Show context around old Teams messages from search results

Anonymous
2020-09-29T18:45:59+00:00

Looking for help with a particular issue with searching for older messages inside of Teams.

When I search for a certain keyword - say, "hot dog" - I get results that are both old and recent from past conversations. If I look at the recent results I get the full message context that surrounds it - messages coming and going.

If I read older messages, however, I only get the single message result without any surrounding context. This is only marginally helpful, as the context is necessary to add, well, context to the conversation!

Has anyone figured out how to do this? Is it an admin side thing that needs to change?

Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Teams for business | Chats | Search messages and conversations

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  1. Anonymous
    2022-11-15T05:17:31+00:00

    WOW. I mean WOW! Not only has the issue been fixed, the context comes up super quick, even with many images in the conversation!

    I tested with multiple test phrases ranging from just a few months old to over 18 months old. Works fast and accurately just the same!

    This is amazing. Thank you Microsoft for finally fixing the NUMBER ONE issue with MS Teams.

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  2. Anonymous
    2022-11-14T20:27:45+00:00

    I noticed this on Saturday morning. Thought it was just a fluke.

    Looks like the change went in with version 1.5.00.28567

    Only took a little over two years to get a key release feature working. Thats some top tier development prioritization!

    Either way, thanks to whatever developer actually fixed the issue.

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  3. Anonymous
    2022-11-14T17:39:31+00:00

    Same here! Seems like the fix has been there for a couple weeks now.

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  4. Anonymous
    2022-11-14T16:46:20+00:00

    As of this morning (11/14/22), it appears I can search MS Teams and see the original message as well as the context. I thought about not posting anything, so as to not jinx it, but figured it would be better to call it out so that it's known that MS was able to (at least temporarily) restore this functionality. Now, let's see if the capabilities last. Let's not mess this up again Microsoft.

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  5. Anonymous
    2022-11-07T21:38:41+00:00

    Hi Andygoes,

    Thanks for your post in our forum. When searching for an old message in Teams, we can only click to check the details about this specific chat message, but unfortunately, it is not feasible to show the chat history related to the specific search result. 

    I can understand to have the ability to see related chat history will be more convenience when searching in Teams. To help us continuously improve your experience with our products, we will be very grateful if you could submit your feedback and feature request in the Teams UserVoice forum.

    We appreciate your valuable comments. Thanks for your time and efforts.

    Best regards,

    Jennifer

    I know this is 2 years old, but...

    Not only is this necessary, not just a "convenience," other chat services (like Discord) offer this with no issues. Not only can they display the context, they also have an option innately in the search box to "Go To Message" without any work arounds to trick the search dialog into displaying that button. That a free software (Discord, specifically) for social interactions got something right that an enterprise level, paid-for service didn't is just sad. They were able to achieve this long before Teams was ever released, not just during the 2 years it took the development team to either prioritize or figure out how to do this feature.

    "Not feasible" was a bull response and something you really should have cleared with your manager and the development team first. And if you did and that was their answer? You should have reworked the wording as "something the team is looking into, but you submitting feedback will push it further up our priority list." And just because the feature was finally delivered in October 2022, doesn't mean that A) it has been rolled out to everyone in an enterprise setting and B) it excuses the fact that for 2 years this much needed feature was waved off as a simple QoL feature that would be "nice to have."

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