wanted feature across the whole Office 365 Group experience. Right now I seem to walk into the Group construct from two quite different user experiences, one from Outlook and another one from Teams. I even have different content and communication feeds available! I fear that when connected (or group-enabled) Teamsites and connected Yammer groups are rolling out, we will have 4 or more different Group experiences. I do understand, and respect, that you want to Group-enable all apps, instead of launching a "group" landing page. Even if I really liked the Delve Group concept, presented at Ignite in 2015 (and which has since then, totally vanished). Today, the best window or hub to Connected experiences seems to be Teams, not Outlook, nor Yammer nor SharePoint Home. While it may not be the end station. But please, Microsoft, if you are having any ambitions whatsoever to present your tools as "THE intranet in your pocket" (seriously, I think you should skip that ambition), you have to get your Group experiences connected!
A5: External user access
A6: How about a short list?: support for snippets, code block formatting, linking to individual messages, threading in chat (not just channels), private channels, and setting members of channels (not just teams).
A7: Desktop sharing with the option to give control.
A8: I'd like the ability to share my current location e.g. Working from Home, with other team members.
A9: Search documents across OneDrive, SharePoint, Emails - looking for keywords that are within the files too.
A10: A design company like ourselves has documents of considerable sizes, like construction drawings, etc...When you want to work/collaborate on a document speed is of the essence. In case we want to work with these documents in the cloud trough Microsoft Teams, the speed of the internet access is an obstacle to work normally. What if you could use Microsoft Teams using a combination of cloud data and on-premises data?
So, some folders are linked to on premises server data and some are in the cloud?
A11: For some companies having this problem there are special branch cache style products like Steelhead by Riverbed. Massive improvements in performance. Expensive though.
A12: We're working to reduce the fragmentation of tools across our company. One tool which we're trying to move away from is Trello, and Planner's integration with teams seems like the path we want to go, but the Teams version of Planner is limited compared to the full version. 1. it's not linked to the main planner site, so it's kind of in its own universe 2. you can't add comments / view history of tasks 3. Trello has nice templating features for common task types (with checklists etc.) There's some UI improvements that can be made. clicking between teams locks the UI thread for an unacceptable amount of time.


Q: Microsoft Teams Installator does not work and I posted this thread – others had the same problem. I try to reinstall but nothing work. What can I do?
A: Open a Ticket with Support so that we can capture logs and help you with this. Also, there was a bug in the installer impacting a small number of machines. That fix should be in production next Wednesday. We'll look into if we can provide that version earlier.

 

Groups
Q: My organization currently has many Office 365 groups that were created as a result of business users setting up, say, a new Planner setting up a new Planner Plan (that doesn't look right), which then makes them the owner of a new public group. As an admin, I'd like to setup Teams for them utilizing these preexisting groups, but since I'm not the owner, I don't even see the option to do so. Even if I was the owner, I would need to change them from public to private groups in order to create new Teams, correct? Can I create teams on behalf of a user (group owner)?
A: You are correct in that the group has to be private in order to have Teams added to it. We are working on supporting public teams, once we have support for that we will enable adding Teams to public groups as well. It will always be a requirement that only a group owner will be able to add Teams to the group. If you are IT admin you should be able to add yourself to the group then add Teams to it.

 

Q: When you ”team-enable” an existing Office 365 Group, created through Outlook, the Group Conversation is retained, independently of the Chat stream. What about another scenario then, as Yammer in the next weeks will be rolling out the new integration with Office 365 Groups: If you ”team-enable” a ”Yammer-created” Office 365 group - will the Yammer newsfeed be retained, independently of the new Chat stream?
A: Right now, Yammer groups cannot be activated into Microsoft Teams. Only groups from the Outlook or SharePoint Groups experience can be activated.

 

Q: Will Microsoft Teams interfaces and apps replace the corresponding Office Groups interfaces and apps?
A: Microsoft Teams is built on Office 365 Groups which is the shared group membership across Office 365 collaboration apps such as SharePoint, Outlook, Skype for Business.

  • Q2: So, we will continue to have an Office Groups iOS app alongside a Microsoft Teams iOS app?

