6 ms·

Ask HN: Making Microsoft Teams Bearable

20 points by jxf 2y ago

My company was recently acquired. The acquiring company uses Microsoft Teams. I'm not excited about this. For those of you who have been on a similar transition, what tips or tricks do you have for: * making Teams more effective as a communications medium * being able to stay on top of recent conversations * managing notifications/interruptions Browser extensions? Specific settings you'd turn on or off? Open to any ideas at all here.

solardev 2y ago
Set aside focus time on your calendar where you turn off notifications and don't accept meetings.
homarp 2y ago
write to your future self: when you judge a message will need to be found, reply to it with a custom #tag. (#futureme-projectA) later search for it. Unfortunately, so far, did not find how to read local db to build parallel search index.
- jxf 2y ago
  The hashtag idea is a nice trick. Would definitely be nice to have a local archive.
- sevensor 2y ago
  Good tip! Search in teams is very disappointing.
turtleyacht 2y ago
Right-click the Send button to schedule messages. Turn off gif auto-loading. Use @Everyone to notify everyone in a chat (versus channels). Create a new chat to yourself as a pastebin. Some bots can be @-mentioned personally, so you can try subcommands (like help docs) without pinging everyone in the channel. When creating bullet lists, Shift-Enter can add to the current bullet. Nifty to paste a link, S-Enter, then include an explanation. Press Enter to start the next item. Press ```<Space> to start a code snippet.
- jxf 2y ago
  Thank you for the pointers! On your third bullet, when you say "versus channels" are you also saying "don't use channels at all" or are you saying "when using chats, use @everyone but don't do that in channels"?
  - turtleyacht 2y ago
    In channels, you can only @-mention individuals or the channel name. I believe @Everyone is only available in chats. You'll have to use channels. Channels enable connectors like webhooks*, and it's the only way to speak to folks outside being invited to chats. * Webhooks will be deprecated in a few months in favor of Power Automate.
  - Spooky23 2y ago
    I never use channels because of the context switch. Just big, adhoc group chats. I’m a member of about 300 teams, have literally never looked at them.
    - turtleyacht 2y ago
      It used to be easier to sort Teams, but that's admittedly too many without hyperscroll. Group chats are quick to make, refresh to the top, and naturally expire. It's nice that chats can be renamed to focus on a topic.
  - rk06 2y ago
    No one in right mind uses channels. Last time I checked, you can't pop out channels. While you can pop out chats.
    - turtleyacht 2y ago
      Yes, it's still the case that only chats can be popped out and not channels. I guess channels and chats differ by exclusivity and recency. Chats auto-sort by latest and are invite-only; a Team can be a "public square" for petitions or callouts. There are use-cases for private Teams if additional features beyond chat are needed. Channels require scrolling, so it's usually easier to ping someone instead. Channels as webhook sinks incentivize regular checking, but only if the user is actively seeking.
gtirloni 2y ago
The chat/channel/whatever list is horrible. You can't group anything and there is no way to search. It's just scrolling up and down in the unordered list to find something. I thought Slack was bad but Teams is absolutely the worst. I don't have any tips to share, sorry.
- Optimal_Persona 2y ago
  There's a "Search" box at the top of Teams window that has never not found what I was searching for, and - once you've clicked into a channel (including General, which is the default channel in every Team) "Find in Channel" works as needed for me. No grouping is correct but you can use tags to kinda sorta have the same effect. I'm no big fan of, or apologist for, Teams but this stuff is pretty basic and easily discovered in the UI or documentation.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
zeagle 2y ago
My health region is in the process of switching to using teams for paging so I am in a similar boat. Somewhat brutal for notifications and reliability.
rk06 2y ago
- Do not rely on teams to store useful messages. Search is hard. Better to move such important info to a journal app like obsidian - you can pop out chats into separate sub window. Use it for important chats - teams channels are the worst thing I have ever seen and am forced to use. No one in right mind prefers it.
- al_borland 2y ago
  >Better to move such important info to a journal app like obsidian Something like Obsidian is fine for personal notes, to archive useful information someone else posted in Teams, as trying to find it later will be impossible. However, at an organizational level, I’d expect some kind of team based document management… SharePoint if they are all-in on Microsoft. From my companies brief use of MS Teams, it seemed like teams in Teams were backed my SharePoint, which made that concept pretty straight forward.
  - rk06 2y ago
    For that you use one note. One note has best searching capabilities. And you can share it by linking to your SharePoint site
    - al_borland 2y ago
      I've never gotten OneNote to work for me. I can't get organized within it. It seems to always turn into a mess, and I've tried many times. Obsidian seems to work better for my mind. OneNote is just where I keep stuff I want to keep behind a password these days. My life would be easier if I could make OneNote work for me.
mirekrusin 2y ago
1. uninstall Teams 2. install Slack or something else that doesn't have "Teams" in the name Teams has reputation of being the worst team in the world. Don't rely on the worst team in the world.
- nirav72 2y ago
  >1. uninstall Teams Sure if you're a one person company.
null_investor 2y ago
Microsoft Teams really sucks. It's one of the reasons I'm leaving my current company. I can't stand it anymore. We sometimes use a page with WebRTC to communicate to avoid it. It's so unstable on a Mac, it always breaks, resets my configuration and leave me in bad place during meetings, all while wasting a lot of computing resources. Maybe get a Windows computer if you want to be less frustrated, but you'll get frustrated by other reasons then.
Meph504 2y ago
One of the first options that open many doors is power automate, you add a lot of functionality that might make the transition easier. we have one client that uses teams and basically uses power automate to repost all the messages to slack. So the MS side and the slack people both get what they want out of it. There is a vast array of prefab templates You can also do most of this via graph if you would rather, but I find both to be bit painful to deal with, with power automate the infrastructure is provided so there is that, but its largely designed to be a no code drop block style environment which limits its functionality. Graph will give you a lot of control, and allow you to create things in a consistent manager, but the management of it, and time to develop often out way the value of the functionality.
Snacklive 2y ago
Group chats for everything. Channels are horrible. If you are on Linux install chrome and install Teams as a WPA. On Firefox i think its purposely made bad.
ebjjbsd 2y ago
[flagged]
callamdelaney 2y ago
You can't fix Microsoft Teams, only Microsoft can do that. It's wild to me how Microsoft, Slack and others have taken what has existed for decades, eg irc, and completely ruined it. In both applications the UX is horrid and search either doesn't work or is a terrible experience. Teams on Mac is so buggy you might as well uninstall it, your communication over teams will be just as effective as if it was installed.

