Do you know important chats should be in an email?

First of all, understand that IM is distracting so use it judiciously. However, IM is great when an email is unclear or you have an additional question about the email that is stopping you from sending a 'done'. IM is great for reminding people and is excellent to push the important things... especially for people who ignore emails!

The golden rule is do not send a task on Teams (IM)!

Dealing with external clients 

During the course of an IM chat with a client or manager, an action or a piece of work may be required. It's highly important that such chats are copied from the chat and pasted into an email.

For example:

When you copy and paste a IM conversation into an email remember the following:

1. Who are you sending the email to? Is there any private information that should not be shared with the group?
2. Have you asked for permission to copy the IM conversation into an email? The other party may not want to share it in an email
3. Does the conversation add value to the email or can it be left out?
4. If you decide to copy the conversation then make sure you edit it so it is easy to read and relevant

Make it readable by snipping out just the important information and Cc relevant parties. (See rule on Snipping for more information).

Dealing internally

If you get an internal IM that should be an email, don't simply convert it into in an email as above - be a standard watchdog and let the other person know that they should send emails instead of instant messages: