Slack Vs Microsoft Teams - user experience

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#2812906 14-Nov-2021 22:28

I use both on a daily basis for my work and the various clients I work with:

Slack:

Pros:

You can create channels (public and private) based on interest, groups, sub-groups and history isn't lost.

Good one to one calls, new feature of huddles allows people to join / leave audio call as needed. Which works well for helpdesk / support groups as someone can always be on the huddle and you can join to just ask a question then drop off.

Good mobile app

Cons:

Channels become very unwieldly very quickly and currently I am a member of probably 50 channels and spend 10-20 mins a day just making sure I am ontop of everything

Private chats are limited to 8, then you need to move to a channel, all conversation is lost

Can't change between public and private channels, so some quite important channels were created private so new team members "just need to know" and get invited to them

Audio isn't as good as teams in large groups

Screen sharing is iffy, and definitely not good for large groups (5+) on an audio call

Once a private chat has started, you can't easily add or remove members you need to start a whole new chat losing history.

Teams:

Pros:

Tightly integrated with AD/Office so meeting invites in office include teams link with the click of a button

Video and audio conferencing that works with with larger groups like 30+ including sharing screen

You can add/remove people to chats and then allow them to see all history

Federation if the org allows outside your company to other O365 orgs is super easy, with audio / shared screen for the most part just works.

Cons:

The app is buggy as hell on Windows, Mac, iOS and Android. Be prepared to restart it at least once a day. Also when you change your AD password it can take 30 mins or longer for the password to sync, so if you were talking with people all of a sudden you get kicked out even though you changed your password ages ago.

It doesn't play nicely with VPNs and needs a restart when VPN is up

There isn't really channels per-se so it is just a individual chat between one or more participants.

If I had to chose my preferred tool it would be Slack, but the only thing that would be good is more control over the sprawl of channels... ugh.

gehenna

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#2812910 14-Nov-2021 23:29

Some of your cons for teams may be personal experience but they are objectively wrong, eg channels.

insane

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#2812913 15-Nov-2021 00:07

gehenna: Some of your cons for teams may be personal experience but they are objectively wrong, eg channels.

Re his channels comment, seems you can have many channels/teams per SharePoint site, but not outside of a site?

Also fully agree with the buggy nature of the app though. Without fail I'll have to restart my computer every 3-5 days to stop Teams going crazy and stealing focus multiple times per second! Always fun when it does it midway through a call and you're trying to type or do anything else.

I'm sure it'll get better with time, but for now, you just need to be mindful that it's not perfect and some bugs will grate on Slack users.

Slack isn't perfect either, no tool is, so to the OP, pick the right tool for your job/workplace.

timmmay

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#2812948 15-Nov-2021 06:03

With Teams I find it's best to have a team per project team or physical team, with only a small number of channels. If you need more channels add a new team.

I restart my computer every day as 1) I find everything more stable and 2) I'm at home, once I'm done the computer is turned off and put away.

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#2812951 15-Nov-2021 06:40

Question -

MS Teams

- Can anyone confirm if local storage is affected by various files contained within the "channels"?

Dynamic

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#2812952 15-Nov-2021 06:51

Goosey:

Question -

MS Teams

- Can anyone confirm if local storage is affected by various files contained within the "channels"?

Local storage is only lightly affected by caching. You can choose to sync files in a channel with OneDrive, but these days even this has selective sync so only recently touched files take up space on your computer (unless you deliberately choose to sync a file or folder).

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#2812953 15-Nov-2021 06:55

Dynamic:

Goosey:

Question -

MS Teams

- Can anyone confirm if local storage is affected by various files contained within the "channels"?

Local storage is only lightly affected by caching. You can choose to sync files in a channel with OneDrive, but these days even this has selective sync so only recently touched files take up space on your computer (unless you deliberately choose to sync a file or folder).

thanks, cant see those options to sync files or folders on an IOS app....

The way the IOS app feels and looks, tends to make me think anything and everything I have access to (channels wise), is being locally stored...

The MS Teams app is the largest of all (storage use wise), on the ipad.

pih

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#2812958 15-Nov-2021 07:13

gehenna: Some of your cons for teams may be personal experience

Yeah, I use Teams daily with a VPN and have only very rarely had to restart it for any reason. But there a definitely some annoying issues with Teams:

Searching chat/channel history is painful when going back too far. If the chat is too old clicking the search result will only show you the message with the search terms, it doesn't show you any context. This can be infuriating: You might search for "widget", see a search result which is your IM "Where is the widget stored?", but you can't see the one line answer after it.
You can scroll back in time in chats to view any messages in context, but it's painfully slow
With certain headsets (like my Sony WH-1000XM4), it forcibly sets the volume to the same level (too loud) on every call.
On Windows at least, the volume is not tied to the system volume so you can't use volume keys or gestures to change it, you have to go into the call settings. Every. Single. Time.
Copy and paste can mess up formatting when there are things like a code block in the message.