Integration
Q: I think the ability to have shared notebooks is really an awesome feature of One Note and it has really driven adoption of OneNote over Evernote within our organization. I was excited to see the way OneNote is integrated in Teams, but see the ability to link in existing notebooks as something that can help drive adoption. What is the expected use case for the current set up? What is the roadmap for future integration?
A: That's definitely something we want to look at. As with other feature ideas, please submit them via the feedback button in the lower left of Microsoft Teams. This idea has already been posted - you can see it (and vote on it!) here.

 

Q: What are the odds PSTN calling would get integrated into Teams?
A: Great suggestion. We'd love to get more details on your scenario and requirements - you can submit an idea via UserVoice. Or, vote on an existing one (and add comments).


Q: Will the video conferencing capabilities built into teams be able to integrate with other non-Microsoft solutions? eg. Cisco.
A: This is a great suggestion, Jeff. We are working to expand our meetings and AV capabilities. Your comments and votes on UserVoice would really help out. In particular, if you can add notes about the types of devices you use, that would help.

 

Q: I'm having trouble getting the Visual Studio Team Services Integration connector to work at all. My account is an admin on team services, but the connector keeps returning "We couldn't find an account that had the required permissions for the project". Also, hitting the "sign in" button just seems to automatically use the credentials currently logged in to MS Teams, and doesn't actually prompt if I wanted to use a different set of credentials. Does anyone have this working?
A: Currently the Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) connector requires *project admin* privileges. We are working with the VSTS team to change it to allow it to be used by users with *team admin* privileges. This is a very high priority for both teams - it's actually a problem for Microsoft teams internally too. In the meantime, if it's possible for you to be granted project admin privileges, it should work for you now.

  • Q2: Additional problem after adding as a Project Admin, My User for VSTS and my user for MS Teams are different. With the connector just automatically using my Teams sign-in it does not ever get far enough to allow me to pick an account, or project, or any of the additional configuration options.

Q: As teams is currently set, where does teams fit into the current infrastructure both on premise and in the cloud that companies are currently invested in? I know that the integration is going to be the corner stone, but where does that currently lie as it is, where it is going, and by when. As far as currently managing Teams, Groups, Planner, OneNote, OneDrive, ext. There seems to be no current fluidity to the cross functionality, management, and administration. Is there any roadmap in place to when these features are going to be implemented, or if they will be available at all?
A: Microsoft Teams is an Office 365 chat based solution and for the full Microsoft Teams experience, every user should be enabled for Exchange Online and SharePoint Online. ##Users' Exchange mailboxes can be hosted online or on-premises. Users with Exchange mailboxes on-premises will not be able to configure connectors, but can still receive messages from connectors configured by other users.

 

Q: Today I tested adding video...
a) directly into Teams, and the user experience is poor - opens in browser tab b) add
b) add link from O365 Video (single source of truth) - horrendous long link, and no direct playing in the feed.
Are there plans for better integrate between these two?
A: Great feedback and thanks for using O365 Video as well. We're looking into better media and file support in chats, so please continue to share and vote on ideas. I found this one in the feedback system here and another one here.

 

Q: Specifically, we're using Atlassian Jira for our Kanban/Scrum style development, and having that integrated tightly with Teams would provide us with a one-stop conversation and planning environment.
Would this integration be something that we would have to take on ourselves or is there something Microsoft is planning to develop? If we are require to work on this internally, where would be a good place to start with this sort of an integration? (Having a tab makes the most sense for this).
A: We used our own API to integrate with Planner, so it would definitely be possible to integrate with another Kanban/project boards product such as Jira.

 

Q: Can users from Teams conference and chat with users running S4B? Is this on the roadmap? It seems like it is two competing chat/video/audio/presence products?
A: For a complete article about how Microsoft Teams and Skype for Business integrate see this.

 

Q: Can we expect improved Yammer integrations, for instance 1.Yammer as a Connector in Teams and 2. Yammer added to the list of default apps from the Tile menu?
A: There is already a Yammer Connector. In the Connector window, search for Yammer and you should find it. 2. I like the idea of a Yammer tab - please go here and vote for it!

 

Q: Are the features available in Skype for Business (such as a whiteboard/poll) available in Teams? The "meeting" interface is different from SfB...
A: Thanks for the feedback - currently not available. There is a lot of greenspace so we need your feedback to help us prioritize. Please visit us here to let us know.

