Response tracking and new emojis coming to Teams

A long-awaited feature that will prevent messages from getting lost in the churn will soon be coming to the Microsoft Teams desktop app.

According to the company's product roadmap, Microsoft Teams users will soon be allowed to respond to specific messages. It will also be possible to quote the original message in the response.

The feature upgrade is set to be released in a matter of days. It will apply to one-to-one conversations as well as groups and text chat's going on during meetings.

Microsoft say "The original message will be quoted in the reply text box, helping everyone in the chat to more easily understand the message's context."

The feature will be beneficial in situations in which multiple conversations are occurring in a channel at once. The ability to quote the original message in a reply will make the thread of conversation much easier to follow and ensure fewer queries go unnoticed or unaddressed.

Not only will users be able to reply to specific messages, however, but they'll be given a much wider selection of emojis to use in their responses. Microsoft has also revealed it is working on a major expansion to the Teams emoji library, which will be expanded from just 85 items to more than 800.

"The expanded emoji update offers people more fun and expressiveness in Teams. It also introduces a wider range of diversity and representation," wrote Microsoft."