This is gonna sound like a troll post but i assure you it is not.
I don’t have a coding background but I’ve used Teams in a lot of workplaces and really only encountered like 2 issues entirely.
Either I got seriously lucky or it was before enshittification.
Why do you yourself dislike it? Is it UI? Performance?
I should also say I use Teams for basic purposes like messaging and uploading files, I literally don’t touch anything else and performance hadn’t been an issue. (Likely because I’ve been given thicc-ass workstations in the past)
I don’t hate or despise teams. It’s far more useful in most normal office environments to have your communication and your collaboration occur in one tool.
I think most of the people that hate it are trying to only use it for communication, usually because they received no training on how to use the collaboration parts or an unwillingness by the organization to change the way they are doing things when they got M365 licenses.
If you still have a shared network drive while you’re using Teams, your organization is doing it wrong.
If you are sending attachments in e-mails while you’re using Teams, your organization is doing it wrong.
If you are sending e-mails to get things approved while you’re using Teams, your organization is doing it wrong.
If you aren’t using planner to co-ordinate tasks for small groups of people while you’re using Teams, your organization is doing it wrong.
If your organization is paying for m365 licenses just for you to have e-mail and the desktop office suite, they’re doing it wrong.
Get TRAINING
Eh, no, we have to have a shared network drive because we are not allowed to upload things with eg personal information to Microsoft
If you have a m365 account, what data are you not allowed to upload that isn’t already found in your e-mails? Are you not allowed to talk about that information in e-mails either? At that point, why bother having m365 at all?
This is one of the stupidest security takes that I’ve seen organizations take, pretending like some data is more secure on their own servers than in the M365 cloud.
We self host or exchange server. It seems you are the one that is stupid.
Edit: and yes, I’m in the EU where we have data protection legislation.
So why do you have M365 then?
You aren’t using it for e-mail, you aren’t using it for file storage, but you’re using it to host meetings?
What a stupid concept, get a fucking communications tool that is ONLY a communications tool.
I would love to.
We are using it for file storage. Just not for everything.
I hate your IT department.
So basically Microsoft demands using their whole ecosystem if you want their services to actually be useful?
Use the correct tool for the job.
If you only want a communications tool, only get a communications tool.
Don’t get mad when you pay for an integrated suite of products, and then find it annoying that there are more features than you need.
Tbf the people who find it annoying usually have no say in what the company uses. The problem isn’t that there are more features but that each feature doesn’t work correctly in isolation.
The literal point of teams it is to integrate systems from the entire ecosystem, using them in isolation is antithetical to that.
Lately the reason that I hate it is that when I click on the channel and start typing, it starts browsing through the channel link instead of putting what I type into the channel. And it’s intermittent, so much more infuriating.
- I have a Linux laptop that Microsoft apps seem to hate. Both Skype and teams refuse to let me share my screen (both app and web version)
- The teams app kept putting itself on startup and I had to change folder permissions to make it stop
- The whole click on link to open app thing that doesn’t always work
- I’m current having issues with showing calendars but that could be on me
I know we like to hate on Google here but Google Meet is much better imo.
I’m a Slack guy, when forced to use Teams it just always tried to get in the way of anything I wanted to do and Slack would get out of the way.
Sadly Slack are busy trying to make Slack as obnoxious as Teams.
For a counterpoint, my wife loves Teams. She uses it all day every day, and only has good things to say about it.
Despite the Hype, Slack and Teams are not direct replacements for each other.
Teams is meant to be a Communications AND Collaboration platform. Slack is meant to be a Communications platform.
I suspect your wife takes advantage of those collaboration features, and therefore finds teams to be helpful in her job. Your role may not require collaboration in the same way, or maybe you other 3rd party tools for that type of collaboration and teams is just getting in your way by duplicating things you already have a process for.
I just want to point out that you’ve huffed a little too much product marketing bullshit. Sure, different platforms have different capabilities but what the fuck is a collaboration platform that isn’t a communication platform.