 

Q: I'm a project manager at a company that is just rolling out O365 applications. We have turned on Microsoft Teams and are doing some testing. One of the first things I noticed was that the Admin that set up my team was the owner, and I want to add myself as an owner as well. Can the current owner make a member an owner?
A: Yes, they can, you can set multiple owners. If you click the 3 dots on the right of your team, then select view team. It will show all the members of the teams, you can switch them from a member to an owner.

 

Q: Where are the best collections of marketing materials for Microsoft Teams? My clients love the short videos for other O365 products on the Office Videos YouTube channel. Anything hiding out there on other sites we can share via email or in an onboarding presentation?
A: Have you seen this video? Also, does this help get you started? Here is a collection of videos we've created to help users learn Microsoft Teams: Product Tour, Teams and Channels, Using Tabs, Productive Conversations, Private Chat and Calling, Meet Now, Onboard your Team, Scheduled Meetings.

 

Q: Will we eventually have more capabilities with the Planner integration? Currently it seems that we can create multiple plans within Teams, but they don't appear in Planner, and the main plan that is already created in Planner does not appear in teams. Some things I'm hoping to see regarding planner integration:
• Ability to see the main group plan in Teams.
• Ability to have conversations around individual tasks. Currently, it seems, we can only do that in Planner on the main plan. Within teams we can only have a conversation around the entire plan.
A: We are talking to the Planner team to address both of those cases. We've heard a lot of feedback on this, as one might expect -- we just didn't get to these scenarios for the initial launch.


Q: I know there's been a few questions about Planner- and there's definitely some features missing. For example, I cannot create an attachment on a task when using Planner in Teams. Will this be fixed? And will Planners and their associated tasks that are created in Channels show up in the main Planner site at some point? (or will charts show up in Planner/Teams at some point ) There's so much potential with Planner, especially once some mobile apps are released. Thanks!
A: Yes, our goal is to build fuller integration between the Planner app and the integrated Planner tab in Microsoft Teams. We aren't there yet but will be working on it.

 

Q: I am kind of confused how the plans that you create in a team are related to in Planner.
A Group is an owner of a Plan. But when creating multiple plans in a team, they seem to also get a relationship with the group. When you look at the API and the explanation in the YouTube video, is looks like Plan and Group are one on one. Can you explain how the plans created in a team channel, are related to each other in de group on an API level?
A: Currently in Planner UI you are only able to see the default plan created for a group. In Teams UI you are not able to see the default plan created for a group, however, you are able to add as many other plans as you want to the team (each of those plans are ACLed against the team). Planner is working on exposing multiple plans per group in their UI as well as the ability to use the default plan for a group in the Teams UI. Other than the fact that all the plans for a given team are associated with the same group, they are not related.

 

Release Notes

Q: Will there be a running changelog / release notes page for Teams? On my PC, I got a notification that I'd been updated to the latest version. When clicking about I get, "You have Microsoft Teams Version 0.6.00.31001 (64-bit). It was last updated on 11/9/16." Would really appreciate a blog or an About box that we could view to view little notes on what's been updated. Especially important to us from a development standpoint.
A: Our release notes are posted in T-Bot under release notes. You can find them by clicking on "T-Bot" in your chat history and clicking on the "Release Notes" tab.

  • Q2: There is a release notes tab, but there aren't any release notes in it. It just says 2nd November, Welcome to Microsoft teams. Our desktop apps updated yesterday so it's those pieces that we're interested in. Looking for at a minimum a basic update with build numbers explaining features that were added or improved, but would honestly prefer high detail notes with break/fix info that go 5-10 lines an update. Would also love to see this moved to the Settings > About and that UI changed to either a pop up or a redirect to the Release Notes in T-bot to provide a consistent experience with other applications. I would never guess to look here.
    A2: That is a great suggestion, will definitely take your feedback in making the release notes more discoverable. We plan to document all new features and changes to existing functionality going forward in the release notes. Smaller bug fixes, which we are making on a regular basis, will result in an app update but may not be called out in the release notes.

Q: In the screenshot below you can see that I'm getting a banner to tell me the client has been updated - this is great but it'd be good if we could know what has changed. The release notes in the mac client doesn't give any clues.
A: Thanks for the suggestion! We plan on documenting all new features and changes to existing functionality in the release notes tab that you mentioned above. We will definitely take this feedback that we can be doing better in communicating changes with each new update going forward.

