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.

Teams is mandatory but people use it as they would when you talk in person or - in the olden days - used a phone.

Everything complex or where you need to keep the message is sent by email.

I work in a project and we use Teams for sharing files which makes more sense as otherwise everything would have to be send over and over again by email as we can only access drives for our department.
That channel is not majorly busy thankfully.

Can you speak to your manager about protocols in the workplace to try and put some controls and agreements on methods of communications?

The problem being that there is so much useless stuff it is drowning out the important stuff.

We can’t answer your question. Every organisation will have a different culture.

Yes - sending a link to the document by email, so that it can be flagged, colour coded, put in relevant folder, or whatever system the person has. Rather than a link buried in a Teams chat that is impossible to find, and very easily overlooked or forgotten.

I’m the same. I did try asking people to send emails for requests I’d need to add to my to do list for a while, but it seemed like I was the only one. Annoying, but it seemed like it was just something I had to adapt to.

I use Planner though, and like a few others have mentioned, you can create a task from a Teams message. It’s an additional option under the three dots I think. This way, you can set yourself a deadline (today/tomorrow/end of week etc), and it will be added to your My Tasks lists along with any flagged emails.

You can give the message a thumbs up, reply ‘added to my list’ , or just leave them wondering 😄.

I do use DND a lot though - when I need to focus or am in meeting etc.

I hate Teams. It sees out of control where I work.
there’s no proper filing system and I can never remember if a file is in a chat, in a folder in a channel, in a meeting chat, in an email. Or where the bloody hell it is.
It’s also not straightforward to control who can see/edit a file, and I only recently realised that when you think you’ve sent someone a copy of something it’s actually a link to the “real” thing - I don’t want people editing my work!!

I wish we could get rid of Teams. It wasn’t a step forward. It’s made everything more complicated.
The video conferencing is good though tbf.

If someone sends me 'work' via teams I ask them to send it as an email so I don't loose track of it, most people know teams for me is just quick chat and if they send anything else it probably won't get done

I hate Teams. It's fine for chat, that's what it was designed for, and I like it for meetings, but when half your work comes via email and half via Teams it's impossible to manage what you need to do. I'm in so many channels for different projects, departments etc, and most of it is just chat or queries but then every so often someone will put a task in, and it just gets lost.

I used to have really good email management - dire as Outlook is in some ways, it is easy enough to manage a high volume of emails. Teams just wasn't designed to be used how we use it now. I do sometimes ask people to put things in an email, but I feel like a dinosaur doing it. And I'm only in my 40s, I've got 20 more bloody years of this!

I muted some team chats so they don’t pop up if it’s more a group chat. I also changed all my teams messages you can’t see the preview, it just says message from x.

I never response straight away just leave them as unread until I have time.

I am added to a (work) group TEAMS chat for ongoing activity that I only participate in occasionally; I cannot figure out how to mute that chat on days I'm not doing that activity, instead get frequent annoying pop ups. Can anyone advise how to mute even if just temporarily??

Generally, colleagues hugely prefer emails. We work with many external partners and sharing TEAMS documents etc. with people in other countries seems to be a huge headache. Ditto sharing links : some overseas partners cannot make links work or the access is extremely slow, they need attachments.

I'm still registered on some non-UK systems and sometimes TEAMS gets confused trying to use those credentials which interferes with me using my actual employer TEAMS login. I cannot figure out how to remove my credentials with the external organisation TEAMS groups... can anyone adivse how to do that?

The OP literally asked what other people’s workplace cultures were like in regards to Teams.

I ask for a deadline then time block it in my calendar plus mark the deadline and ensure both have reminders turned on for appropriate times

We use Teams a lot, but it’s managed really well by having separate chats for different things.
For example we have an “Important Updates” chat, which doesn’t have frequent massages pop up, but when one does come through on there, I know I need to read it ASAP.
Then we have chats for various departments - I check those if I’m working on something relevant to that department.
We then have a social chat which is where everything non-work related goes. I usually don’t check that one unless I’m in a work lull at some point during the day.
If somebody needs something urgently, they’ll message that person directly, but generally the many group chats we have do various things work really well at my workplace.

Do you have Copilot? It does have an actual use case in that it's good at finding stuff across Teams and Outlook when you can't remember who mentioned X or Y on which platform

Be careful to link it to any company related work. We have strict rules that only our internal, ring fenced, AI Programm can be used.

Anything uploaded to any AI Programm is then available for the wide world to see and use.

I think if you have Copilot for work it should be a walled system where it doesn't go into the AI learning. But check what policy is to be sure.