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I apologize if this has been asked already; because of the nature of my question I may have missed it in my research.

Anyhow, our team has been using Skype (regular, not Skype for Business) for an ongoing group chat. There are about 50 people in the chat, and they're from all different teams.

We use it for asking questions to the team, which is something that Microsoft Teams can cover.

However, we also use it as a general chat to talk to each other, joke around, etc., which isn't something that really lends itself to "Teams" (which seems to be asynchronous).

It lends itself to "Chat" but the limited number of people in the chat has barred us from moving forward with the transition.

Is there any way to get Microsoft Teams set up to do something like what we're looking for: a general chat in real time with a bunch of people just talking? I know there's no built-in way around the limit of chat participants, but is there some kind of integration or plugin?

Thanks in advance :)

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I've not seen any thing added to the roadmap in regards to changing the chat limitations. Currently on UserVoice it's not getting a lot of votes currently either.

It is confusing as Microsoft distinguishes between your "chat" and "conversation". Conversations will include all the interactions in a channel, and does work more in an Async fashion. however your updates are shown in near real time, so you can get a chat like experience. I'm not a huge fan currently of the layout myself, but it seems to function well in this capacity for the most part.

The chat function is probably ok, for smaller teams just getting started, but if you already have a vested presence in Skype, Skype for Business, or Jabber - your taking a step back in Teams.

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Teams support a number of real-time or near-real-time communication options.

The one most people are familiar with are "Conversations". These are bound to a specific Channel within a Team. They would be considered near-real-time since they may not generate a notification (unless you or the channel is specifically called out using @name/channel).

Teams also support traditional IM style chats for both 1:1 and Group. These work the same way as Skype for Business and each message will pop a notification for the participants. There are also "Meetings" which work a lot like Group Chats.

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