 

Roadmap
Q: When will we see Teams in the O365 app launcher
A: At this time, end users do not see the Microsoft Teams app tile in the app launcher after an admin turns on Microsoft Teams for an organization. We expect to add this the icon in the app launcher, waffle, etc. in the coming weeks. Admins can direct end users to go here to get desktop and mobile apps. For mobile apps, users can also go to the relevant mobile store for Google Play, Apple App Store, and Microsoft Store. Users can also log into the Microsoft Teams web app here.

 

Q: Do you plan to enable the option for team message notifications upon a new message in a team (not just a mention or reply)? If so, do you have an ETA for this? This is super critical for us as currently people miss messages.
A: Yes, this is at the top of our list of next notifications features! We will allow you to turn on notifications for a channel which will alert you anytime anyone says something in a channel.

 

Q: The mobile app is currently without emoticons or audio/video calling. Would love to see this come to mobile. Is this planned?
A: We are aware that it is not in the mobile app currently but we are currently working on the Mobile experiences and are aware of the Emoticons and calling limitation but no committed timelines.

 

Q: Any plans on adding Windows 10 notifications rather than the custom Teams notifications? Feels a bit weird with the custom notifications. Also, any plans on bringing the Win32 app to the Windows Store via the Desktop App Converter?
A: We are working on that. We will be in Windows Store via Desktop Bridge which will enable capability to have Win 10 notifications and live tile updates.

  • Q2: Feature parity in a Win10M app with proper Continuum support. I appreciate that your team threw us few W10M users a bone with the current app, but I would love to see something more robust.
    A2: We are working on enhancing mobile experience and is definitely on our radar.

Q: My developers miss the ability to format their pasted code like they used to in HipChat. Any plans on adding this soon?
A: Yes, this is one of our most highly requested features and we will be adding support for code formatting very soon. Stay tuned!

 

Q: In a number of the announcements and demos we saw "WhoBot" when will this be available within Teams?
A: WhoBot is my feature - we are working to make it available as soon as possible. I don't have a specific date to share unfortunately but we're hard at work finishing it.

 

Q: What are the plans for Teams data and conversations (to include chat activity) to be available for retention based on legal holds placed against any of the individual users in a given team? The default retention of between 7-30 days will not be sufficient in some cases.
A: Hi Dan, thanks for the question. We're working on building out our archiving and compliance story, including leveraging Exchange. If possible, can you share some more details on your specific requirements via our feedback tool. There's an active topic here you can vote and comment on.

 

Q: How do you see Skype for Business in relation to Teams in future? We are hugely drawn to Teams mainly due to the chat persistence but also because of the emoticons etc, and the reliability of the apps across the board. It's a fantastic chat experience and within our trial group we aren't really using Skype for Business any more. What do you see as the future for Skype for Business? Will Teams eventually replace it, or will they run in parallel? If the latter, what would the use cases be as to which product we would use in which scenario?
A: Microsoft Teams is part of the Office 365 collaboration portfolio of which Skype for Business is also part. Microsoft recognizes that there is not one collaboration tool or service that universally meets the needs of our customers. Unique situations, workstyles, functional roles and workforce diversity call for different collaboration solutions. Teams are diverse, and because of this, some may use all Office 365 collaboration solutions or just one or two of these apps to collaborate.

 

Q: Will MS be adding any support to allow to login to multiple Teams from different O365 tenants?
A: Please add your input here as we are wanting more info and scenarios user voice mulitple logins.

 

Q: In a Persistent Chat Room - Will there be an option to enable historical view, allowing a newly added user to see past posts?
A: Yes, we have it at the top of our list but we haven't got a date to communicate to you at this time.

 

Q: Will we be able to drag messages inside a thread when we put wrongly as a new conversation?
A: This is something we've been discussing internally to help "fix" replies. We do want to build this feature but don't currently have an ETA for when it will be released. In the meantime the workaround is to delete your message and manually re-post your message as a response. If you would like to upvote the feedback item you can find it here.

 

Q: Will be there any quick way to edit the last message I send? Something like hitting the up arrow?
A: We do have it! Check out the more menu (...). We also do plan to support using the up arrow to get back into edit mode so you won't always have to go to the "...". Also, just for the clarity - you can only edit messages you have posted in the past 24 hours.