Hell, I consider github/labs/etc to mostly just be a communication platform, most of what you’re doing is just ticket focused.
I literally use this tool on a daily basis, it works very well. I’m not spouting anything marketing related, only how I see and use it.
A communications platform allows you to talk to each other via text, voice, video.
A collaboration platform allows you to work on information together which includes things like document co-authoring(SharePoint and Office) and group task management(Planner), but can extend much further into things like Shared Pages (OneNote or Loop), Database-lite systems with Forms (SharePoint Lists, Power Apps), Workflows (Power Automate), and more.
I’d consider Slack to potentially qualify as a collaboration platform though, it integrates really well into both SharePoint and GDrive to enable shared editing - that editing isn’t baked into slack but slack does go out of its way to support it through link unfurling and document embedding.
I actually think Teams is weaker in this regard because it’s too easy to accidentally download and copy files when you’re intending to edit a shared copy (and SharePoint has some wonkiness with syncing changes in a reasonable time frame).
I’ve only experienced it from Linux and it’s a huge exercise in pain. It sometimes works, but it’s just stacks and stacks of hacks.
All the other things I’ve used work for video conferencing have worked fine in Linux or a browser.
IMHO it just tries to do everything and fails at that. It’s not horrible, but not great either.
Chat and calls should be the focus, but even that is buggy. In the “teams” feature I personally have zero overview and I miss a lot of stuff. But that might be user error
It’s unnecessary. We already had Skype and Microsoft could have built upon that. Instead they created a whole new app and introduced new issues.
My biggest issue now is that they keep releasing new feature updates but haven’t addressed a bug that has been going on since “New Teams” released where the fucking app closes itself and doesn’t reopen. Absolute garbage fucking piece of shit app. I’m sick of it and them not doing anything about it.
I’m also sick of the way they released this “New Teams” as a brand new app and didn’t properly shut down the old Teams. Also, if you work with installing Teams on the backend, especially for Azure Virtual Desktops, you will learn why people hate it. There were like 9 different installers for the same fucking app and it would no longer function after 3 months because it wanted a new update and Microsoft didn’t provide any easy ways to update it so we either had to make scripts that didn’t work or manually go and uninstall/install the new update, at least in our environment.
In short, fuck Teams.
Bad UI/UX.
When I screenshare code with my colleages, the 1 fps can be irritating. You miss subtle editing, scrolling, etc in those 1 s.
I can ignore most other things. We only use it for online meetings and screen sharing.
Which makes the new apparent calendar and appointment integration somewhat irritating. Microsoft loves to push their shit.
1fps?
It defaults to 30fps, so if you’re getting 1fps there’s a different problem going on like a lack of internet bandwidth or a slow computer. This is not a fault of teams.
I deliver day-long training sessions via screenshare all the time and have no issues with people not being able to see my screen and my cursor moving around just fine.
You’re right, it can’t be 1 fps. Maybe 10? I’ll have to check next time.
So, I really don’t like Teams. What follows is basically an unedited stream-of-consciousness that just came out after reading the question. After reading it, I realize that it comes across as extremely angry and dramatic. I would not put Teams in the top 50 difficulties of my life, but I do not have much patience for incompetent software. I’m also just in a bad mood and decided to swing at Teams.
Fuck Teams’ stupid fucking pseudo-markdown WYSIWYG editor. Either be markdown or don’t, you fucking useless cretinous moron! If you’re going to automatically insert an interactive code block when I enter a triple-backtick, then you should god damned well do the same fucking thing when I paste in a fully formed code block. (edit here) I do not want to see triple backticks, a new line, my code in a stupid non-monospace font, and then another triple backticks. I wanted a code block which is why I indicated my intention for it to be rendered as one by using the triple fucking backticks that you recognize(end edit). This is just one example, and I feel like I’m taking crazy pills every time I use that piece of shit chatbox.
