4 ms·

> Teams feels like it is imposing a culture that seems antithetical to most of the organisations My employer, a large university, has moved to Microsoft, and

> Teams feels like it is imposing a culture that seems antithetical to most of the organisations My employer, a large university, has moved to Microsoft, and I've definitely noticed this in MS's software. It feels like the software is designed with certain office culture and workflow patterns in mind. For example, previously I was able to use standalone email software. Outlook, in contrast, pushes its calendaring features, which are not something I care to use. I've gotten an increasing number of meeting invitations through this calendar, and Outlook "helpfully" tells me whether I'm available or not. I'm in fact always "available", because I don't use Outlook to manage my schedule.

reaperducer 3y ago
Outlook, in contrast, pushes its calendaring features I've never understood Outlook being both email and calendar. Does no one at Microsoft ever want to read an email and reference their calendar at the same time, or vice versa?
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  No, people at Microsoft just didn't realize most users forgot how to work with multiple windows. You can have a separate calendar window if you care for it, you can even read individual e-mails in separate windows (that one is annoyingly bound to double-click...). That works on the web too - at least for people realizing you can have the same app open in two tabs, and then break them out into separate browser windows... Beyond that, maybe I'm thoroughly infused with corporate culture at this point, but I find this perfectly obvious and natural bundling. E-mail, calendars and TODO lists belong together.
  - impendia 3y ago
    My attitude -- and I acknowledge that this comes from a place of privilege -- is that I don't care to share my calendar with my employer. I'm a university professor; there's always pressure to join this or that initiative, to participate in more committees, and the like. But in the long term, success depends on maintaining much of my focus on my long-term research goals, which means saying no a lot. PG wrote about "makers' schedules vs managers' schedules" http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html and this feels similar to me. Outlook feels designed around the manager's schedule.
    - tracker1 3y ago
      Could be slightly worse... I can't access my personal calendar and my work calendar on the same device. I have to constantly check both (dr appts on personal) vs work meetings on the company laptop.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - TeMPOraL 3y ago
      > My attitude -- and I acknowledge that this comes from a place of privilege -- is that I don't care to share my calendar with my employer. Neither do I. Fortunately, my employer doesn't care about it anyway. > Outlook feels designed around the manager's schedule. That is 100% true. However, relevant to this entire thread, it's typical to put "focus time" blocks on the calendar. If you set your free/busy status to "busy" on those blocks (which is the default anyway), then come focus time, MS Teams and Outlook will both show you as "busy" / unavailable for the duration. A little bit of automation, but it does a good job at deterring casual interruptions, as anyone who tries to "invite you" to a meeting, or ask you "a small question, 30 seconds tops" will have their Outlook tell them there's a scheduling conflict, and their Teams that you should not be disturbed and won't get the notification anyway.
- kzrdude 3y ago
  In the web version, I just have one tab open for each of those.
- tracker1 3y ago
  I hate that I can't view the calendar separately from the email editor... it is convenient to have the integration in terms of invites/notifications and the availability for scheduling meetings is nice. My biggest gripe is the distributed db that backs exchange/outlook365 mail on their server... I operate on inbox-zero and when I clear all the filtered mail out, then try to empty the "trash" I either have to wait 2 minutes for all the other deletes to sync to the trash, or empty the trash multiple times. It's significantly worse than it was in the 90's on dedicated server(s), though back then the hardware was really easy to overwhelm with too much email/activity.
  - jodrellblank 3y ago
    > I hate that I can't view the calendar separately from the email editor... You can; open outlook, right click the Calendar thing, Open In New Window.
    - meetingthrower 3y ago
      OMG. Tks
- tomjen3 3y ago
  Sure they do - but you can have Outlook show your upcoming meetings in your Outlook sidebar, so you can see everything upcoming on a single computer screen. Individually all of these apps are shit, the value is that they work well together. This is not unlike, say, the Apple computer which can do things like go back from sleep in 1 to 2 seconds because the software is written for one particular chip. As a side note, it is not obvious to me that Teams is a separate product that you get for free. I would say it is just as correct to look at what you buy from MS is a standard office communication and organization service and Teams is just a part of that.
jon-wood 3y ago
I have some sympathy here, mostly because Outlook's calendering is horrible. I also think most people don't exclusively use Outlook for their calendar, even in environments where your calendar there is meant to reflect your availability for meetings. I've never understood why neither Google or MS have the ability to give their calendar tool an ical feed and have the availability from that reflected in your corporate calendar. I guess it made sense in the days of everyone being in offices on a fixed schedule, but in the modern world where people's work life and personal life increasingly intersect I'd love to be able to drop things like needing to pick my son up from school in the calendar and have that shared with my partner without also needing to duplicate that same entry in my work calendar so no one books a meeting with me.
- Conan_Kudo 3y ago
  This is absolutely a feature in Google Calendar. Every calendar has an iCal feed you can pull in. You can enable it from your calendar settings.
  - jon-wood 3y ago
    They all support adding an iCal feed I can see. I want one that other people in the organisation can see the free/busy state from that gets merged with that from my work calendar.

reaperducer 3y ago

Outlook, in contrast, pushes its calendaring features I've never understood Outlook being both email and calendar. Does no one at Microsoft ever want to read an email and reference their calendar at the same time, or vice versa?

