Forum Discussion
Contact list no longer available in new Teams version
Hi Dianne_NZ ,
If the new version of Microsoft Teams does not include a contact list and you rely on it for determining someone's availability, there are a few workarounds you can consider:
1. Presence Indicators: In the new version of Teams, you can still see the presence indicators of your colleagues. The presence indicator shows if a person is available, busy, away, or offline. This can give you a general idea of whether someone is in the office or not.
2. Chat Search: You can use the search feature in Teams to find specific individuals. Simply type their name in the search bar, and Teams will show you the matching results. This can help you locate and message a specific person to inquire about their availability.
3. Status Messages: Encourage your colleagues to update their status messages to indicate their availability or current location. People can add custom status messages to their Teams profile, such as "In a meeting," "Working remotely," or "Out of office." By checking their status message, you can get an idea of their availability.
4. Team Calendar: If your organization uses Microsoft Outlook or another calendar system integrated with Teams, you can check the team or group calendars to see if someone is scheduled to be in the office or has any appointments.
5. Pin Frequently Contacted People: In the new Teams version, you can pin frequently contacted people to your chat list. This will keep their names visible and easily accessible for quick communication. While it may not provide a comprehensive contact list, it can help you keep important contacts readily available.
Remember that these workarounds might not offer the same level of functionality as the previous contact list, but they can provide some alternatives in the absence of a dedicated contact list in the new version of Teams.
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None of these workarounds are sufficient.
I currently work with a customer who has their own domain. They DID provide me with an account in their domain, but alas, I cannot sign into that using Teams from a non-corporate machine due to very restrictive security settings. I.e. I need to keep using my own account.
And under my own account all the people from the other domain I need to contact are "external" by nature; using the search is extremely annoying.
Pinning is out of the question as there's too many people I'd need to pin. The other solutions aren't valid for quickly connecting and chatting.
The "Contacts" tab in Teams classic provides a way to create custom groups of people to quickly connect with. The new Teams is clearly lacking this feature.
I suppose the "People" feature is the closest equivalent, but it feels like it's designed for something else.
- Microsoft really needs to add the Contacts list back into new teams. This was a very useful feature.
You are not understanding the value of contact lists. For example, I could just drop down the contract group in which I added members of a certain team and could right away see who was available and who was not so I can initiate the chat. Please bring the feature back in the new teams.
Dear Microsoft,
Please put the contacts list back on the new Teams. This was a very useful feature easily available. Why would you remove it? this was a downgrade and makes MS Teams less useful and less user friendly. Not good. No No.
No contact list, no new Teams. All was structured there and now there is nothing anymore. You have to search for somebody, but don't remember the name... Seems the people that develop this app don't really work with it themselves, otherwise they would have kept the contact list and understood the advantages. New version means improvements, not downsizing.
- I wanted to write exactly the same "the people that develop this app don't really work with it themselves"!
Quickly peeking the online presences of grouped people was really essential to me - feeling a little bit "disconnected" now since using the new client... "Seems the people that develop this app don't really work with it themselvesPatJan965 "
I agree with you 500%
Why would you remove the contact list? I had different teams set up so I could identify them quickly and reach out to any member that was available to answer questions quickly. How do I change back to the old version?
- I would like to have the contact list back, worked a lot with it, what kind of improvement would that be?
- So, in summary, yes this really handy feature has been silently removed - so you now need to take 5 new steps to still not get back what has been removed 😞
This is limited to 15 people. Not a solution.
I have to concur with the other comments. I manage people by groups. I create groups in the contacts piece so I can monitor and lookup those different people. Not having either a way to create groups (outside of favorites) does not work for me. Either it wasn't thought of in production or HIGHLY underestimated.
