Channel Notifications

Are you a member of a Team across more than 1 organisation/Office 365 Tenant? I use Channel Notifications to help me keep on top of the less well used teams.

NOTE: A Tenant used to refer to the part of the whole of Microsoft365 which you as an organisation rent. Many organisations have only 1 tenant but larger or more complex organisations may have more than one.

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Currently (April 2020) the experience of being a member of a Team in another companies tenant can be challenging, especially if you are a member of quite a few teams across multiple organisations. Switching between tenants is much smoother than it used to be but can still be a challenge.

Keeping on top of what is going on can be a challenge. The are:

• Have the other tenant open in different web browser profiles
• Use a different device for each tenant (not practical/feasible for most people)
• Use Notifications

In this blog I’ll concentrate on using notifications.

First – in you main tenant, check your general notification settings. If you have a very busy Teams environment make sure you are not going to be inundated with notifications with the settings you choose. My main tenant is quite light in Teams usage but any posts where I am tagged typically need my attention quickly, hence the once every 10 minutes setting on missed activity emails.

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Secondly – if you use Teams on a mobile check those notification settings too. But remember the notification settings here are per device not per organisation.

Thirdly – In the tenants you dont normally work in check the tenant wide settings for notifications as per step 1.

Finally – In the tenant/org you are not normally working in, go to the important channel(s) and click …. next to channel name then choose channel notifications. Set it as appropriate for you.

At this time the world is struggling to cope with COVID-19 and the movement restrictions needed to fight the rapid spread of the virus. As more organisations turn to Microsoft Teams to help keep business and education going we all need to ensure we can see what is happening across our teams.

Yet when we go back to normal, these skills will still be useful. Just remember, you are an individual. What works for you may not work for others – if the settings I suggest don’t work for you, pick different ones, but at least now you know where to find them.