Forum Discussion
Delay Send Feature on Teams Posts
Would anyone in this forum find it useful to be able to type a message in Teams (either 1:1 chat or a team thread), hit enter, and have that message not sent until the recipient's status is available? Ideally, this would be an option for which we could set a default (either on or off) and then toggle it for an individual message with a keyboard shortcut depending upon the message's urgency. Hopefully, it would be handled at the cloud level (not the local level like in Outlook) so that it is not dependent on the sender's computer being awake when the recipient's status becomes available.
There is an idea posted for this in a UserVoice forum, but it does not have many votes yet.
https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/18874141-time-delay-post
In my own organization, the people I most frequently need to ping spend much time in meetings or on client calls that I would rather not interrupt, but it hinders my productivity too much to keep checking on when they will be available. If I send a message during their meeting anyway, there is too great a chance they will miss it. If anyone else would find this useful, can you please make your voice heard?
amccanna Hey, the option to schedule a chat message is available. You can see how to use it here: Schedule chat messages in Microsoft Teams - Microsoft Support
There isn't an integrated option for messages in channels, but you could look at Power Automate for options on scheduling messages. This flow is a simple example: Scheduling Posts and Announcements in Teams - Power Platform Community (microsoft.com)
- While Microsoft works on releasing this functionality, there's always the option to use Delayed Send (https://appsource.microsoft.com/en-US/product/office/WA200004301) which provides this functionality and more.
Thanks for the information. Being honest, I try to avoid 3rd party add-ins as long as possible. With Microsoft so close in this functionality, i can't see adding something else to the organization now.
uridoMicrosoft
tomus I think this is a great need. Since the sender doesn't definitely know when the recipient(s) will be available, and this could be useful in groups too, I think of it as :
- the sender sends a "low priority, read when you can" message
- recipient receives it, but without if they're not active - without an instant notification (no sound, no alert)
- when recipient becomes active, they get one notification saying there are messages waiting for them, and they can see them in Teams conversations.
- According to the Message Center, this feature is literally days away.
MC427758 - Schedule Send for Teams Chat
"As remote teams become more common and spread across multiple time zones, Teams is introducing the schedule send feature that allows users to schedule chat messages to be delivered in the future. With this feature, we can help build better work-life balance and support flexible schedules by scheduling chat messages so that they only deliver during our peer’s work hours. Users can schedule messages to be delivered both on desktop and mobile. Additionally, all scheduled messages can be edit and delete before they are delivered. "
tomus yes, and even better would be if you could schedule a MS Teams chat post so that it doesn't get sent for several hours. This would help with people that are in other timezones.
- The possibility to simply delay sending would be welcome. I see issues with making it depend on recipient status, though it would be good as an option. I work evenings though, and hate sending pings on off-work hours.
I think this is a great idea. Having this option available will allow answering messages from end-users manageable. Researching or waiting on answers from other colleagues can take time and often happen after the 8-5 pm shift. Many people are now working remotely and time zones play another factor when responding to team messages. Many times findings or answers to questions happen after 5pm For those employees working late hours, having the delay send option will help tremendously.
- uridoThis feature would be especially useful across timezones of different countries
- I went googling for this exact feature. Fully agree.
