Microsoft Teams gets channel management improvements and more

Microsoft Teams is a great collaboration tool for both small and larger teams, and Microsoft is constantly improving it with new features.

Speaking of which, we have some new features related to both channel creation and archival, so let’s dive in and see what’s new.

Microsoft Teams got updated, making it easier to manage channels

Faster channel and team creation

It’s now faster than ever to create a new team, as creating a team from scratch is now the default option, but you can still use templates if you prefer them.

Creating channels is also faster, and you can create a channel from the same menu that you use to create teams.

To avoid creating unnecessary teams, users can now search for public and private teams and join them when needed. Of course, private teams can be hidden by the administrator if necessary. All the previously mentioned features are already available.

As for upcoming features, when you join a team, you’ll be able to show only channels that are relevant to you. This is perfect if you have multiple channels in an organization and you need to focus only on specific ones.

This feature isn’t ready yet, but it will become available by the end of the year.

Improved channel collaboration

Teams now have a Discover feed that uses the power of AI to bring you the most important content from the channels that aren’t in your channel list.

By doing so, you can discover important posts based on people you work with and the topics that might interest you. This feature is available, and you can start using it today.

You can also now hide the general channel to declutter the list of channels, and in the future, it will be possible to rename the general channel.

Speaking of channel removal, Teams will be able to automatically detect and hide inactive channels you haven’t interacted with in the past 45 days.

This is an optional feature, and you can disable it, or you can choose the channels you want to keep. We expect to see this feature in the third quarter of the current year.

Another similar option is also available allowing channel owners to archive a channel that is no longer needed. The channel will be hidden, and members won’t be able to participate anymore, but its content will remain saved.

Archiving is already available, so you might want to give it a try.

Notification improvements

You can now choose to see notifications in the activity feed and show a banner, or turn them off completely. Speaking of activity feed, you also have the option to mark all notifications as read and clear them easily.

This feature has already landed in Teams, and we can start using it today.

It will also be possible to mute all notifications from a specific channel post, allowing you to focus only on the important tasks. This feature is coming in the second quarter of the year.

You’ll also be able to customize the sound of notifications, thus allowing you to have different sounds for urgent messages for example, or mute them entirely. As for availability, we should see it in Q3 of this year.

Lastly, you can now invite a colleague to join a discussion by sharing a link to a channel, post, or reply. The feature is already available, so you can go ahead and start using it.

There are a lot of interesting features available, with more on the way, and if you want to learn more, we suggest reading Microsoft’s blog post.

That’s not all, Teams will get the Call my phone feature that will allow them to seamlessly transfer calls. As for Teams on mobile, organizations will be able to brand their Teams Rooms with custom backgrounds soon.