 

Q: Any plans on having a Team Calendar? The personal calendar is nice but working as a team it would be nice to have a shared calendar so that we can place Time Off dates and project dates as well. Also, see the New Relic connector, is there an Application Insights connector in the works as well?
A: Every Teams created is part of the Office 365 Groups construct. This means that along with Teams that provides the Chat functionality, you get a SharePoint Team Site and you also get an Outlook Calendar that belongs to that Group aka Team.

  • Q2: The calendar is there in Outlook as you stated, but it would be nice if this calendar could be surfaced as a Tab within the team for quick access for everyone.
    A2: First week since it's been released, I am sure it's something that will come. But Agreed.

Q: We are in the process of installing a SharePoint 2016 environment to use for OneDrive for business as part of a windows 10 rollout - will / is team available to install on premise rather than in the cloud - we are a healthcare company and as such we have some pretty strict rules governing what is allowed to go into the cloud at present -UK Based.
A: Microsoft Teams is currently an O365 product so are a cloud-only service. Can you also share more on the specific restrictions that make O365 public cloud a problem (here or in the feedback tool)? As Angela said, Microsoft Teams is a cloud product, but it is possible have users' Exchange mailboxes hosted in on-premises or cloud.

  • Q2: "But" are there any plans to make it available for those that cannot use cloud based services - on prem.
    the reason I ask is we are currently looking for something in this space and if there is possibility in the near future then this is preferred as a MS house? It is to do with the fact that - MS can "failover" to the US and as there is a good chance there is patient data we are not allowed to do this - I know MS have recently opened 2 data centres in the UK but for us it is probably still too early to use them until a couple of NHS trusts have gone that way already (we are a privately run charity but have strong ties with the NHS)

Q: Does the roadmap include the ability to create a private or internal bot available only within our company?
A: When you create a bot and register it with Bot Framework, you can choose to publish it or not. If you don't, it will always remain private. Furthermore, if you require your users to log in before using the bot, then only employees of your company will be able to access it even if the bot's application ID becomes known. Here's some code to authenticate users against your Active Directory using bots.

 

Q: Will there be an API to add channels? Our use case is project management and we have over 80+ projects per week which typically last 2-3 days.
A: Thanks for the suggestion. It's not currently supported but something we'll take a look at in the future. Someone has shared a feedback idea on this already- you can comment and vote on it here.

 

Q: Will there be a way to migrate legacy on-prem Lync Group Chat Rooms to MS Teams?
A: At this time, there are no plans to provide these tools. You may want to discuss this with 3rd party integrators.


Q: I'd really like to be able to rename the general channel. The challenge we have is that general is quite non-descript. e.g. we might want to have an 'important' channel for discussing key issues around our project, but also a 'silly' channel for idle conversation about lunch etc... the problem with general for us is there's not the classification of whether it is serious, silly, or anything else. Would be great if we could rename it even if it always stays.
A: We are working on the ability to allow you to rename general as we know it doesn't fit all Teams.

 

Q: Do you plan to enable the option for notifications upon a new message in a team (not just a mention or reply)? If so, do you have an ETA for this? This is super critical for us as currently people miss messages. And finally a word of appreciation, we are very impressed by Teams so far - great work.
A: Yes, this is at the top of our list of next notifications features! We will allow you to turn on notifications for a channel which will alert you anytime anyone says something in a channel.

 

Q: Is video / audio meeting recording (persistence) planned? If so, eta?
A: This is something we are looking at but it is not currently on the roadmap. Please add this to User voice here.

 

Q: Will Teams have soft-delete? At Ignite this year we were told it should be available for Groups by EOY.
A: We're working on soft-delete for teams and channels, building atop the work that O365 Groups is doing. This is part of overall investments in archiving, compliance, discovery, etc.

 

Q: What are the key advantages (difference) I can expect to see as compared to Slack?
A: Microsoft Teams is differentiated from Slack with Office 365 integration (Office documents, SharePoint, OneNote, Planner, and Skype for Business) and Office 365 security and manageability. Additional features that makes Microsoft Teams unique include threaded conversations, the ability to start a spontaneous call in a channel (Meet Now), Tabs which allow teams to customize content by channel and recent activity feed for mobile. IT Admins can manage Microsoft Teams in the same way they manage other Office 365 apps, and can rely on the same security, privacy, transparency and support that comes with Office 365.

 

Updated Jan 26, 2021
Version 7.0