Emailing Teams members ... is it really impossible?

I thought there was an email address you can use but it's been a couple of years since I've tried to I can't remember.  I'll check later today if no one else pipes up

Edit: it seems like the admin needs to have turned it on per channel. It's normally there for the whole team by default

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/send-an-email-to-a-channel-in-teams-d91db004-d9d7-4a47-82e6-fb1b16dfd51e

Thanks, but sadly that is the reverse of what I need… but absolutely what comes up when you search. It’s an address to send an email to the channel. The very place nobody looks unfortunately.

Ah sorry, I misunderstood then.  I thought you actually wanted to email them

you’d think it would be simple to recreate channel members as an Outlook Group and then email them.

And I thought that that is what that did. It's been a while since I played with that though

I agree though, it does read like that puts the message into a channel, that no-one reads.  Lots of people just don't get channels

Lots of people just don’t get channels

I think lots of people just don't get Teams tbh. Most of the people i'm contacting are clinicians that don't spend much time at a computer, so may not even sign in for weeks at a time. However, it's the only way we can coordinate meeting now.

If I happen to be away from my team's and someone messages me I get an email saying people are trying to talk to me and the email contains the message? Similarly if people @teamname.

The slight flaw in this is I now have a rule that deletes these email 😂

Also. If you add a meeting in the calendar does it not send a request to the email. Put a doodle poll on that meeting saying. Pick dates or something?

I think that only happens if you subscribe to the channel, which is one step up from simply being a member.

I don't fully understand but isn't there an outlook app that you can apply to teams? There's also probably a power automate solution too.

I think that only happens if you subscribe to the channel, which is one step up from simply being a member.

I think you might be right.

Snail mail them?

Most of the people i’m contacting are clinicians that don’t spend much time at a computer

You can get Teams on your Mobile phone though? If the issue is not being at the computer that would be a solution, if it's a 'refusal' to use Teams.... not sure, but I'll ask my IT support desk at work in a bit.

I'm not sure turning the clinician on and back off again will help much unless you're a solid 7+

Teams is build on Office 365 groups, so you'd think this would be possible - I looked into this briefly last week when a new team member said he wanted to set up an email DL for our team. Briefly, because after 10 minutes of looking I pointed out I'd not used an email DL for about 4 years as we do everything like that on Teams.

So - it looks like when a O365 Group is created as part of a Teams team being created the option that allows emailing all group members is disabled by default. It's can be turned on, then you'd just need to find the O365 group DL name and use that.

https://sympmarc.com/2019/08/25/sending-emails-to-an-office-365-group-when-the-group-was-created-from-teams/

I got to that from https://stackoverflow.com/questions/65679581/sending-an-email-to-members-of-a-team-in-microsoft-teams

Right... just been testing.

I'm the owner of a Team. Go to the team, in the desktop client. Click Files. Click the "..." on the menu at the top, it's next to "Download" for me, select "Open in SharePoint".

This takes me to the SharePoint site where the team files are hosted, in a browser. Click "Conversations".
This opens the mailbox in Outlook Online for the O365 group associated with the team.

Click the "..." just under the group name, then Settings

Click "Edit Group"

This will show the email address for the O365 group.

At the bottom tick the "Subscription" box.

You should be able to email the group email address and all members should be the email now.

(I've not tested this yet, I'll need to find a few mins and some helpful colleagues to confirm)

[Disclosure = MS employee, though in no way is this my job role]

OK, that works. Two additional points:

It goes to all the members of the team, I don't think you can limit by channel.
If I was having this conversation with one of my customers I'd be encouraging adoption of the Team mobile app and discouraging more email. Change is very hard to do though.

If I was having this conversation with one of my customers I’d be encouraging adoption of the Team mobile app and discouraging more email.

Genuine question - why?

Isn't this just creating more and more fragmented ways of communicating - you need to check email and teams now to see if you've missed something and maybe Skype as well, and WA and Slack......

I use Teams everyday, but more as real time chat. If you want to send me something important, I'd expect to get it via email as I never go back through Teams to see what I've missed. If I'm there I see it, if not, it wasn't important.

Mainly because it puts conversations in context at the start rather than throwing everything into a single Inbox. Plus conversations with groups of people work better as it's a mix of synchronous and asynchronous - those that are online can contribute now, those who are not can catch up later. Tagging of people helps, we do that a lot.

