Microsoft Teams: New onboarding to teams and channels

Updated November 6, 2024: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

Updated May 17, 2024: We have updated the content below to clarify the experience for EDU and FLW licensed users. Thank you for your patience.

Coming soon in Microsoft Teams: A new way to join teams and channels. This message applies to new Teams for the web and Teams for desktop. It does not apply to Teams for iOS or Android.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 381734.

When this will happen:

Targeted Release: We will begin rolling out early June 2024 and expect to complete by mid-June 2024.

General Availability (Worldwide): We will begin rolling out mid-September (previously mid-July) 2024 and expect to complete by late September (previously late July) 2024.

General Availability (GCC): We will begin rolling out late September (previously late July) 2024 and expect to complete by early October (previously late July) 2024.

General Availability (GCC High, DoD): We will begin rolling out early October (previously early August) 2024 and expect to complete by late November (previously late October) 2024.

How this will affect your organization:

Before this rollout, a team owner could mark a standard channel as Show for members while creating the channel or later from the team management page. These channels appeared automatically in the teams and channels list on the left side of the screen for all team members.

After this rollout:

• A team owner will be able to recommend channels for team members to join. This functionality replaces Show for members.
• When joining a new team, team members will see only the General channel. On the team onboarding page, additional channels may be tagged as Recommended by the team owner. Members can review channel details and opt into channels of interest. This rollout is designed to help team members join the most relevant channels, for a more streamlined experience in Teams.

The view from the Activity stream: A team owner adds a user to team (called Cross team collaboration) and recommends specific channels (Feature crew, General) for the user to show in the teams and channels list:

The view from the teams and channels list: General is the only channel shown when a team owner adds a user to team (called Cross team collaboration) and recommends additional channels (Feature crew, General) for the user to show in the teams and channels list:

Note: Users with EDU and FLW licenses will continue to see "owner recommended" channels in their teams and channels list automatically.  

What you need to do to prepare:

This rollout will happen automatically by the specified dates with no admin action required before the rollout. You may want to notify your users about this change and update any relevant documentation as appropriate.

We will update this comm before rollout with revised documentation.