Managing constant MS Teams messages at work

[BeachOrBeech]

I think my question is in two parts.

1. What is your workplace policy /custom / normal practice with Teams messaging. Are you expected to respond immediately? Is there an unspoken rule about what is sent by Teams, and what by email?

1. How do you manage constant Teams messages? It used to be that we used it for quick things - the equivalent of stuff you used to just say out loud to someone in an office eg where can I find document x, remind me what the accounts lady is called etc. Stuff that didn’t really interrupt you much. However proper work that you need to stop and spend time on (eg review a document) or refer to later (an agenda for a meeting in a week’s time) was sent by email/calendar invitation. These are increasingly coming by teams. I had good email organisation - flags, categories, filing etc. I could keep track just about, and the outlook search function has issues but is better than Teams for finding stuff. Now something is sent, then there is a discussion about something completely different and the big request is way back in the thread and can be overlooked, forgotten or just a nightmare to find to go back to.

This is just normal Teams chats/small grouos - not channels etc

Before you call me a dinosaur, say this is the way of the world etc - I get that, it is why I’m asking. I need help adapting! Any ideas welcome.

I leave mine off and check twice a day and treat like emails not instant messages and I get back to them or add the request to my list if things to do and get to it when I can 🤷‍♀️

I tried this earlier this week but I end up with so many pinned messages, and then the important new messages coming in were hidden off the bottom my screen. The principle should have worked though!

If I’m not busy I tend to answer straight away.

Sometimes I stick myself on do not disturb and check the group messages and chats periodically.

I keep myself on busy a lot of the time in the hope that it will put people off messaging but Tbh I don’t think many people respect the status colours anyway.

Yes, thank you. This reads well.

Yes, I need a standard phrase like this I think. Copy and paste it all day!

This is also a good idea. I guess I’d lose the ability to search for emails from that person, but I can probably work out a system for that. Thanks.

I haven't RTFT but...

Do you use Microsoft Planner at all?

You can create a task card for a Teams message directly in Teams. Something I find very useful.

Annoyingly the equivalent action in Outlook sends the task to Tasks instead, which is not the same. I got round this by creating a very simple Power Automate workflow so that if I flag an email it automatically creates a Task in Planner and then removes the flag.

That way everything that I need to do is sitting as a card in Planner (which can then be sorted by buckets according to your organising preference).

I get almost no emails nowadays. Everything is done on Teams and yes it's disruptive to productivity.

People in my work use it instead of talking to each other. We sit in rows of 3. Today, person sitting in front of me and person in row behind me had a teams conversation in the group chat. They could have stood up and talked to each other in person!

So I have notifications and previews turned off and catch up on group chats twice daily.

Outside of group chats, if anyone messages me directly, I respond when I see it.

I have started switching it off and only logging in periodically. It breaks focus when doing deeper thinking tasks. Same with email. I've been more productive since.

I used to set myself to busy or do not disturb and people still did.

We use teams for quick messages, sometimes if I need a small task doing I'll ask over teams but work requests generally would be asked via email. Our retention policy means teams messages disappear after a month so I would never send anything important over there. If we're working from our computers we do tend to expect a fairly prompt response from each other even just a thumbs up as the message is right there.

It used to be used for chit chat but is increasingly becoming interchangeable with email. I don't even bother the gazillion messages from the channels chat. It's so hard to keep track. And don't even get me started on the chaos that is Sharepoint!

Our Teams chats are auto deleted after 30 days in my organisation! Posts in ‘Channels’ are retained though

I do the same but the messages still pop up on my screen and I get an email about them so I can't even say I don't know about them. I reply by email as I find it so much easier to keep track and search for messages

Unfortunately we have Managers and colleagues monitoring our Teams status so can't do that as much as I'd like to!

I wish my team would use Teams more. Everyone still emails for everything including a thanks reply. It's like working in 2005.

My team is WFH, so we use Teams instead of walking over to chat in the office. Generally the expectation is that Teams is used for things that would previously have gone to talk to someone about - so urgent/important or something needed quickly. So not checking and responding to Teams quickly if online and available is not acceptable.

Email is used as it always has been, for attachments, messages to larger groups of people and less urgent things or items which need a formal follow up

Mute as many as you can and look at them when you have time. I mean, the general chit chat ones.

We have a short retention policy for messages so for really important docs and messages, use email.

Everyone finds the volume of teams messages a nightmare so don't feel this is you being a dinosaur, OP. Young colleagues complain about this as well. And use Do not disturb when you need to switch off to concentrate.

It is annoying, especially the people who say "Hello Igel" and then hang and wait for you to respond. I don't. I make them tell me what they want.

That & the people who press Return after every sentence, so I keep starting to reply & then realising they haven’t finished. I have all my notifications on silent so no pings, but it’s still really annoying.

You can forward Teams messages to Outlook, so can send it to your own email. Change the subject line though, otherwise it just says "Message from person xx".

We barely use it for chats. Online meetings, phone calls. There are sometimes chats in the online meetings.

We have Teams, WhatsApp, email, customer support ticketing system and of course stuff coming in on phone calls…

And don’t start me on the uselessness of being able to get organised on the new version of Outlook!

I respond to Teams messages at my own pace, quick stuff gets a quick reply. Longer items that would traditionally have been sent via email get acknowledged or replied to within 2-3 days. I just leave it unread unless it’s actually urgent.

I do not have read receipts on my teams messages either.

We use teams a lot however I am part of a team that our CS team often need ‘favours’ from so instead of following protocol they message us. My manager was away and so were 2 other people in my team I think I got 10 messages before 10am asking for things which they think are quick but actually involve a LOT of work, so, I set a personalised status asking everyone to refrain from messaging me and follow protocol (more polite than that). My other team members done the same and my manager spoke with TLs in the other depts once he was back reiterating no teams messages when there’s a written protocol!!

Screenshot the task and send it to yourself in an email. That way you can use your existing management system to yrack it.

I hate Teams and hate that it still shows you that you have messages when on do not disturb. If you genuinely want to be left alone you have to exit the application completely, which is what I do. The relentless messages are too much of a distraction.

Our organisation has not closed the door to customers messaging us, although we don't need to respond. So that is annoying too.