Teams Admin Center Simplifies External Collaboration
Microsoft is rolling out a UX update for the Teams admin center to make it easier to manage external collaboration settings. The new UX doesn’t introduce any new features. Instead, its goal is to hide some of the policies and settings complexity that sometimes afflicts the Teams application. It’s a good change, even if it probably won’t make much difference. https://office365itpros.com/2026/01/02/external-collaboration-tac/Apps notification settings missing in Teams settings
Hello Teams Community, I'm facing a strange issue with App notifications in Microsoft Teams. I've already researched this and found nothing. I've opened a Microsoft case and I'm waiting for an answer but it's taking longer than expected. So, I'm turning to you for expedited help! Scenario: You're an administrator in Teams. You've applied a setup policy for a pinned app like Viva Engage. After the policy is applied and the tool is launched, users complain that notifications are either too frequent or not frequent enough. You direct them to the Teams Notification and activity settings to control app notifications. The users go to Teams notification settings but report back to you that the App section of Teams settings doesn't exist. Problem Statement: Microsoft explicitly states in their documentation that in order for the App notifications section to appear, you must first add an app yourself within Teams and get at least one notification. But relying on users to add an app, somehow create a notification, and then remove it, just to access App notifications is impractical and would never work. Desired Outcome: I'm looking for a way to bypass this prerequisite and force the Apps section to appear in the Notifications and activity section without any user action whenever an app is pinned in the Teams admin center with a setup policy. I'm hoping this can work with any app, not just Viva Engage. Any help is appreciated. Thanks, Teams experts! -Rob
Teams email notifications of missed chats coming from wrong email address?
For the past several days, when some users have missed a chat message in teams and they are setup to receive an email notification, the sending email address of the notification is incorrect. It has always been that these notification emails appear to be sent from the person who sent the original chat message, but now, they are being sent from our global administrator account email. Obviously creating lots of confusion and has broken these users' ability to reply via email. Has something changed, or is this a bug?
Teams auto attendant holiday call flow problems
I have a holiday schedule applied to an auto attendant. That schedule contains all of our annual holidays. In the auto attendant holiday call flow routing options, I have it play an audio file and I specify menu options to redirect to voicemail or to search by name. What I want to do is just change the audio file that's played for the greeting to be appropriate for the holiday (we'll be closed for Christmas, New Year, etc.). But when I delete the current audio file and upload a new one, the Save option is greyed out. I thought perhaps it was just auto-saved, so go out to the list of auto attendants, then back into that attendant and check to see what audio file is listed. It's the one I just uploaded. Ok, cool. I refresh the browser tab and check again. Now it's the previous greeting. The only way I have found to save that new audio file, is to make some other change to the call flow (change Directory search option) which makes the Save button available. I save it and it takes me out of the holiday call flow setting, so I go back in (my new greeting is now saved) and change the Directory search option back to what it was previously and save again. There's got to be an easier way, right?
Automation for a real estate brokerage
I manage a real estate brokerage and am looking for help in how to utilize Microsoft teams better. I would like to have it automate processes for my associates. Example, they are looking to list a property, it will guide them to a tutorial and provide all of the documents that i uploaded. Another example, they want to request a lockbox or signs, it will ask them the relevant information and then put it in my queue. Any help would be appreciated!Teams Private Channels Just Got Powerful: 1,000 Channels, 5,000 Members & Compliance Simplified
Microsoft Teams Private Channels just got a major upgrade — bigger limits, meeting scheduling, and a simpler compliance model aligned to Microsoft 365 group mailboxes. 🚀 Here’s the key takeaways for IT leaders and Teams admins: Scale up: up to 1,000 private channels per team and 5,000 members per private channel. Meetings supported in private channels. Compliance simplified: private channel messages now live in the team’s M365 group mailbox, aligning DLP, Retention, eDiscovery, and Legal Hold across channel types. Migration timeline: worldwide rollout started in Oct–Dec 2025, with a PowerShell cmdlet to track status: Get-TenantPrivateChannelMigrationStatus. Admin checklist Add your Teams’ M365 group mailbox to Purview DLP/eDiscovery/Retention scopes. Verify Teams channel messages retention applies across standard/shared/private. During migration, ensure searches/holds include both group and user mailboxes. Monitor progress with the cmdlet above. #MicrosoftTeams #PrivateChannels #Microsoft365 #Compliance #Purview #DLP #eDiscovery #TeamsAdmin #Collaboration
Require approval from IT to join a Team and/or Shared Channels
My company has two sides to its business. Both sides are under the same Microsoft 365 tenant. They can be called Group A and Group B. Group A should not be able to add those from Group B into teams and channels on their own. Likewise, Group B should not be able to add those from Group A. If either side wants to add the other to a team or channels, they should have to get approval from IT, with IT making the additions to the team or channel. We would rather not have this just done over emails. This has to be done while still allowing members of Group A and members of Group B the ability to have 1 on 1 and group chats. Does anyone have any suggestion how to do this?
