Simplify, Streamline, and Stay Connected: What’s New in Microsoft Teams

When your day is full of meetings, messages, and moving priorities, even small inefficiencies in your digital workspace can add up.  The latest Microsoft Teams updates are built to reduce the noise, clearing the clutter, minimizing tab switching, and helping your team stay focused and connected. 

See how to turn updates into impact with a smarter Teams setup.  

Simplify your workspace with combined chat & channels view 

No more bouncing between chats and channels. Microsoft Teams now combines chats, teams, and channels into one customizable view: Combined Chat Experience.  

This update lets you see all your conversations, private chats, group chats, and team channels in one single place.  Prefer to keep things separate? You can choose to combine chats and channels or keep them separate depending on what works best for you.  

Highlights include: 

• A Favorites section that gathers your pinned chats and channels.
• Recent chats and channels are sorted by activity, keeping your focus on the latest conversations. 
• The new @mentions and Tag mentions views collect all your mentions into unified, actionable lists to ensure nothing important slips through. 

Stay organized with custom sections 

Keeping your workspace tidy just got easier. With Custom Sections, you can group related chats, channels, and meetings by project, department, or anything else that makes sense for how you work.  

Quick tips: 

• Create new sections like “Client X” or “Team Goals” from the top of your chat/channel list.
• Drag and drop chats or channels into sections or right-click and select “Move to Section”. 
• Rename, reorder, or collapse sections as your work evolves. You can create up to 50 sections, each containing up to 50 conversations. Sections can be renamed, reordered, collapsed, or deleted, giving you the flexibility to organize your workspace around how you work and adapt as your priorities evolve. 

Reduce noise with smart filters & auto-hiding 

Less noise = more focus. Microsoft Teams now includes smarter filters and hiding features to help you zero in on what matters. 

• Use filters like Unread, Chats, and Meeting Chats to narrow your focus to conversations that are the most important to you.

• The unread filter helps you catch up on all unread messages in one place.  
• Hide channels you don’t use. Teams will even auto-hide inactive ones after 45 days. You can review and opt to keep any you want visible.  

• Pin or favorite important conversations so they’re always right where you need them. 

Want to see it in action? 

Check out this quick walkthrough video to see how the Combined Chat Experience makes organizing your Microsoft Teams workspace easier than ever.  

Watch the video here. 

Let’s chat about your Teams strategy 

These updates go beyond surface-level improvements; they’re about making Microsoft Teams work for you. Whether you're leading a growing business or managing complex projects, the new features help streamline communication and boost collaboration. 

Looking to roll out Teams across your organization or fine-tune your Microsoft 365 environment? 

We can help. Let’s build a digital workspace that works as hard as you do.