How can Teams replace skype??

Iron Contributor

Since its announced that Teams will replace Skype for Business, how will teams fit in our environment?  The only thing we use skype for is IM.  It works great, integrates with outlook all is good.  I have used it to share my screen and view someone else screen which also works great.  

 

Teams doens't seem to have chat at all, just group chat which seems all too much like email and rather useless.  The info I can find seems that Teams only works with Office365 groups, but what if we do not use O365 groups and have them disabled so noone can create them.  Im not seeing 1 feature of Teams that would be anything we would want going forward.  

 

Nothing about the Teams App looks any good. Was this made for Vista???  its ugly!  I installed it and there are buttons on the left side for Teams, Meetings, Files.  Teams nothing there.  Meetings is just Outlook Calendar in a weird view.   Files well not sure what the use is for this.  Shows my OneDrive contents, why it shows in the app IDK.  all seems pointless and useless.  

 

How can this take the place of skype when you can't even message someone on it, the whole point in Skype for us.  

 

 

28 Replies
There are for sure chat in Teams, and it surpasses Skype as well
I’ll suggest to learn more about it and how it works:

https://support.office.com/en-us/teams

After that, we will happily answer any question for you

Adam

@adam deltinger   I tried to figure out how to do chat for about an hour and gave up.  

 

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There should be a chat button on the left hand side bar! If it’s not there you should check with admins if they have removed it in a policy

@adam deltinger I would be the admin and my account is in islands mode.  

Fine then! Do you have the chat button on the left?

@adam deltinger No there is no chat button.  See my screenshot I uploaded before

@BumSkull 

I am using Teams Desktop Application from last 10 Months, There is so many features better than Skype! I feel its better than Skype.  

- There is chat option

- We can create teams group for collaboration with the members.

 

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We can integrate APP's into Teams.

 

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We can change the Teams application Theme 

 

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So many options available with screen-share

 

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Cheers!

@Madhu_Tallapaneni Chat isn't available on mine.  The Group chat function isn't anything we would be interested in at all.  The UX isn't very good, its super big and doesn't scale down to size like Skype.  Besides Chat not being avaialble, the UX is the number one issue

@BumSkull Even in Free version also chat option available. 

 

https://products.office.com/en-IN/microsoft-teams/free

 

 

 

@Madhu_Tallapaneni Its pretty clear that chat isn't available on mine.  I have uninstalled re-downloaded everything.  Nothing wont show up.  This is a core function that this app must have and its just not there. Ill keep an eye on the uservoice once i see a new usable UX has been delivered we will try the app again.  

 

EDIT:  I have logged out and back in 50 times, rebooted several closed and opened the app 50 times it seems too.  Nothing.  Even tried the web client not there either.  

Your policies aren’t setup right if chat is missing or if you just made your change over to islands it takes time to take effect it’s not instant. Make sure you check your user account upgrade mode not just the org setting. Also check messaging policies that chat is enabled and that you are part of that policy. If any changes are made you have to give it a bit.
Definitely call support, our main use is 1-1 chat. it works great, better than skype. Keep at it, you’ll figure it out.

@Chris Webb Double tipple and quadruple checked the polices.  How long does it take to actually take effect?  I changed it over 12 hours ago.  

Changing modes can take days. If it wasn’t on islands and you changed it. It’s going to be a bit.

@Chris Webb Dam that sucks.  It doesn't tell you that anywhere and I wasted hours upon hours today on this.  Pretty poor documentation and feature if you ask me.  

 

Why would this take days but everything else in 365 takes just a few min??

 

Totally turned off by Teams at this point.   

@BumSkull is Chat hiding under the ellipsis on the "rail" on the left of the client?

@Stuart Moore No it was not

So this morning Chat finally showed up....  Did a small test with chat, well there seems to be a ton of missing features and the UX is terrible to navigate.  Skype is 10 times more usable for chats.  It opens a new window where you have your chats right there shows you everyone your talking to in a nice window to click back and forth on your conversations.  Teams however you have to hover over the chat icon and try to figure out who you have talked to.  This list it makes doesn't make much sense.  Shows recent with things I don't even know what they are and definitely never had chat with.  Can't seem to remove Suggested..

 

We can't send attachments, paste files/screenshots, ect.  

 

After all this work to get the thing to actually work, I can absolutely say unless there is a total UX overall Teams is not going to work out.  Shrinking the window to the smallest it goes is still way bigger than it should be and then the usability of Teams drops from minimal to non-existent.  

 

Im sorry Teams dev but I just do not like this thing at all.  It may work better and more modern under the hood but the UX is just so bad and the missing ability that skype has are show stoppers for us.  I use the paste into chat probably 20+ times a day for sending screenshots of things.

 

I really hope Teams makes huge improvements before Skype is shut down.

The only valid complaint you have so far is multi window chat which is coming in the not too distant future. You can copy and paste all day long you are Probabaly trying to chat with a Skype user since it seems your the only one set to using Teams. When you do that you don’t get all the same features as chatting with other teams users.

You seriously need to go watch some sessions / YouTube videos from ignite and other materials about teams because it sounds like you did absolutely no research, fired up teams then came here and started complaining about something you don’t understand.