M365 Changelog: (Updated) Promote channel creation

MC697808 – Updated April 3, 2024: Microsoft has updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

Today, our experience focusses on letting users create team at the top level, with channel creation as a per team level option. Looking at the user behavior here, users end up creating more teams, where it could have been channels within teams, leading to team proliferation and difficulty in managing teams. To address this, Microsoft is looking to promote channel creation.

For users to collaborate effectively, they need to set-up the right collaboration space. Channels being the main hub of collaboration, Microsoft made it easier for users to create channels. With the channel creation option elevated to the top, users can now create the appropriate collab space by picking between team or channel. They will be able to host the channel into a team of their choosing.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID: 163363

When this will happen:

Targeted Release: Microsoft will begin rolling out early January 2024 and expects to complete by mid-January 2024.

Worldwide, GCC, GCC High and DoD: Microsoft will begin rolling out mid-February 2024 and expects to complete by mid-April 2024 (previously late March).

How this will affect your organization:

End-users will now be able to go to + button in the teams and channels list to create a channel, which they can host in a channel of their choice. 

What you need to do to prepare:

Ask users to pick the right team they want to host channels in, while creating channels from + button.