20 points by jxf 2y ago

solardev 2y ago

Set aside focus time on your calendar where you turn off notifications and don't accept meetings.

homarp 2y ago

write to your future self: when you judge a message will need to be found, reply to it with a custom #tag. (#futureme-projectA) later search for it. Unfortunately, so far, did not find how to read local db to build parallel search index.

jxf 2y ago
The hashtag idea is a nice trick. Would definitely be nice to have a local archive.
sevensor 2y ago
Good tip! Search in teams is very disappointing.

turtleyacht 2y ago

Right-click the Send button to schedule messages. Turn off gif auto-loading. Use @Everyone to notify everyone in a chat (versus channels). Create a new chat to yourself as a pastebin. Some bots can be @-mentioned personally, so you can try subcommands (like help docs) without pinging everyone in the channel. When creating bullet lists, Shift-Enter can add to the current bullet. Nifty to paste a link, S-Enter, then include an explanation. Press Enter to start the next item. Press ```<Space> to start a code snippet.

jxf 2y ago
Thank you for the pointers! On your third bullet, when you say "versus channels" are you also saying "don't use channels at all" or are you saying "when using chats, use @everyone but don't do that in channels"?
- turtleyacht 2y ago
  In channels, you can only @-mention individuals or the channel name. I believe @Everyone is only available in chats. You'll have to use channels. Channels enable connectors like webhooks*, and it's the only way to speak to folks outside being invited to chats. * Webhooks will be deprecated in a few months in favor of Power Automate.
- Spooky23 2y ago
  I never use channels because of the context switch. Just big, adhoc group chats. I’m a member of about 300 teams, have literally never looked at them.
  - turtleyacht 2y ago
    It used to be easier to sort Teams, but that's admittedly too many without hyperscroll. Group chats are quick to make, refresh to the top, and naturally expire. It's nice that chats can be renamed to focus on a topic.
- rk06 2y ago
  No one in right mind uses channels. Last time I checked, you can't pop out channels. While you can pop out chats.
  - turtleyacht 2y ago
    Yes, it's still the case that only chats can be popped out and not channels. I guess channels and chats differ by exclusivity and recency. Chats auto-sort by latest and are invite-only; a Team can be a "public square" for petitions or callouts. There are use-cases for private Teams if additional features beyond chat are needed. Channels require scrolling, so it's usually easier to ping someone instead. Channels as webhook sinks incentivize regular checking, but only if the user is actively seeking.

