Forum Discussion
Add Group Chat As A Channel
Hi all,
I am wondering if there is a way to make a channel in a team that behaves the same as a group chat.
I understand the advantages and disadvantages of conversations vs chats. Basically I like having conversation for work related things, the threads are good for organizations etc. At the same time I would prefer having a channel for general chit chat that behaves like a group chat (with the reply behavior of a chat and the general flow of a chat.)
Yes I could just make a group chat that has the same members as my team but it is less comfortable to continuously go between the Teams tab and the Chats tab, and also inviting members to both the Group and the Chat can be annoying when there are many of them.
Is there a way to do this that I missed?
43 Replies
- I'm still waiting for this kind of change. All the microsoft framework (sharepoint, azure, calendar and so on) is centered at teams and channels at teams. Unfortunately, teams channels are a really bummer. You cannot access discussions within channels as regular chats, notifications are not an obvious setting. It seems that they try to organize converstations on a compact way but at the very end they just provide you with an inconvenient with low visibility to current conversations.
- I was looking into a way of doing it as well. Hope microsoft turns it into a feature soon.
Hello, thank you for sharing. Another year as slipped past since the last post, so I am heading over to Slack to see what they got :)
ohanochI joined specifically to show my displeasure with this still not being a thing, and it has been years being asked for. Very frustrating!!
- I just don't get why this isn't a thing. I would use chat in a team frequently. It all pertains to the team you're speaking within. In a group chat, there is no point to name the group chat because then you are constantly changing the name to match your topic...
- Just stumbled upon this discussion, and I must say, adding group chat as a channel in Microsoft Teams sounds like a game-changer! It's like bringing a cozy coffee shop vibe into our digital workspace.
ohanoch This makes so much sense, I can't believe it's not an option yet
- We'd also love to have the ability to create a group chat without the need for creating posts. Having this as part of a Team or channel makes it easy to have new members automatically added when they are added to the Team.
Marisa_Thompson I believe what you describe would work for what I'm trying to do so long as the looks and feel is closer to group Chat and not the Posts inside of a Channel.
StevenC365 You are correct. I could just do a simple Chat with 75-80 participants. The drawback to this on my end is that our Chat conversation archive is limited to 30 days, while anything in a Channel I create preserves a year's worth of activity. While I could probably get by with only 90-180 days of Chat archive, I definitely need more than a month. On my end, as I understand it, the Chat archive settings cannot be altered just for my singular needs. My only real issue with using the Posts inside the Channel setup is the sheer amount of real estate is takes up on the phone screen, even using the larger sizes available. Inside the Team Channel, I'm also able to more easily manage who is in there as folks transfer in/out of the operation. Hope this description helps.- Still looking for this to become available...but how about if they just give us a way of Linking an entire chat thread to a specific channel. Any files, tabs, conversations, etc that happen in the chat are automatically added to the linked channel. I feel like it's too easy to miss out on stuff happening in the channels v/s chats.
Marisa_Thompson I would add your support and explain how this would add value to this thread on the suggestion site, so the developers will consider this for development.
Create "Chat Channels" in Teams ยท Community (microsoft.com)Until then I would mention that with the new Teams you can open a single conversation within a channel then have a more chat-like experience.
- "Until then I would mention that with the new Teams you can open a single conversation within a channel then have a more chat-like experience."
How do you mean that this can be done?
