Microsoft is developing a new feature for its Teams collaboration platform that will address a prevalent issue with remote employees.
Microsoft Teams will soon give users more control over their activity feed notifications, according to a recent article on the company’s product roadmap.
“Users will be able to change the type of notification that appears in the activity feed. Right click on the feed item, and you will be able to turn on/off all reactions and select the apps you would like to get notifications from,” explained Microsoft.
The new feature is still in development, but it will be available in preview later this month and will be available to all customers in December.
Some remote workers have expressed that they felt pressurized to be available outside of normal business hours, making it challenging to maintain a good work-life balance.
Others, on the other hand, have been buried in a deluge of notifications as a result of the shift to digital communication (whether via email, text chat or video conference). And the growing amount of third-party connectors for platforms like Teams exacerbates the problem.
The latest Teams version should help reduce (if not eliminate) the kinds of problems that have arisen as a result of the new reliance on digital collaboration tools and online productivity applications by allowing users to decide which types of alerts they get.
Notification customization will work in tandem with another feature in the works: the ability for Teams users to turn off notifications during meetings. Users will be able to turn off notifications throughout all meetings or on a per-meeting basis, according to a separate roadmap entry.
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