Having said that, I'm otherwise pretty happy with Teams. Call quality and screen sharing are consistently good, even in large meetings.

pih

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#2812960 15-Nov-2021 07:16

I'll also add that swapping a call from your desktop to mobile or vice-versa works seamlessly in Teams, which is great for when a meeting is going on too long. You can just get up and go for a walk. And Teams in Android is pretty solid, I've never had any issues with it.

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#2812987 15-Nov-2021 08:18

Teams Search is generally not very useful. I think it may have been improved recently but it's still pretty poor.

pih:

I'll also add that swapping a call from your desktop to mobile or vice-versa works seamlessly in Teams, which is great for when a meeting is going on too long. You can just get up and go for a walk. And Teams in Android is pretty solid, I've never had any issues with it.

What's the easiest way to do that?

insane

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#2812988 15-Nov-2021 08:23

@pih, those audio issues seem odd. I have the 1000XM2 and never seen anything like that. Wireless audio typically takes precedence allowing system volume adjustments to work as expected.

Is it a work laptop with some crazy group policy setup preventing audio setting changes?

Oh yes, forgot about copying and pasting issues, sigh.

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pih

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#2813004 15-Nov-2021 09:02

timmmay:

Teams Search is generally not very useful. I think it may have been improved recently but it's still pretty poor.

pih:

I'll also add that swapping a call from your desktop to mobile or vice-versa works seamlessly in Teams, which is great for when a meeting is going on too long. You can just get up and go for a walk. And Teams in Android is pretty solid, I've never had any issues with it.

What's the easiest way to do that?

I've found that just joining an existing meeting from your second device recognises that you are already in the call and offers you the option of joining the second device without audio or swapping the call to the new device which nicely transfers you over and drops the call on the first one.

pih

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#2813007 15-Nov-2021 09:32

insane: @pih, those audio issues seem odd. I have the 1000XM2 and never seen anything like that. Wireless audio typically takes precedence allowing system volume adjustments to work as expected.

Is it a work laptop with some crazy group policy setup preventing audio setting changes?

Nope, just my personal laptop with Win10 Pro and only standard audio drivers installed. You can change the master volume either using the keyboard, gestures on the headset, system tray icon, etc, but it has no effect on the call volume. The only two places I can change it are in Teams call > More actions > Show device settings or in the Windows app volume preferences.

I know it's not widespread, but I'm not the only one with teams volume issues. There were a number of Uservoice issues raised regarding this but it seems they've purged a huge bunch of tickets lately...

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#2813014 15-Nov-2021 09:55

pih:

insane: @pih, those audio issues seem odd. I have the 1000XM2 and never seen anything like that. Wireless audio typically takes precedence allowing system volume adjustments to work as expected.

Is it a work laptop with some crazy group policy setup preventing audio setting changes?

Nope, just my personal laptop with Win10 Pro and only standard audio drivers installed. You can change the master volume either using the keyboard, gestures on the headset, system tray icon, etc, but it has no effect on the call volume. The only two places I can change it are in Teams call > More actions > Show device settings or in the Windows app volume preferences.

I know it's not widespread, but I'm not the only one with teams volume issues. There were a number of Uservoice issues raised regarding this but it seems they've purged a huge bunch of tickets lately...

My constant issue is I have with teams is I have a USB headset (Sennheiser) and whenever I plug it in mid-call if I forgot to plug it in before starting it always still defaults to the mic in the computer rather than the headphone mic, so the mute button doesn't work, and I always have to reconfigure it. Everything I have tried to fix that has failed. However if I plug the headset in before making the call it defaults correctly. It's highly annoying and something that doesn't happen on Slack.

gehenna

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#2813016 15-Nov-2021 10:02

While I've had the odd time where Teams does freak out, it tends to be not just Teams but an overall 365 freakout. By and large it's rock solid for me on my WFH PC, laptop, and phone. I live my work (and too much personal) life in there due to how our business operates.

I'm not diminishing people's personal experiences, but my experiences don't align.

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