Remind in private channels
Setting reminders in private channels is currently a beta feature. Since Microsoft still does not support adding bots to private channels, you need to add the tab instead (instructions below). The reminder will then be delivered via email to the private channel's email address when it occurs. Please note that the setup process is a bit more involved and there are several caveats, listed at the bottom of this page. You need to be a team owner to complete the setup. If you have any questions or feedback, please do not hesitate to get in touch. Thank you 🙏
Step #1: Adding the tab to a private channel
Please add the Reminders tab to the private channel.
Step #2: Setting the channel's email address
As a team owner: In the channel list of your team, select the three dots next to the channel name and select "Get email address". Select "advanced settings" and select either "Anyone can send to this channel" or add the teamsreminder.app domain to the list of allowed senders. Press "Save".
Open "Get email address" again and select "Copy" and then paste the address (using ctrl-v on your keyboard) into the "Channel email address" field in the upper part of the tab and press save. This will enable the "Set reminder" button and you can start setting reminders.
If you don't see the "Channel email address" input field you are not the team's owner. To check this, please select the three dots next to the team name ("Public test team" in the screenshot above) and select "Manage team". Your user needs to be listed in the list of owners.
Step #3: Set a test reminder
Press the "Set a reminder" button in the tab and set a test reminder for a few minutes into the future (the default date is tomorrow so you have to adjust the date). Please note that the message might take a few seconds longer to show up since email delivery is not instant.
If the reminder does not occur it could be for the following reasons:
- The "Get address for channel" functionality in Teams includes an option to filter which senders are allowed to send email to the channel. Please allow the teamsreminder.app domain here.
- If delivery still fails, it could be that your Teams admin has disabled this functionality. Please consider contacting them.
- You can do a quick test for delivery issues by sending a test email to the channel address using your usual email client. If your Teams admin has disabled this functionality, you will receive an error reply.
Things to consider / caveats
- To ensure Teams shows a popup notification when the reminder occurs please activate channel notifications by clicking the three dots next to the channel > Channel notifications > Custom and setting "Banner and feed" for "All new posts".
- To uninstall Remind from a private channel please remove the tab.
- If you would like to temporarily disable Remind for a private channel please set the channel email address field to an empty value.
- The "Get email address for channel" functionality in Teams includes an option for removing the email address from the channel. Remind will not be notified if this happens and reminders will be sent to the old address and not occur in the channel. You can get a new address from Teams and update the setting in the tab.
- The "Get email address for channel" functionality in Teams includes an option to filter which senders are allowed to send email to the channel. If you wish to set such a filter, please allow the sender domain teamsreminder.app so that reminders can occur in the channel.
- If email delivery fails the channel email address field will be set to an empty value automatically.