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Written: 10/09/2023 | Updated: N/A
Ok – 10 days to the holiday now. And I’m in the thick of things trying to get everything tied up: all the deliveries, all the day-to-day, all the testing, all the DevOps items, the logistics, dog, you name it. And to be honest? It would probably be easier – and saner – to put the blog down for a few weeks. But I love doing it, so if I can squeeze a blog in then I will. And this week I am going to pause from Teams and Entra, and pivot to a few end user functionalities which came about through just playing around in Teams 2.1. First, this is the ability to silence everyone mentions, and second its the ability to prevent replies to posts in the general channel where even I found out something new about Teams. Now why would I want to do these things? Well, they make Teams less noisy. In the case of the everyone mention it triggers notifications for everyone in a group chat (they are not in channel conversations) and in my experience some who become aware of them begin to use them as a means to draw people’s attention to what they want. Oh we’ve seen that over the years through features such as priority messaging and channel mentions. Yes. We know it can save your time and effort – just as it can be disruptive to my time and effort especially when I am in the flow of the work. In the case of stopping replies to posts in the general channel we’ve had the ability to restrict replies to posts in standard channels via channel moderation for some time. We’ve also had the ability to restrict posting in the general channel. However, we’ve not had the ability to stop replies to a post in the general channel. Given that general is often the primary/landing channel for the team its ideal for things like team updates, announcements, and mod-led instructions. In other words, replies are often neither required nor needed and are – in many cases – an opportunity for noise. So this will work for the general channel, indeed it’ll work for any channel including private and shared. It still won’t stop the ability to post in private and shared, but now we can limit both posts and replies in general and standard, and replies in all channels. So I personally think both of these are good steps forward. Do more with less noise.Let’s go.
This blog will cover
- Stopping notifications for @everyone mentions
- Preventing replies to posts in the general channel
Note this blog may have abridged steps which will assume some experience with Microsoft Teams. All blogs will use the new Teams Desktop Client 2.1+ where possible. These features are available and were tested in a Ring 4 test tenant using the Windows desktop client but may not be available elsewhere. At the time of writing Teams 2.1. is still in preview and it’s availability will be determined by your tenant administrator.
Prerequisites
- Microsoft 365 licence which includes Teams
- Teams Owner role (for preventing replies to posts in the general channel)
STOPPING NOTIFICATIONS FOR @EVERYONE MENTIONS
Let’s take this scenario. In a new group chat Adam starts to over use the @everyone mention. The everyone mention triggers both a notification and an activity in the feed for everyone who is part of that group chat.
There is no admin control to restrict the use of the everyone mention in a group chat – even looking at a messaging policy in PowerShell. Whilst removing private chat (AllowUserChat) could be used to prevent that individual from using the mention, this is not a solution as the individual still needs to engage in group chat.
1.) In the Teams Client select More Options (…) next to the avatar and then Settings
2.) Select Notifications and Activity
3.) Under Chats and Channels turn Everyone in Chat Mentions to Off
4.) No notififaction or activity feed entry for any message marked with an everyone mention.
5.) To go further, the Chat Message Notifications could be turned off or Chat Muted on top of silencing the everyone metion to stop even more noise coming from the group chat. Important note: muting the chat does not stop everyone mention notification or activity feed unless the setting is off. This is the same as personal mentions.
Our job here is done. Silence those everyone mentions. Doesn’t have to be forever – and can be used when getting on with focus work. If you are like me and would like to see this controlled in the messaging policy for greater and more judicious use then here is a feedback item which I have just opened whilst writing this blog: https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback/idea/a9489d00-f94f-ee11-a81c-6045bdbbbc93
PREVENTING REPLIES TO POSTS IN THE GENERAL CHANNEL
So in a standard channel you have the ability to prevent replies to posts via channel moderation and set who those moderators are. But this has never previously been there for the general channel. Let’s compare: first screenshot is the standard channel with channel moderation and the second is the general channel. As you can see, whilst you can restrict posting from members in the general channel there is no settings to prevent replies.
1.) Let’s start from having applied channel moderation in the general channel where Only Owners can post messages
2.) As the Team Owner, select the General Channel and the Posts tab
3.) Select Post
4.) On the post, next to the Delete Post icon select the Settings Icon
5.) Select You and Moderators
6.) Post the Message. As you can see by the screeshot, as a Team Owner I can reply to the post
7.) But Team Members can neither post, nor reply. The importance of this provides the insight that anyone with the Team Owner role are considered to be the team moderators of the general channel. If someone is moved from a Team Member role to an Team Owner role then they can reply to the post.
8.) Both Private Channels and Shared Channels also have the ability to moderate posts. But it is worth noting that because posting in these channels is not moderated at the time of writing, anyone has the ability to post and set moderation on replies. What this means is the poster and the Team Owners who are moderators will be the only ones who can reply. All other members of the team will not be able to reply.
Our job here is done. We can prevent posting and replying in both standard and the general channel whilst we can prevent replies to posts in Private and Shared Channels. It would be great to see wholly consistent moderation ability across all channels in future, but this is I feel a good step forward especially given the prminence of the general channel.
Two small things I feel every power user of Teams should have in the kitbag. Have a great week.
@Microsoft365Pro 