I use Linux, which means I use Teams exclusively through the browser (they used to have an electron app for Linux but they got tired of dealing with it and deprecated it). I’d be fine with the browser thing were it not for the fact that when I type in the Teams URI, there’s a 50/50 chance that I’ll be sent to Teams V1 versus Teams V2. Like, why the fuck are you like this, Teams? I have clicked the god damned “take me to V2” button so many times! I think there’s like, an option or something for it that I’ve also clicked. (edit here) I have cleared my cookies and browser data for Teams, I have completely nuked
~/.{config,cache}/google-chromefor Teams, I have installed Chrome Beta for Teams, and still the issue persists (end edit). I do not want to wait 30 fucking seconds for the V2 version of the page to load when I already waited 10-15 seconds. Don’t get me started on how broken the “install this as an app” bullshit is, ugh fuck I hate it.Finally, Teams has been really great at not fucking reading my auth cookie recently. My company uses Okta for SSO, and like, fuck man, most shitty web apps seem to get it. My browser stores a JWT, it sends that shit in a cookie, some magic crypto shit happens, and boom I’m authorized. Teams is just fucking deaf to this though, and it makes me click a “sign in again” button or some shit, which then has a chance to proc the V1 vs V2 UI issue. Like, come the fuck on bro I SEE the cookie when I look at my network requests, just give me my fries and stop making my life that little bit more irritating.
Because in terms of features/usability it was a downgrade from Skype for Business for my usage.
Sorting the contacts was better in Skype and I was able to have the window as a narrow strip on the leftmost screen, for showing the status of all team members. Teams doesn’t allow resizing freely.
When watching a screen share of somebody, Teams has a lot of unnecessary unhidable UI elements that just take up space. For the ones that you can hide there is no setting to have it that way by default, and there are also no shortcuts for them.
Also screen sharing was quite laggy right after switching from Skype, but that might have been an internal IT problem, not sure. But it didn’t help make Teams more popular anyhow.
Screen sharing is still shitty.
It demands too much screen space. you can’t rum less than full screen without losing important things. Even full screen I often can’ see the presentation clearly because it shrunk the presentation in favor of avitars / videos of other people.
now that I’m old I cannot see tiny text like I used to. I thus get really mad at useless spate while I’m strurgling to read the presentation. you will understand when you turn 45 too.
This is actually a problem with a lack of presenter training, not technology.
When presenting slides, text should be formatted for mild vision impairment. When screen sharing, you should either lower the resolution of your screen, or share only a single app and make it not take up your full monitor, or boost your text size.
In your case, even if Teams allowed it go properly full screen it may be enough for your needs, but there are people who it would not be. There are people who operate “zoomed in” all the time on a PC due to their vision impairments. Catering to these people makes content accessible to everyone.
The other big part of this is colour/contrast choices, since those are also common vision impairments.
There is a tradeoff. When someone is sharing a screen I want to see more of their screen. A powerpoint should 10 lines mx of large font. A screen share often needs me to see what they do and zoom in loses useful lines - to teams things I don’t even care about.
You don’t care about them, but they’re very useful to other people.
The thing you need to remember is that not every single feature or UI design choice is about your specific use case.
I can still hate choices that are hostile to my ability to use teams. I still miss lynx which did much better for my needsi
Can I tack on that whoever decided that minimizing teams should make it into a tiny fucking window with a confusingly labeled button to make it big again should fucking die? I loathe apps that minimize to tray or minimize to some bullshit always on top pop-up (unless there’s a clear setting to control that behavior - then whatever, we have different preferences but it’s fine).
If I want to copy a text message, I have to avoid the emoji pop-up, then very carefully click and drag over the text, making sure I don’t also copy the user name. Then I have to paste it in Notepad to edit out any weird hidden characters. Copy it again and paste it.
If I want to send a reaction emoji, it’s just a clock away.
Who the hell designed this abomination?
You reminded me how Teams defaults to emoji when typing too.