TeMPOraL 3y ago
No, people at Microsoft just didn't realize most users forgot how to work with multiple windows. You can have a separate calendar window if you care for it, you can even read individual e-mails in separate windows (that one is annoyingly bound to double-click...). That works on the web too - at least for people realizing you can have the same app open in two tabs, and then break them out into separate browser windows... Beyond that, maybe I'm thoroughly infused with corporate culture at this point, but I find this perfectly obvious and natural bundling. E-mail, calendars and TODO lists belong together.
- impendia 3y ago
  My attitude -- and I acknowledge that this comes from a place of privilege -- is that I don't care to share my calendar with my employer. I'm a university professor; there's always pressure to join this or that initiative, to participate in more committees, and the like. But in the long term, success depends on maintaining much of my focus on my long-term research goals, which means saying no a lot. PG wrote about "makers' schedules vs managers' schedules" http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html and this feels similar to me. Outlook feels designed around the manager's schedule.
  - tracker1 3y ago
    Could be slightly worse... I can't access my personal calendar and my work calendar on the same device. I have to constantly check both (dr appts on personal) vs work meetings on the company laptop.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    > My attitude -- and I acknowledge that this comes from a place of privilege -- is that I don't care to share my calendar with my employer. Neither do I. Fortunately, my employer doesn't care about it anyway. > Outlook feels designed around the manager's schedule. That is 100% true. However, relevant to this entire thread, it's typical to put "focus time" blocks on the calendar. If you set your free/busy status to "busy" on those blocks (which is the default anyway), then come focus time, MS Teams and Outlook will both show you as "busy" / unavailable for the duration. A little bit of automation, but it does a good job at deterring casual interruptions, as anyone who tries to "invite you" to a meeting, or ask you "a small question, 30 seconds tops" will have their Outlook tell them there's a scheduling conflict, and their Teams that you should not be disturbed and won't get the notification anyway.
kzrdude 3y ago
In the web version, I just have one tab open for each of those.
tracker1 3y ago
I hate that I can't view the calendar separately from the email editor... it is convenient to have the integration in terms of invites/notifications and the availability for scheduling meetings is nice. My biggest gripe is the distributed db that backs exchange/outlook365 mail on their server... I operate on inbox-zero and when I clear all the filtered mail out, then try to empty the "trash" I either have to wait 2 minutes for all the other deletes to sync to the trash, or empty the trash multiple times. It's significantly worse than it was in the 90's on dedicated server(s), though back then the hardware was really easy to overwhelm with too much email/activity.
- jodrellblank 3y ago
  > I hate that I can't view the calendar separately from the email editor... You can; open outlook, right click the Calendar thing, Open In New Window.
  - meetingthrower 3y ago
    OMG. Tks
tomjen3 3y ago
Sure they do - but you can have Outlook show your upcoming meetings in your Outlook sidebar, so you can see everything upcoming on a single computer screen. Individually all of these apps are shit, the value is that they work well together. This is not unlike, say, the Apple computer which can do things like go back from sleep in 1 to 2 seconds because the software is written for one particular chip. As a side note, it is not obvious to me that Teams is a separate product that you get for free. I would say it is just as correct to look at what you buy from MS is a standard office communication and organization service and Teams is just a part of that.

jon-wood 3y ago

I have some sympathy here, mostly because Outlook's calendering is horrible. I also think most people don't exclusively use Outlook for their calendar, even in environments where your calendar there is meant to reflect your availability for meetings. I've never understood why neither Google or MS have the ability to give their calendar tool an ical feed and have the availability from that reflected in your corporate calendar. I guess it made sense in the days of everyone being in offices on a fixed schedule, but in the modern world where people's work life and personal life increasingly intersect I'd love to be able to drop things like needing to pick my son up from school in the calendar and have that shared with my partner without also needing to duplicate that same entry in my work calendar so no one books a meeting with me.

Conan_Kudo 3y ago
This is absolutely a feature in Google Calendar. Every calendar has an iCal feed you can pull in. You can enable it from your calendar settings.
- jon-wood 3y ago
  They all support adding an iCal feed I can see. I want one that other people in the organisation can see the free/busy state from that gets merged with that from my work calendar.