Forum Discussion
TonyRedmond
Apr 05, 2018MVP
Hiding Office 365 Groups Created by Teams from Exchange Clients
Teams now hides the Office 365 Groups that it creates from Exchange clients (Outlook, OWA, and the mobile apps). That’s as it should be for groups created for new teams. If you want to hide groups ...
Ivan54
Apr 24, 2018Bronze Contributor
I get the idea or desire to hide groups created by teams, but there is one thing I'm missing in that scenario that works with email, but currently doesn't with teams.
How do I contact a group that I'm not a member of ? This works in an email/distribution list scenario, but I haven't figured it out in Teams.
How do I contact a group that I'm not a member of ? This works in an email/distribution list scenario, but I haven't figured it out in Teams.
TonyRedmond
Apr 24, 2018MVP
Teams doesn't appear in an address list like other mail-enabled objects unless its Office 365 Group is not hidden from the lists, so it is hard to know when private teams are available. Public teams can be found by the Join or Create a team option, which presents a list of suggested public teams available to the user. The search function on the same screen can be used to find other public teams that don't make the suggested list, which is determined by reference to signals in the Graph. Private teams don't appear in suggestions, so the only way to join them is to contact the team owner (how you learn about the existence of the team is another matter - perhaps via a coffee room conversation?).
- Ivan54Apr 24, 2018Bronze Contributorall true, but doesn't really solve the whole distribution list demand. When I want to move away from Outlook to Teams, I need to have the option to contact other departments or groups without being part of that department, right?
Its very unlikely for me as a member of the "IT Team" to also be a member of the "Sales TEAM" and therefore I have no option to contact the whole sales team, without adding every single member into a private chat- TonyRedmondApr 24, 2018MVP
The simple solution is to create a mail contact in your tenant directory for a channel email address in the teams that you think people will want to email. The mail contact will be in the GAL and can be addressed like any other email recipient. Messages will show up in the channel in the target team and can be actioned there by the sales team or whatever. And if you are nice, they might invite you into the team.
Seriously, this discussion shows that moving from Outlook to Teams is not possible if you still need some of the functionality available in Outlook...
- Ivan54Apr 24, 2018Bronze ContributorInteresting idea, but we're possibly talking past each other - or I'm just misreading this :) Also sorry that I'm derailing the original purpose of that thread.
I'm not interested in Outlook to Teams communication, which would work just fine by adding the groups smtp address into the TO: field.
If I were in a Teams only environment (no Outlook available), how would I contact a different team/department without being a member of that private team?
I'm basically missing the feature to @mention a team which I'm not a member of, or a direct private chat with a team that I'm not a member of.
It is that missing functionality, that would keep me from hiding Teams from the Outlook UI or the GAL. Teams enhances team/department-internal communication, but kind of prevents cross-team communication.