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July 3, 2020

Microsoft Teams Activity Feed: Your New Best Friend

Updated June 2023

There is a lot going on in Microsoft Teams with mentions, announcements, meetings, calls, files, and many other things. How are you supposed to keep up with it all without clicking on each tab to manually check? 

Well, the Microsoft Teams Activity Feed is here to help! It shows you everything that you may be interested in, your activity in Microsoft Teams, and can help prevent you from becoming overwhelmed with notifications.

Download Now:  Teams 101 - Get the Most Out of Microsoft Teams

 

Introducing Microsoft Teams Activity Feed

Located at the top left of your Microsoft Teams client, the feed aggregates activities, both yours and others, in a single location. To access it simply click on the Microsoft Teams Activity Feed link:

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Image: Microsoft Teams - Access the Microsoft Teams Activity Feed.

Once this is opened there are a number of capabilities that you can use that will help you track what is happening in Microsoft Teams.

 

Microsoft Teams Activity Feed: Filtering By Type

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Image: Microsoft Teams Activity feed filter

If you click on the dots to the right of the text search, you will get a number of options that are available:

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Image: Options for filtering Microsoft Teams Activity Feed

This gives you an aggregated view of all your activities across all teams. If, for example, you are looking for a mention in a Microsoft Teams, and you are a member of 10 Teams, then you can easily filter by mentions and find them here:

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Image: Filter by mention in Microsoft Teams Activity Feed.

The same applies to any activity, such as unread (to view items that are unread and important), replies (to view replies to conversations that you have had in a Team chat), and reactions (to view reactions to your posts).

If you have a lot of activities, you can also use the search filter to perform a free text search. This could be across all activities if you don’t choose an activity type (for instance doing a search for “Jordan” without a filter enabled):

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Image: Text Search Filtering in Microsoft Teams Activity Feed.

Or you can combine both an activity and a free text filter which can really help you find what you need with some great granularity:

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Image: Activity & Free Text Filtering in Microsoft Teams Activity Feed.

Note: One thing that can be a little confusing is that the number to the right-hand side is actually the date and not a page or search result number. At first glance, it looks to be search result 1 of 3 but it’s actually the date.

 

Microsoft Teams Activity Feed: My Activity

Another useful feature in Microsoft Teams activity feed is the My Activity option:

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Image: Microsoft Teams Activity Feed 'My Activity' option.

This shows you the conversations that you have participated in across all the Microsoft Teams that you are a member of. Unfortunately, it doesn’t show you things like reactions, but it can still be nice to see all your conversations in one place.

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Image: Microsoft Teams - 'My Activity' in Microsoft Teams Activity Feed.

Also, like the rest of the Microsoft Teams Activity Feed functionality, it only applies to Microsoft Teams and not to your private chats.

 

Microsoft Teams Activities Feed – Final Thoughts

As you become a member of more and more teams you may have too many notifications to make them useful. The Microsoft Teams Activity Feed allows you to filter different types of activities so that you can find your way around quickly and easily. It’s also a great way to get back to any activities that you have performed but might have forgotten about, like a conversation you had in a channel, or an announcement that you made. Try it out and see how much more productive you can be!

If you are looking for ways to be more productive in Microsoft Teams, you may be interested in our Teams 101 eBook or these other blog posts:

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