Teams’ Schedule send suggestions feature hits general availability

A lot of organizations are now dependent on online communication platforms like Microsoft Teams or Skype, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic hit and forced them to take up hybrid work. It’s no secret that Microsoft has been busy at work pushing updates as well as new features to Teams with the aim of enhancing its user experience.

As it happens, Microsoft has shipped a new capability to general availability to further enhance the user’s productivity. The Schedule send suggestions feature is in place to especially help users that work asynchronously across different time zones communicate effectively and efficiently.

The feature, powered by Viva Insights helps “suggests times to send chats that might otherwise arrive after hours”. This way users are able to establish “healthy collaboration habits”.

What’s more, work-related matters are strictly restricted to working hours, thus reducing instances where you get notifications from work when you’re not on the clock.

It is worth noting that, this capability won’t be available when you’re sending a message to yourself, when you’re sending a message marked as important or urgent, or when composing a new message 30 minutes before the start of the recipient’s official working hours.

Microsoft shared with OnMSFT that:

Microsoft research suggests that the 9-to-5 workday is fading and found that Teams chats outside the typical workday increased by 42% in the beginning of the pandemic. While the rise of flexible work has made it easier to balance work and life, an increase in after-hours messages has led to a feeling of being always-on, so it is important to use tools like schedule send to model healthy collaboration habits and minimize work-related notifications during personal time.

The feature is expected to start rolling out to Microsoft Teams users on Windows, Mac, or the web with a Viva Insights subscription this week. This is one of the many features in Teams that you can leverage to enhance productivity.