Microsoft Teams New ‘Offline Experience’ Will Improve Messaging Workflow

Connected services like Microsoft 365 are fantastic for making it possible to access your data on nearly any type of device. But when your connectivity drops, the experience can be frustrating as you try to work with documents offline.

Microsoft Teams falls into this category where offline, the application is constricted in terms of its usefulness, and especially when it comes to messaging. Teams will soon have a new offline feature that will make messaging slightly more tolerable when your connectivity drops.

Starting in late January, with a rollout expected to be completed by early February, the new ‘offline experience’ will allow messages in Teams to be sent even when you are not connected to the Internet. In this scenario, messages will be put into a queue for up to 24 hours, and once you establish connectivity, the messages will be sent.

Previously in this same scenario, when trying to send a message, it would say “failed” instead of going into the message queue. This new feature will now send those messages as long as the device is re-connected within 24hrs.

After the 24hr time has elapsed, Teams will no longer attempt to send the message and will alert the user that the message needs to be re-sent or deleted. There is a second phase to this feature that will be completed by mid-February, Teams will let the user edit the messages that are in the queue to be sent once reconnected.

This feature, while targeted at offline usage, will most likely be helpful when you are in the frustrating state of “weak connectivity”. Meaning, when you are in a hotel and the WiFi is weaker than the front-desk coffee and your machine is bouncing in-and-out of connectivity, this functionality will help in those scenarios.

Look for this feature to arrive soon and you can track its development and deployment here.