Apps not available in Private Channels

[Nardotini]

I have been in love with Microsoft teams and have enjoyed using it for my company. However I have been quite disappointed by the fact that I’m not allowed to have apps like Calendar or Tasks in private channels.

It is super important for myself (I would also assume for others who also have a business) to have private channels separate from the main Team. The reason being, I orchestrate certain tasks only to the people in the office and only want them to be able to see and not the others which are not. On top of that, I would like to assign tasks to the people in the private chat and not allow the others to be able to see them.

I hope this is possible and I’d like to thank the Microsoft team for their revolutionary product that’s helped us be more organized. Thank you!

[#2]

Unfortunately what your seeing is by design. Private Channels are not tied to a Microsoft 365 Group and that's why Calendar or Tasks are available to be added as Apps to a PC.

[#3]

Sorry what I meant to say was tabs. For instances the calendar channel tab or tasks tab for individual channels

[#4 · Accepted solution]

Tabs are basically extensions to apps. Same deal. Private channels don't allow most of the tab options due to the security model and back end. Planner has to develop stand alone plans in planner not tied to a group so my guess is that hopefully Teams will be able to utilize these in private channels at some point if they do this, but right now many of the group connected tabs / apps will not be usable in Private channels.

[#5]

@Nardotini  +1 here from me. Teams is useful in general, but we organized our org structure in multiple private channels (one for each team).

The private channels are where the work happens.

Being restricted from using productivity apps in private channels is counter-intuitive and making us less effective. 

+1 for adding that.

[#6]

Couldn't agree more!

[#7]

Agree and hope Microsoft makes these apps available in private channels. Just like @leo_portatour mentioned in his reply, it's in the private channels the work happens. We have one general channelf for cross-organization talk and then one private channel per team where they do all their work.

[#8]

I agree,

Some of my colleagues created a private channel to practice using Teams effectively in the classroom, but when they don't have access to the same apps, this becomes very confusing for them quite fast.

[#9]

Totally agree, no sense

[#10]

One option is to create individual Groups/Teams instead of private channels. It would allow you to assign tasks within that Group/Team - but, unfortunately, creates all the back-end pieces that a Group/Team generates.

[#11]

Two years too late but I came across this when I was searching how I did this two years ago, because I need to do it again. You just need to enable the hidden Taxonomy feature:

Enable-PnPFeature 73EF14B1-13A9-416b-A9B5-ECECA2B0604C -Scope Site -Force

[#12]

@Martin Laplante 

Could you provide a little more detail on how to implement this feature and how it enables Tabs such as tasks on private channels?

Thanks!

[#13]

@Honest_Joe I wrote a more detailed blog post about it here

https://blog.icefire.ca/blogs/post/trick-to-uncripple-teams-private-channel-sites

Essentially when Teams creates a new site it disables several features for speed which Microsoft doesn't think that private channels need.  One of them is the hidden feature I mentioned.  Since it's a hidden feature you can't turn it on with the SharePoint interface, you have to use PowerShell commands.

In PowerShell, you must first install the PnP.PowerShell module if you haven't already done so, then connect to the private channel site using the command "Connect-PnPOnline", then use the command "Enable-PnPFeature 73EF14B1-13A9-416b-A9B5-ECECA2B0604C -Scope Site -Force"

[#14]

@Martin Laplante does this apply to all sites or can you scope it to a specific set of sites. And do you know if the command has changed recently?

[#15]

@gkjarhead It applies to a single site, the one that you connect to in the Connect-PnPOnline command.  Some report that it works, others report that it doesn't.  I don't know why.  It works for me.  I am not aware of any recent change.  It was still working in September when I last used it.