How to have notifications more prominent and stay open?

[AmityWeb]

We are trying to use Teams in our business, instead of Slack. The main reason is to have additional project related systems in one place. We can use Teams for video, files, notes, and even add in Asana tabs. The less software to do all we want the better. 

But we are struggling to make the final move over from Slack because we keep missing activity. We have enabled as much as we can we think, but what happens is a banner appears in the top right (on my Mac) and a little noice I think, but then it goes. There is then no alert on the screen. So if I leave my desk for 5 mins and come back, there is nothing to alert me of a chat. Same for my team mates, I send them a chat and am waiting HOURS until they notice it, then the chats are all full of apologies for missing it. 

If we use teams, my current workflow is start a chat on teams, then use Slack to tell them. 

Clearly something is wrong here. We cant switch to teams if we keep missing chat. Chat needs to be responded right away. I dont mind missing some other activities like someone uploaded a file. If they need my attention they should start a chat, but without proper notifications Teams is un-productive. 

Teams is not appearing in the Mac notifications settings where I can choose to make it a persistent banner and things like that. But my colleagues are on Windows and have same issue so its not a Mac thing. 

Am I missing some setting somewhere, I cant imagine millions of teams users having this same issue? 

Thanks!

[#2]

Your users need to get in the habit of checking teams or looking at the teams icon. When you get new activity you have a visual queue of such activity. You have unread notification etc. you also have the option to @mention them in chat and make sure it’s added to activity feed. Other alternatives are using mobile app and you can set notifications there to stay. But we’ve been using teams for years now and never have these issues so not sure why your users have issues not seeing notifications. They must just not be using teams ever to notice the notifications because the app itself points out when you have activity.

I mean even email is the same way. Notifications don’t stick around either to emails and people seem to see those no problem too. Teams works pretty much the same way.

[#3]

I’m sorry I disagree. It’s not very productive at all to keep checking all the time if there’s a new chat. If I start a chat I need them to know about it right away and not waiting for them to check. Like a phone call. Email is different it’s not a communication method that requires instant response. Chat is.

[#4]

That’s why you get notifications when you get chat messages. Anyway OS level notifications are coming very soon and are in preview but I don’t like them. But this stay in Notification Center till acted on. But again I don’t miss team notifications so I’m not sure if you guys just don’t have notification settings on properly or what but there are plenty of visual queues for unread activity throughout teams and tools to add even more for important messages etc.

[#5]

I have the same issue. We recently switch to Teams & this has been a pain point. Have you found a solution?

[#6]

@AmityWeb This may be really trivial to many but I found that I had to move the Teams icon up on the icon tray so that it is always visible on the Desktop. Then I don't have to go and click anywhere to check on new activity. Like so (no new activity = tiny green checkmark):

[#7]

@TonyaFluor Teams now has an option in settings to use native mac notifications, switch that then you can configure teams notifications through osx settings.

[#8]

@Steven Collier I am looking for the option to use Mac native notifications.  But I don't see it in the Teams settings and Microsoft Teams does not even appear in the Mac: System Preferences: Notifications list of apps.

EDIT:  Subsequent to this reply I found the answer and documented the steps in a reply at 11:39 AM

[#9]

You are assuming that the Teams UI is visible at all times and that likewise the icon is always visible. On a laptop many folks have some app full screen and the icon bar set to auto-hide. That is why persistent notifications, like those available in Slack are such a good idea. When I'm working remotely with just my laptop screen, every square inch of screen space is important. I don't want to keep the Team window on top or loose the bottom portion of the screen to the icon dock.

[#10 · Accepted solution]

There are two steps you need to do. Initially, the Mac:System Preferences: Notifications tab won't even show Microsoft Teams in the list of Apps. To remedy that you must use the instructions shown on this page. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/change-your-notifications-style-in-teams-0da93820-93d0-4d.... Do that, then close and reopen the Mac:System Preferences:Notifications tab and find "Microsoft Teams" in the list. Once you do that, you need to hit the Enable switch and configure them as you want! I just completed those steps and now I have persistent notification just like Slack.

Hope this helps.

[#11]

This is a horrible answer. You are basically saying, "i don't have a problem with this design so you should not also. Get used to it." I've seen LOTS of people complaining about this non-feature. If you don't want persistent chat notifications, fine. But at least MS should give people an option. Saying it is the same as email is also a bad answer. They are different types of communication used under different situations. Chat is typically (in my environment at least) used for more urgent communication (and least peer to peer chat). So the notification options for it should allow for better (and optionally persistent) notifications.

[#12]

You are right, the reply from Chris Webb is not helpful at all.

The feature HAS been added. See my answer in this thread. It's a bit convoluted to get it turned on and configured. But it available now.

[#13]

Thanks Gary. I had not looked at your link since it sounded like a Mac only solution (and I'm on Windows).
Problem now is that I do not see the "Notification Style" choice. Under "Appearance and sound" I see only 2 switches ("Show message preview" and "Play sound for incoming calls and notifications").
My guess is that my org has not yet rolled out the version of Teams that adds this. My version shows "1.4.00.26376". Do you know in what version this feature was added?

Todd

[#14]

Sorry, I do not know.

[#15]

I have a similar issue using the Teams web page, on Windows 11. 

I'd like the option for the web version of Teams to issue persistent notifications (that are logged in the Windows notification list, just like the Outlook web page's notifications), rather than the temporary ones it currently uses.

[#16]

@Chris Webb "Your users need to get in the habit of checking teams or looking at the teams icon" - 

REALLY??? Is this your best answer?!... If you are anything close to a product-line manager, or feature-designer... you need to look for another job, man... so disconnected from users & reality!

[#17]

Now on version 1.5.00.8070 and still do not see the option to change the notification as show in the link by @Gary_Shell

[#18]

@tagoofy Are you on Mac Or Windows?

[#19]

@Gary_Shell. Windows 10

[#20]

I'm on Mac, so I am not sure how (or even if) my notes apply.