Forum Discussion
Shared Channels: @Channel mentions fail to trigger activity notifications for team-shared members
Hello everyone,
I am facing a persistent issue regarding notification behavior in Microsoft Teams Shared Channels that I hope someone can clarify or help with.
Scenario:
- We have a Shared Channel that is shared with multiple teams (e.g., 17 teams in total).
Note: I know that this way of communicating is not the recommended way, but we are not allowed to use any Viva products etc.
- Users accessing the channel are members of those shared-in teams, but they are not listed as direct individual members in the Shared Channel's own member list.
- Users have their channel notification settings correctly configured to receive notifications (e.g., "All new posts" or standard banner/activity settings).
The Problem:
When someone uses a channel mention (e.g., @ChannelName) in this shared channel, the users who have access via the team-sharing mechanism do not receive any activity feed notifications.
- The workaround/oddity:
They only receive the activity notification if we explicitly add each user as a direct individual member to the Shared Channel.
- The dilemma:
Since the channel is shared with 17 teams, adding hundreds of users manually or via scripts as direct members creates massive redundancy and clutters the UI (users see the team and the channel redundantly).
- Inconsistency:
We noticed that in older shared channels created some time ago, channel mentions worked across team shares without needing direct individual memberships. It seems newer shared channels behave differently and strictly require direct membership to trigger activity feed notifications for @Channel mentions.
Questions:
- Is this a known design limitation or a recent backend change in Microsoft Teams for newer Shared Channels regarding how @Channel mentions resolve indirect team members?
- How are organizations supposed to utilize @Channel mentions effectively in large-scale collaborations involving multiple shared teams without bloating the direct membership list?
- Any insights or workarounds would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you!
1 Reply
The useful distinction in your tests is direct versus team-shared membership: the same mention works for direct members, while newer channels fail for indirectly added users. Microsoft recognizes both membership types for shared channels, so I would not assume indirect members are inherently unsupported. I found no official notice establishing the backend change you suspect. Have the channel owner check mention settings, and confirm affected users’ mention notification preferences, not only “all new posts.” Ask an administrator to compare the channel’s shared teams and effective membership; Microsoft Graph’s allMembers operation includes indirect members. Reproduce with the same small test group in an older and a newer channel, using individual and channel mentions in web and desktop clients. Capture message identifiers, channel identifiers, and UTC times for Microsoft support. For urgent messages, use explicit individual mentions as a temporary measure; duplicating hundreds of memberships should not be the first workaround