gtirloni 2y ago

The chat/channel/whatever list is horrible. You can't group anything and there is no way to search. It's just scrolling up and down in the unordered list to find something. I thought Slack was bad but Teams is absolutely the worst. I don't have any tips to share, sorry.

Optimal_Persona 2y ago
There's a "Search" box at the top of Teams window that has never not found what I was searching for, and - once you've clicked into a channel (including General, which is the default channel in every Team) "Find in Channel" works as needed for me. No grouping is correct but you can use tags to kinda sorta have the same effect. I'm no big fan of, or apologist for, Teams but this stuff is pretty basic and easily discovered in the UI or documentation.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

zeagle 2y ago

My health region is in the process of switching to using teams for paging so I am in a similar boat. Somewhat brutal for notifications and reliability.

rk06 2y ago

- Do not rely on teams to store useful messages. Search is hard. Better to move such important info to a journal app like obsidian - you can pop out chats into separate sub window. Use it for important chats - teams channels are the worst thing I have ever seen and am forced to use. No one in right mind prefers it.

al_borland 2y ago
>Better to move such important info to a journal app like obsidian Something like Obsidian is fine for personal notes, to archive useful information someone else posted in Teams, as trying to find it later will be impossible. However, at an organizational level, I’d expect some kind of team based document management… SharePoint if they are all-in on Microsoft. From my companies brief use of MS Teams, it seemed like teams in Teams were backed my SharePoint, which made that concept pretty straight forward.
- rk06 2y ago
  For that you use one note. One note has best searching capabilities. And you can share it by linking to your SharePoint site
  - al_borland 2y ago
    I've never gotten OneNote to work for me. I can't get organized within it. It seems to always turn into a mess, and I've tried many times. Obsidian seems to work better for my mind. OneNote is just where I keep stuff I want to keep behind a password these days. My life would be easier if I could make OneNote work for me.

mirekrusin 2y ago

1. uninstall Teams 2. install Slack or something else that doesn't have "Teams" in the name Teams has reputation of being the worst team in the world. Don't rely on the worst team in the world.

nirav72 2y ago
>1. uninstall Teams Sure if you're a one person company.

null_investor 2y ago

Microsoft Teams really sucks. It's one of the reasons I'm leaving my current company. I can't stand it anymore. We sometimes use a page with WebRTC to communicate to avoid it. It's so unstable on a Mac, it always breaks, resets my configuration and leave me in bad place during meetings, all while wasting a lot of computing resources. Maybe get a Windows computer if you want to be less frustrated, but you'll get frustrated by other reasons then.

Meph504 2y ago

One of the first options that open many doors is power automate, you add a lot of functionality that might make the transition easier. we have one client that uses teams and basically uses power automate to repost all the messages to slack. So the MS side and the slack people both get what they want out of it. There is a vast array of prefab templates You can also do most of this via graph if you would rather, but I find both to be bit painful to deal with, with power automate the infrastructure is provided so there is that, but its largely designed to be a no code drop block style environment which limits its functionality. Graph will give you a lot of control, and allow you to create things in a consistent manager, but the management of it, and time to develop often out way the value of the functionality.

Snacklive 2y ago

Group chats for everything. Channels are horrible. If you are on Linux install chrome and install Teams as a WPA. On Firefox i think its purposely made bad.

ebjjbsd 2y ago

[flagged]

callamdelaney 2y ago

You can't fix Microsoft Teams, only Microsoft can do that. It's wild to me how Microsoft, Slack and others have taken what has existed for decades, eg irc, and completely ruined it. In both applications the UX is horrid and search either doesn't work or is a terrible experience. Teams on Mac is so buggy you might as well uninstall it, your communication over teams will be just as effective as if it was installed.