back to article Microsoft pledges to give Teams users multi-account sign-in then reels it back to one work and one personal

There was great excitement followed by great disappointment in the collaboration world this week as Microsoft appeared to confirm multiple account support for Teams before slapping on the inevitable gotcha. Currently number two in the the User Voice parade of feature requests, being able to sign in with multiple accounts is a …

  1. Steve @ Ex Cathedra Solutions
    FAIL

    Wot a Waste...

    Teams is a nightmare if like me you work for multiple organisations. I currently have to run 4 profiles, and do a "runas" to get all the Teams windows open on one desktop, and even then there are issues with using files :-(

    Being able to have a personal account on there is a total chocolate teapot!

    1. Bigg Phill

      Chocolate teapot

      "I don't need this, therefore nobody needs this"

      I have work and personal Teams accounts on my phone, meaning I sometimes get work messages in my free time.

      I'd like my employer to return the courtesy and let me get personal messages on my computer during my work time.

      So it would be very useful to me. YMMV

      1. gobaskof
        Flame

        Re: Chocolate teapot

        I only just found out when I read this that it was possible to have a personal Teams account. I understand organisations like using big central Microsofty things that integrate with their calendar. I suppose that is another to add to my list of was that someone may want to contact me by chat/video:

        Whatsapp, Facebook messenger, Skype, Zoom, 8x8, Telegram, Matrix, Gitter, Discord, WeChat, Kakao Talk, Hangouts (Does that still exist), FaceTime (nope don't have an Apple), jitsi Meet, Google Meet

        Could you imagine if we needed this many phone numbers, or this many email providers? Burn this down!

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Chocolate teapot

          teams for personnel use hasn't been around that long tbf

        2. Bigg Phill

          Re: Chocolate teapot

          Teams personal is new. So new it's not on the desktop or web client yet.

          If you look at them purely as chat / video tools then yes they're all the same but Teams personal brings much of the collaboration features that the work version has.

          You can create a group (like other chat apps) but then you have shared resources such as calendar and tasks.

          So if for example you have a large family and you're trying to organise day trips and other shared events, it makes life easier for you.

          Also if you share a lot of media, it puts it in a single repository so you don't have to scroll through the messages to find that funny video you were sent 2 months ago (some phones allow you to do this in the gallery anyway)

          It's more than just yet another chat app

    2. The other JJ

      Re: Wot a Waste...

      Even if more than one business account could be configured it doesn't address the requirement in the slightest if only one can be active and you have to keep switching. Recall that until about 2003 the only way to have more than one Exchange account in Outlook was to switch between profiles, then they allowed three and since about 2010 an unlimited(?) number. All the mailboxes are open and you can work with them simultaneously. That's what's needed in Teams, nothing less.

      Yet again Microsoft assumes that every other business in the world works the same way as theirs.

    3. faust82

      Re: Wot a Waste...

      Do what I do: Edge Chromium.

      It lets you log in with your O365 account, and just like Chrome lets you run multiple profiles.

      Then you just use the web version of Teams for each of your secondary accounts, with the desktop app logged in as your main.

      Almost painless.

  2. gobaskof
    Mushroom

    Slack also sucks at this

    With slack you have to have multiple logins for each new slack you are added to. The way I have generally seen slack used is that each slack is more like a "team", and so you end up with slack logins proliferating faster than Teams logins. I have two teams logins and a grant total of about 15 teams (with 60 or so channels), whereas I have about 12 different slacks to log into. Just trying to remember the names and then log into all of my slacks on a new machine is an hour long process. Making sure every sodding slackbot is off, is a fair bit of work, and some people running slacks put so many bot integrations in that you get bombarded with "personal messages" from services you never use. I have one where it Google tells me my calendar is empty everyday because I don't use google, but the integration is either on or off for everyone in that slack and a lot of others like it.

    It seems that the collaboration programs do not understand people that work with a large number of different collaborations, and it makes our lives hell. I don't want a more cohesive Slack interface, or a more cohesive Teams interface. I want the big players to join or set an open protocol and so I can have a single client for all of this work chat stuff. Matrix/Element is a shining beacon of hope, but it is not quite ready for the prime time. To be fair Teams was not ready for the prime time either when everyone was shovelled onto it, but Element don't have the monopoly power to make every man and his dog their beta tester.

    1. Robert Grant

      Re: Slack also sucks at this

      At least Slack has proper UX for this, though. The mobile app is pretty zippy to switch between them, too.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    the real pain is when you have multiple o365\azure accounts for multiple customers and browsers try and be helpful and remember your creds, what a shit show that is

    1. DavidRa

      Browser profiles are the shiz for this

      The trick here is to use Profiles in Edgium (I think it's called Profiles in Chrome too?) to separate out your personas. I have between 4 and 10 on the go at any one time - one for my company, and one each for every O365 or Azure customer.

      Also, if you can get yourself onto the CSP program, you should be able to set up the tenants so you log in once, and have delegated access to the other tenancies; you can then switch between them using links at the top of the various admin portals.

  4. Ilsa Loving

    So still useless

    I'm in the same boat as others. We have multiple clients with their own Teams setup. Expecting people to constantly log in and out of accounts is flat out unacceptable, and is why we're sticking with Slack, or just plain email.

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