Teams chat is not being stored in Conversation History in Outlook

[Tom Gould]

Currently our chat history is not being stored in the user mailbox conversation history. Everything i can find states that this is where it should be according to the statement below here: https://goo.gl/ZQXmsU

"All Teams 1:1 or group chats are journaled through to the respective users’ mailboxes and all channel messages are journaled through to the group mailbox representing the Team"

Is there a setting or flag that i am missing to turn on retention? I have enabled skype for business retention polices so that they are saved in conversation history?

Is anyone else experiencing this?

[#2 · Accepted solution]

The client can not access th storage location for Teams messages via outlook. Have to use security center to search and pull those.

[#3]

Of, if you simply want to ensure that items are being recorded, use the Get-MailboxFolderStatistics cmdlet to note the number of items and the date of the last item captured in the Team Chat folder under Conversation History. This is a language-specific name, so it will differ if you use a non-English client. See https://www.petri.com/teams-compliance-story for details.

[#4]

Or good old MFCMAPI? :)

[#5]

Yes, even MFCMAPI (as long as your Outlook profile is not configured to use cached Exchange mode as the Team Chats items are only available online).

[#6]

Are you sure? If I click search "All Outlook items" and then "Find more on the server" I will find all messages sent through MS Teams maybe just private/group messages though. They are in a folder called "Team chat" but I have not been able to find that folder in Outlook.

[#7]

Items in the Teams Chat folder in your personal mailbox are from personal chats, not channel conversations (these are in the group mailbox of the team that the channel belongs to). 

I am curious that you say you can find these items with Outlook. Is this the desktop client or OWA? If the desktop client, are you configured in cached Exchange mode? Can you give the steps you used to access this information? I ask because the folder is invisible to clients and I cannot find these items in my account using OWA or Outlook (I can with a compliance search). But sometimes Outlook has obscure ways of doing things that I have never heard of or have forgotten...

[#8]

I think I'm using cached exchange mode (checked but not allowed to change), I'm using desktop client with O365. As I said I have to click search on server so maybe the cache thing is not relevant. So again the steps to find private/group messages for me is simply

1. Choose "All Outlook items"
2. Enter search term and search
3. Click "More" or "Find more on the server"
4. After a while (can be slow) the chat messages pops up with one entry/"email" for each message.

[#9]

How strange. I am using Outlook Click to Run Version 1712 (Build 8827.2082) and I don't see this behavior. I created a chat item with some specific content to use as a search target and I cannot find that item... I accept that you've unearthed some, but I wonder if a change was made in a recent build to stop the chat items turning up in search results...

[#10]

My current version is Office 365 ProPlus 1705 (Build 8201.2209 Click-to-run), Deferred Channel, EU region. I was a bit surprised about this as well since I don't remember seeing it before today (but I haven't actively been looking for it so no clue how long it has been possible for me).

[#11]

OK, so we have a version difference... That could explain a lot. On the other hand, we might be looking in the wrong place!  Such is the life of software addicts...

[#12]

My conversation history folder stores messages from Skype for Business conversations, but not Teams?

[#13]

Yes. It technically stores Teams there too but doesn't expose it for users to use. You should use Teams Search for Historical Chat lookups.

[#14]

How would we go about setting up journaling of Teams chats / messages to an external compliance tool?

[#15]

has this be fixed or is it working yet?   why??? Important for us to make the full switch to teams... ISSUE in skype for business. if a message is sent to a coworker, and they miss it, or are offline. it gets fwd to Missed conversation in there email folder. and if they do get it.... great... there still saved in there email conversation folder, (Genius who every did this) all this from skype for business, BUT... TEAMS need to work the exact SAME way please, WHY? of course we all can reply or open all team message all the time, when were on line, but sometimes we are offline, (having a real time in person meeting), or we are on a flight over the US and the plane does not have WIFI, everyone trained to use messages and are so use to me and others being available on SKYPE and TEAMS.... VIA pc or laptop or Phone all using TEAMS.. cool... but... in this case we are not do to Flight or Lunch or Driving home, THEN at that time, they send message anyway. and we have NO way of knowing or getting or see that message, once we log in to TEAMS... nor are email. because there is no missed conversation to email from TEAMS, nor a missed conversation flag or tab in TEAMS, (that would be better) but let not reinvent, you already have it GREAT in SKYPE for business, so lets follow using that. ISSUE 2 next. not every one in our org, gets to use TEAMS. some have to stay on skype for business, and send us messages, it would be nice to be a TEAMS member if you are, and you then don't have to have Skype for business open AND TEAMS too. as they both feed to the some Missed conversation folder, Please think about it. 

