Forum Discussion

Iron Contributor

Jan 31, 2020

Is it possible to disable the Files tab from the Chat Window in Teams

Through Microsoft teams, our plan is to encourage our staff teams to go to their Teams location or Channel locations to manage their files. We do not want them to unintentionally associate group chat...

Chat

files

PEGGYATA

Copper Contributor

Feb 24, 2022

I can vouch that the simplicity of posting files in teams chat by dozens or hundreds of users that have little experience building collaboration environments and those same users building up file volumes in Teams channel file tabs is a growing monster. Users are abandoning the use of sharepoint pages altogether and we admins sit and watch the garbage pile grow…burying documents and files that are important with it. Now we are stuck fixing a problem created by the tool that doesn’t provide the features to keep it organized, clean, or connected to SP in a usable way. It kind of amazes me anyone could design a structure that is so prone to build up of dozens of old chats and files and duplicates the content hosting features of the foundation back end up, in the new front end. Like a peanut butter and jelly and peanut butter sandwich. Yes the goo starts oozing all over the place. It’s crazy! I don’t know how that design could have launched and no one saw those file tabs would collect immense stale and ill-placed data. And give us no way to manage it or steer users from Teams back into the Sharepoint proper libraries. It’s doesn’t do it. It recreates an imposter again on top. Teams need admin controls and proper hooks to established SP pages in the channel and chat areas instead of these junk file folders.

ChristianJBergstrom

MVP

Feb 24, 2022

PEGGYATA Hi there, well I tend to disagree. You're not sharing multiple copies of files in all these places, you're using links to those files which live in SharePoint Online libraries and OneDrive. There's been plenty progress when it comes to file sharing in Teams and SharePoint/OneDrive for the file sharing and collaboration experience to be consistent.

These are the prompts.

From chats

From channel conversations

This is now the default file sharing prompt introduced all over in M365 where you're sharing links.

And when working on these files coming from a link you have the co-authoring feature instead of previous "check out" behavior which locked the file for others.

You should also make sure not all users can create groups, i.e. Teams using the AAD Directory settings. And when it comes to channel creation at least limit that to the team owner/owners.

And I haven't even mentioned the compliance features in Teams here as those are for controlling access and data loss etc.

PEGGYATA
Copper Contributor
Feb 25, 2022
Thank you, yes I am aware of the co-authoring and the files not being duplicated. I am observing users however, commenting on the confusion arising from Teams files. They don't think about the back end or who can see it. They just post. It is sort of going against the grain of Teams to restrict how people use it. I am hoping MSFT starts fixing some of the missing features that would help shape it better.
- David_Goodhand
  Brass Contributor
  Mar 04, 2022
  Teams cross-tenant chats do not allow Files, so here's what I am going to try: Create a new Office 365 tenant with one user, and provision with the least expensive sku that supports Teams. Then, in my real tenant, invite that dummy user from the other tenant to any chat where I want to block files.