Fragmentation of communication is an issue but as I'm at Microsoft we've adopted Teams for pretty much everything. It's taken a while though, there were informal team WA groups for social chat previously but all that's in Teams group chat now. Culture can be an issue but we're very comfortable being ourselves in work - though obviously there are boundaries and I'd hope that those would apply on any platform being used with colleagues.

Shared docs can be a pain to find - I use search a lot, and also the OneDrive "shared with me" list.

We use more chat groups than having discussions in channels. We're also starting to align chats with recurring meetings, using the chat both during the meeting and afterwards.

EDIT/Additional: It took a long time for Teams to get traction internally. Part of this was the approach to development, at launch it was a minimum feature set and has expanded massively over time. The other part was just getting used to using chat rather than a 1-2-1 email, or group chat/channels instead of email distribution lists. There's so much more than just the technology, helping people adopt is a bigger challenge. Understanding the benefits is key - "what will Teams do to help me?"

a lot of comes down to where your AD and exchange is hosted.
Since we migrated AD and exchange to Azure, all the of group names, security groups which is how teams/o365/powerbi work are addressable if your it team convert them to distribution groups.

I'm with Footflaps, I have Teams and Outlook but never routinely check Teams. I'd rather just have Outlook as the official communication channel and Teams just for meetings and chat

Mainly because it puts conversations in context at the start rather than throwing everything into a single Inbox.

I find Teams has become like WA groups, I return to find 200+ messages which I totally ignore and just start afresh at the end with whatever it was I wanted to ask / say. No one reads those 200+ messages....

For anything important, I'd always use email - which seems to be quieter now as most of the 'chatter' has moved to Teams....

For anything important, I’d always use email – which seems to be quieter now as most of the ‘chatter’ has moved to Teams….

That's the biggest change I've seen, my email is no longer swamped with long-running email threads with 15 people on them all chipping in.

There's still a lot of email, especially with people external to us although I'm starting to move 1-2-1 conversations into Teams chat where possible.

I've disabled all notifications with Teams, which seems to help, so unless I'm looking at it - I don't see any new messages etc. In fact, I've disabled notification in Outlook as well - I just check my email a few times a day.

have to confess i find teams at best functional and at worst outright confusing. our small office had our phones migrated to teams a couple of years ago which IMV was a retrograde step. poor quality, laggy calls, and i can't just walk downstairs to the lab to look at something with my desktop under my arm. funnily enough the main site remains on a regular office phones system. teams meetings are an improvement over the old systems we used to use TBF. within teams teams, chats, channels - i just get lost. i find this both frustrating and embarrassing. i'm not THAT old FFS! why do i find this so unintuitive?

I'm hoping that Randall Monroe's maxim that 'every system eventually becomes email' comes good sooner rather than later. 🙂

We all WFH now, no real office (well there is a lab). Teams phone calls seem to work quite well, can't recall when I last used an actual phone to call a colleague....

Teams absolutely sucks the battery life out a phone - probably not an issue on a work-provided device but a complete pain on a personal device.

If I install it on my Pixel 6 I don't get a day out the battery, without it on my phone I can get just over 2 days (although that is the other extreme so it is more like 40 hours rather than 48).

I wouldn't be encouraging them to stick it on their phone...a great office machine tool but utterly annoying on a mobile phone.

Teams absolutely sucks the battery life out a phone

Hmmm...
Anyone else finding this? I run Teams on my (personal) phone and the battery life is terrible BUT the phone is nearly four years old so I'm not really sure I could blame Teams for this.
Anyone got any evidence to back this assertion up?
(My phone is a Samsung S8 fwiw)

I only really use it on a laptop - only occasionally look at something on a mobile.

But, after 4 years I would expect any iPhone battery to be pretty shagged..

But, after 4 years I would expect any iPhone battery to be pretty shagged..

Well, Android actually but agreed. I was just hoping for a silver bullet so I didn't have to fork out for an otherwise unnecessary new phone.

I love the idea of Teams vs Outlook, and a bit of an evangelist for it at school but it's slow going to get people to transfer. I will persevere though...

