Office 365 Groups created from Microsoft Teams are displayed again in Outlook?

[RobinSlagman]

Last year Microsoft updated the creation of Office 365 Groups from Microsoft Teams. By default the created group is hidden from Outlook and no Outlook Groups features (conversations, calendar and members view) are created. At this moment it looks like the Outlook features are available again and the group is displayed in Outlook when I’m creating a new team from Teams (saw this at multiple tenants). Moreover, when I open the corresponding SharePoint team site, I see a ‘conversations’ link in the menu (which links to the Outlook conversations) and I see a ‘create Team’ button. The team is already available, since I’ve started the group by creating a team.

Are the Outlook features enabled again by default (did I miss an update)? What is Microsoft planning to do with this in the future? Will there be an option again to hide these features from Outlook?

And in the SharePoint site, will there be a link to the Microsoft Team in the future?

I feel it's quite hard to explain to organizations and end users in the current way, with the coexistence of Outlook group conversations and Microsoft Teams.

[#2 · Accepted solution]

No, they should be visible by default in outlook if they are created from the teams app!

What I’ve discovered is that when you create it from powershell or the teams admin center it will be visible when owner is set as member to!

Are you sure you created it from the teams app itself?

Also it’s importand to be aware of that everything will be provisioned no matter if it will be visible by default or not! The conversations tab in Sharepoint takes you to the Outlook mailbox per default

[#3]

@adam deltinger Thanks for your quick reply. Yes, I've created the team from the Teams app. I've seen this behaviour at multiple tenants now.

[#4]

@RobinSlagman 

Hi! I haven't seen this in any tenants! Are you sure you/they didn't create it from an existing group?

Can you replicate it?

Adam

[#5]

@adam deltinger I've carefully tried to replicate this. You are totally right, I see what causes the confusion. I've created a new team from Microsoft Teams. When I open Outlook Online, this group is not displayed. When opening the corresponding teamsite and then clicking on the Conversations link, Outlook Online opens and displays the group conversations in Outlook. At that moment, the group is displayed on the left in the Outlook Groups list. After a refresh in the browser, the group is still displayed on the left side. However, when closing Outlook Online en re-opening it, the group is disappeared again. Thanks for thinking with me!

[#6]

@RobinSlagman 

Yeah! this is how it works :)

If you're satisfied with the solution, please set as "best response"

Adam

[#7]

@adam deltingeror @RobinSlagman can either of you clarify what you are doing when testing this?  When opening the corresponding teamsite and then clicking on the Conversations link, Outlook Online opens and displays the group conversations in Outlook. 

[#8]

@RobinSlagman I regularly use a SharePoint Site Script with my clients to remove the conversation link and add the Teams link, from Powershell like this.

$script = @'
{
    "$schema": "schema.json",
    "actions": [
      {
        "verb": "removeNavLink",
        "displayName": "Conversations",
        "isWebRelative": true
      },
      {
        "verb": "addNavLink",
        "url": "/_layouts/15/groupstatus.aspx?Target=TEAM",
        "displayName": "Teams",
        "isWebRelative": true
      }
    ],
    "bindata": {},
    "version": 1
  };
'@

$sitescript = Add-SPOSiteScript -Title "Teams Links" -Description "A site script to remove standard links for new SharePoint sites" -Content $script

Add-SPOSiteDesign -Title "Teams Links" -WebTemplate "64" -SiteScripts $sitescript.id -IsDefault

By setting the script as the default for -WebTemplate "64" it will be automatically applied to all new SharePoint Team Sites, including those created from Teams. 

[#9]

@David Christensen what you describe is exactly what happens here and what causes the confusion. When you just go to Outlook, you'll not see the group listed. But when you click on the Conversations link in the SharePoint site of the group, the group conversations in Outlook open up and the group is listed in the left menu.

[#10]

@Steven Collier Thanks! This is really useful, I appreciate this!

[#11]

@Steven Collier, sending this conversation in a slightly different twist, Can one enable the CALENDAR for an Office Group that was created using TEAMS?  

I can delete the Team/Group, then start over by first creating the OFFICE GROUP, but would like to avoid that.

[#12]

@Paul Beiler you can use Exchange admin or powershell to make the mailbox and it's calendar visible in Outlook again, but they are both controlled by the same switch.

[#13]

@Steven Collier, Hmmm.  I went into Powershell, did not see a parameter for this.  I'll keep digging.  Thanks.  

And I'm guessing you were not referring to the Office 365 Exchange Online.  I found no switches there.   

[#14]

And found it for anyone else who wanted it … 

set-UnifiedGroup <GroupName> -HiddenFromExchangeClientsEnabled:$False

[#15]

@RobinSlagman  gravedigging? Dunno, but I had a similar issue too and I found the answer to my problem here:

https://www.danny-davis.com/blog/2019/4/11/show-hidden-teams-in-outlook-groups

Maybe could be helpful as well to someone.

[#16]

Super helpful! Thanks for posting this link.