[#16]

Teams is never going to work in exactly the same way as Skype does. You'll have to get over this because Teams is a different product.

If you miss something because you're not connected with Teams when someone mentions you or pings you in a conversation, you'll get an email, the frequency of which is controlled by a user's Teams settings (see below). And Teams has an activity feed which is designed to tell people about important items they might otherwise overlook, such as when they are @ mentioned, someone replies to a message, and so on. That doesn't exist in Skype.

Sorry, but you will have to get with the new world..

[#17]

So just to pickup where you guys left off,,,,SfB saved old chats in the "Conversation History" folder in Outlook.

If I have a private chat using TEAMS, not a chat in a TEAMS room, where is the Chat history kept? OneDrive? I recently converted from "Islands" mode to "TEAMS Only"

I do not see any recent chats using Teams in "Conversation History" folder in Outlook.

[#18]

From https://www.petri.com/teams-compliance-story:

• Group and 1:1 chats are captured in the mailboxes of the participating users. For example, if John and Pat have a 1:1 chat, copies of the chat are recorded in both their mailboxes.

and:

n all cases, the mailbox items are created in a special hidden folder called Conversation History\Team Chat. This is a sub-folder of the Conversation History folder used to store copies of IM conversations for Skype for Business calls. Because the folder is intended to hold data for compliance purposes, clients like OWA and Outlook desktop do not expose the Team Chat folder to users.

[#19]

Tony's right, there is no reason to ever need that folder or data unless you are a compliance admin doing eDiscovery or litigation searches on a user. Otherwise you should use Teams search for conversation history. 

[#20]

thank you for the screen shoot,  and mine is set that way,.... but.... again i was on a Flight and a message was sent.   and NOPE it is NOT in my mail as a missed message nor any message at all.   if i understand correly,  it should be.     so we many Channels and coversatiion, i am haive to look at all of them,  and this is not a good use of time, 

[#21]

thank you for the screen shoot,  and mine is set that way,.... but.... again i was on a Flight and a message was sent.   and NOPE it is NOT in my mail as a missed message nor any message at all.   if i understand correly,  it should be.     so we many Channels and coversatiion, i am having to look at all of them,  and this is not a good use of time, 

[#22]

@Tom Gouldyou are assuming the user remembers that the conversation or information being sought occurred in Teams. That thinking defeats the pervasive search reach approach that is so useful. Microsoft's overall search usability is rapidly declining. Windows search attempted to unify, giving you results from email, OneNote, folders/documents. These have now devolved into islands that you have to search individually. At least with Skype, when you searched in Outlook, you would see email AND chat messages that contained the content you seek.

So there is one reason a user might want access to that folder. Just my $0.02.

[#23]

@Gregg RevakI would say there are lots of reasons. One is that I have a guy who wants his entire conversation history with a particular person to use as documentation. It appears you cannot simply select all and copy in Teams or export it and before anyone starts bringing up Security and compliance content searching, first actually try to use that tool to find said history.

[#24]

@Christopher King Advanced eDiscovery (Office 365 E5) presents all threads from a conversation in a reasonable manner. The problem is that end users can't get to it. But the technology exists to create such a transcript, so I suggest you use User Voice to express the need for Microsoft to deliver a version that's suitable for end users.

[#25]

@Tony Redmond 

What is being missed here notwithstanding the get over it remark, is the fact that with Skype you can keep a dual conversation history in Outlook (one for the initiator and one inclusive of the participants that can be referenced back at another point in time or copied for other's awareness.  This feature needs to be added to Teams since it's the technology replacing Skype.  Software replacement shouldn't change the way people work.

[#26]

@LaurenP  Skype for Business and Teams are two very different applications. It's a mistake to say that everything in Skype should be in Teams because that's not the intention. If it was, Microsoft would have simply upgraded Skype for Business. But if you want to lobby for change, feel free to make a case at Teams User Voice https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/.

The engineering team do review the ideas posted in User Voice and consider them when they make decisions about new functionality. Lobby and vote for change and it might just happen.