New Feature: Schedule Microsoft Team Chat Messages

[LuiIacobellis]

In this video, I preview a new Microsoft Teams feature that was just added into the Microsoft Teams public preview program: the ability to schedule chat messages. Note that prior to the addition of this out-of-the-box functionality, Microsoft did push out a interface to Power Automate that allowed you to schedule chat messages to be sent at a later time (this video has a call out to this tutorial if interested). It is expected that this feature will be generally available in the coming months.

To use this functionality, simply navigate to the chat you want to send a scheduled message in and right click the send button. This will bring up a menu asking you to input the date-time. Some notable limitations as the time of recording this video: 1) you can only send a scheduled message to a recipient whom you have chatted with previously and 2) you can only schedule chat messages to be sent every half hour (i.e. you cannot input a custom time).

What are your thoughts about Microsoft’s approach to scheduling chat messages?

[#2]

@LuiIacobellis doesn't seem to work in the mobile app for iPhone?

[#3]

@LuiIacobellis,
This doesn't seem to work in mobile app for Android either.
Long press on "Send" does nothing.

[#4]

@LuiIacobellis This is great, but I think it would also be nice to have a "Send when user is available" option!

[#5]

Would this feature work in Channels as well? Or is it only for chats and discussions?

[#6]

@LuiIacobellis When is this planned for release on mobile?
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/roadmap?filters=Microsoft%20Teams&searchterms=88281

[#7]

I'm not entirely sure. It is long overdue though as this can be done on other major competitor platforms for a while now

[#8]

This feature only works for chats and not channel posts.

[#9]

Yes, unfortunately this feature is not available on Mobile yet.

[#10]

do you know whether the teams application needs to remain running in order for the message to be sent? If my computer is off, for instance, will the message still be sent at the scheduled time?

[#11]

your computer / mobile does not need to be ON to have the message sent at the scheduled time.

[#12]

How can you delete a message scheduled on Teams Mobile that has not been sent yet? I see this functionality from my desktop but not mobile. @LuiIacobellis 

[#13]

How can I schedule a message at 7:30? Seems that it starts from 8:00AM

[#14]

The available times range from 8:00 am to 7:30 am. The list starts at 8 and ends at 7:30. Scroll to the bottom.

[#15]

Microsoft just pushed this functionality out to the Teams mobile app a few days ago. When a message has been scheduled, you can long press it and you will see the option to reschedule or delete it.

[#16]

@LuiIacobellis great feature, but annoying that it defaults to tomorrow rather than today - gets me every time. Would be good if they can configure it to start at the next 30minute slot on the same day, rather than 8am next day.

[#17]

@ArrowBradthat would be annoying and violate the user's privacy.

[#18]

@TylerH1 How about "Send when not Out of Office, In Meeting, or Presenting"? I don't think privacy would be violated, a user can see another user's availability whenever they want already.

[#19]

Please clarify how this would 1) be annoying and 2) violate the user's privacy.

[#20]

@TylerH1
Allowing for sending the message once the user is online appears perfectly logical and the opposite of annoying. That is, if the message is scheduled, but the user is not fully available, they would still receive a notification, which may be disturbing. However, if the message arrives once the user is online, they get all the messages right in time when they are intended to be available.