Chat Versus Channel Posts in Teams

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Microsoft Teams has multiple ways of managing conversations and information. This article compares chat with posts in Team channels. Everyone has access to chat. When a person is added to a Team they will have access to channels within that Team.

Chats

Chat is useful for short-lived communications. Read our Group Chat article for details on group chat.

  • You can chat with anyone with an Evergreen account.
  • Group chats can be named and organized.
  • Files uploaded to a chat are stored in the OneDrive of the member who uploaded files.
  • There are limited options to add apps to a chat.

Channel Posts

When a Team is created, it corresponds to a Microsoft 365 group that includes an Outlook calendar, email address, and SharePoint site for file storage. Apps such as Planner and Forms are only available with a group and cannot be used in a private chat or private channel.

  • To send a message in a channel, click the bottom 'Start a post' button, or leave a reply to an existing post.
  • Each team can have multiple channels.
  • Each person can belong to multiple teams.
  • All members of a Team can see all channels on a Team.
  • Users can hide infrequently used channels.
  • Each channel has a Posts tab for conversations.
    • Only members of a team can see posts.
  • Files uploaded to a channel are added to the channel SharePoint storage.
    • By default, all members of a Team will have read and write access.
    • Each channel has a folder in the Documents folder of the corresponding SharePoint site.
  • There are options to add additional apps to a channel (Lists, OneNote, Planner).

Private Channels

A Team can also have private channels that are limited to specific users of a team. We recommend to use chats vs. creating private channels. For more details, Microsoft has an article on Private Channels.

  • Each private channel has its own child SharePoint site.
  • Private channels don't support connectors and tabs in Stream, Planner, Tasks by Planner and To Do, and Forms.
  • Private channels do not have a Microsoft 365 group like a Team.

Best Practices

To get someone's attention in a channel conversation or a chat, @mention them. Just type @ before their name and then select them from the menu that appears. When an @mention recipient receives a notification, selecting it takes them directly to the point in the conversation where they were mentioned. To get the attention of an entire group, type:

  • @<team name> to notify everyone on that team
  • @<channel name> to notify everyone in that channel
  • If you're in a chat rather than a channel, you can notify everyone in the chat by typing @everyone in your message.