I’ve had times where I’m making a point like “ Here is a point (here is context): “ and Teams will turn that last ): to a sad face emoji….
It’s been a while since I’ve encountered that, but I had no idea how to undo it and it irritates me that they default to emojis over grammar for a work-first application.
If you double click on a message it will highlight everything (including the name and emoji crap)
If you triple click it will only highlight the single line or paragraph.
If you 7-click the text, then SHIFT+CTRL right click, then say “Bill Gates”, it’ll copy the text in ASCII.
But it costs 2 Azure credits.
I think it’s fair to criticize that these usages aren’t well surfaced but double and triple clicking to select different amounts of text works in most selectable text contexts in windows. These are user actions that most people will learn in different applications.
I hope the UX designer that came up with that forever has weak elastic bands in his/her underwear.
Fair, it should probably be the other way around. It’s still not difficult, but it should go from smallest to largest.
At least in my work instance, by default it sends me an alert any time someone posts a reaction emoji in one of the dozen chat channels.
So you into your settings and turn that off. Yes the default is annoying, but it’s literally a 30 second fix to never have it happen again.
I did. My point is that this productivity tool hurts your productivity until you tinker with it to make it less annoying.
It only annoys some users, a lot of people like knowing someone has acknowledged their message.
It should be off by default.
Then people who do like it wouldn’t even know it exists. It’s usually better in an environment that lacks standard training for every user to enable by default, and then have the users disable if they don’t want it.
Your car has ABS, but you don’t have to turn it on to use it, it’s on by default and users can (usually) turn it off when they don’t want it.
Cool, cool. Spamming the hell out of users is definitly necessary to let them know it exists islnstead of asking them if they want notifications the first time they start it up.
They should just know there is a setting to turn it iff then, right?
I can’t set my mic to be automatically muted when I join a meeting. I have to choose every time.
I can’t adjust the brightness of my camera exceot for whatever ‘Enhance’ does.
Guess I’ll just keep looking for settings when basic ones don’t exist.
There are settings for notifications in every single app these users have ever encountered in both their professional personal lives. The basic understand for apps by users it that notification settings exist. They may not know that there is a specific option to turn one specific type of notification on, but they should know they can turn shit off.
I’ve never noticed an issue with the muting thing, It’s a fraction of a second when joining to pick what settings I want for that meeting which does vary so it’s helpful to have.
Brightness settings for Camera… holy shit… Light yourself properly. Ring lights are $30 on amazon, get one and look actually professional when attending your meetings.
Brightness settings for Camera… holy shit… Light yourself properly. Ring lights are $30 on amazon, get one and look actually professional when attending your meetings.
Beyond the basic point that other video apps have had brightness settings for decades, saying to spend more money to fix the feature is asinine.
There is plenty of light for zoom, Teams is dark. When I go to a conference I’m not going to lug a fucking ring light around for a random video call in a quiet corner. Instead, they could just put a brightness slider in like a competent company.
It is impressive how hard you are shilling for Teams by excusing a lack of basic functionality.
There is plenty of light for zoom.
No there isn’t, if you have to adjust the brightness digitally the camera itself is not getting enough light based on what it was designed for.
Teams does have a brightness setting, it’s just a toggle rather than a slider. If that still isn’t enough, then you are sitting in a pitch black room. I just tested this, with every light in my room off, including the overhead and the direct facial lighting, the teams toggle is enough to make me reasonably visible in the light from my screen alone.
I don’t need the toggle on at all with an overhead light on, and the annoying shadows from the overhead room light go away with my facial lighting on.
Here’s a $21 clip on USB powered laptop ring light, https://www.amazon.com/Meyin-Brightness-Conference-Broadcasting-Streaming/dp/B0D1DTF7H6
Compared to slack’s remind me later feature Teams pretty much doesn’t have one, and the half assed one is too noisy and is hard to use
I’ve only used it for a couple of interviews…it’s dead clunky and awkward to use. To be honest I thought it was a me thing.
