Admins will soon control who's able to leave messages in chat before and after a Microsoft Teams meeting

The Admin Center will soon be enhanced with a new capability that allows admins to enable/disable at will who can leave messages in the chat before and after a Microsoft Teams meeting.

According to the latest entry in the Microsoft 365 Roadmap, this new enhancement will be released in December 2024 and introduce two new values: In-meeting only for everyone and In-meeting only except for anonymous users.

In the Admin Center, Microsoft Teams admins will see new settings under Meetings > Meeting Policies > Meeting Engagement. There will be five new options available:

• On for everyone
• On for everyone but anonymous users
• Off
• In-meeting for everyone
• In-meeting only, except anonymous users

Choosing the In-meeting only values can disable participants’ ability to send messages in the meeting chat before or after the meeting. The chat will still be available to read and go through, but users cannot leave messages there anymore.

Here’s what the entry says:

We are expanding the existing ‘Meeting chat’ control in Teams Admin Center with two new values, “In-meeting only for everyone” and “In-meeting only except anonymous users.” In Teams Admin Center, admins will see a setting called ‘Meeting chat’ under Meetings > Meeting Policies > Meeting Engagement. Admins can now select from five options in the ‘Meeting chat’ setting: (1) “On for everyone” (2) “On for everyone but anonymous users” (3) “Off” (4) “In-meeting only for everyone” (5) “In-meeting only except anonymous users.” Admins can select the “In-meeting only” values to disable participants’ ability to send messages in the meeting chat before or after the meeting, for meetings organized by specific users in their tenant. When one of these “In-meeting only” values are selected, participants can read past chat history but no one can send messages in the meeting chat unless the meeting is active.

The new policy will impact all devices, from mobile to desktops, including iOS and Android, and it will depend on admins to make these changes. This is not the first new policy to be announced for the platform. Microsoft is set to release many others, prompting admins to say they cannot keep up with all the latest features.

It’s understandable, but maybe it’s also part of the job!