(Mainly for reasons already mentioned - everything is contextual, persistent and openly available to everyone all the time, and it easily combines synchronous/asynchronous communication. Plus you can always play with everything via Sharepoint if you want more control/customisation)

My ideal usage case is only revert to email for anything involving 'external' contacts, while everything internal goes via Teams. Teams and channels set up for 'official' structures or long-term projects, and chat/chat groups for more informal stuff.

Teams storage/handling of files can be a bit infuriating (depending on your generation apparently, or at least what era/OS you first came to PCs and file management during). Top tip is to upload anything important to the Files area of the channel using a tradition folder structure, and share it as a link from there in the chat - uploading direct to a post just chucks it in the generic Files area and leaves you at the mercy of the search function.

You can get Teams on your Mobile phone though?

Yes, but I'm dealing with people who are mostly unlikely to have this app.

I have it on my phone for emergency backup - if i can't get to a desktop for a meeting, etc. All notifications turned off, because with them on it makes me want to scream.

Right… just been testing.

I’m the owner of a Team. Go to the team, in the desktop client. Click Files. Click the “…” on the menu at the top, it’s next to “Download” for me, select “Open in SharePoint”.

This takes me to the SharePoint site where the team files are hosted, in a browser. Click “Conversations”.
This opens the mailbox in Outlook Online for the O365 group associated with the team.

Click the “…” just under the group name, then Settings

Click “Edit Group”

This will show the email address for the O365 group.

At the bottom tick the “Subscription” box.

You should be able to email the group email address and all members should be the email now.

@beej - this is genius. Thanks heaps. I'll be sharing it with my team (my actual team... not my Team). Have a virtual beverage of choice on me.

Once I opened the Team within share point, directly under the group name is a "send email" button. It's almost as if they thought someone might actually want to do this!!! YES. YES THEY DO!!!!

It goes to all the members of the team, I don’t think you can limit by channel.

Yes ... although it looks like I can expand the group out and manually delete the people i hate anyone that isn't in the channel.

If I was having this conversation with one of my customers I’d be encouraging adoption of the Team mobile app and discouraging more email. Change is very hard to do though.

A significant reason for limited adoption of Teams is: it is a pile of overly complex and resource hungry garbage.

Splitting message-based communication over email and another application is a huge misstep in keeping things simple. Especially with Windows 10’s risible search capabilities.

Then going further and expecting folks to adopt 2 poor applications on 2 devices just exacerbates the problem.

Yes, people hate change. They hate it even more when it makes their work life harder by spreading comms around, making files harder to find, and slowing their weak i5-based laptops to a crawl. Some of these simple things have been referred to as ‘work hygiene’. When the basic stuff does what you need when you need it no one notices. When it doesn’t it turns work into an ordeal.

Sadly IT isn’t enough of an ‘enabler’ in business as CIOs would like to have folks believe.

To the OP. Glad you made progress. I suspect the reason the email option is turned off by default is to nudge take up of Teams and shift from total reliance on Outlook. It’s a constraint I would have put in and kept in if my goal were to increase Teams use.

everything is contextual, persistent and openly available to everyone all the time

Meh, sounds like a sales waffle :p Teams is good for quick & casual comms, email is better for more formal and persistent comms (do you really store Teams messages for years and keep them accessible to users?). What is you want to loop someone else into a discussion? It's a pain in Teams without sharing conversations you don't want to or creating a new discussion and copy and pasting etc.

Popped up in my news feed this morning....

https://www.techradar.com/news/microsoft-teams-is-officially-more-popular-than-email-for-most-businesses

Well, Android actually but agreed. I was just hoping for a silver bullet so I didn’t have to fork out for an otherwise unnecessary new phone.

Just get a new battery - all my iPhones end up with a new one about half way through their lives.

slowing their weak i5-based laptops to a crawl

*waves*

I am a member of 19 Teams teams. Each with their own glacially slow file structure (until you open it in Sharepoint). It's painful.

Teams is good for online meetings though.

Ive come across this in Teams as its not fully adopted where i work. Spent some time on it and you can email but its a pain. If you click the 3 dots on the channel and get email address you get a Teams unique email address. Thats half the battle. Next you need to speak to your admin to go into the Teams admin site and run some Powershell on that unique teams ID to make it visible to Outlook. Lastly in Outlook 365 you need to look at the bottom of your inbox for a folder called Groups and you should see it. You'll also need to faff about with alerts to not just in Outlook but teams and Windows to get notified. Huge PITA.