If your organization is on board with Microsoft Teams, there are quite a few ways that you can get the most out of the collaboration service. We’ve already highlighted some tips and tricks for Teams, but did you know that you can also add some of your favorite apps as “Tabs” to Teams?
If your administrator has enabled it, you can do this by pressing the “+” button at the top of any Teams channel, and then choosing or searching for an app. Here are our favorite Teams apps, and how they can help boost your productivity.
YouTube
We’ve already covered how you can add YouTube to Microsoft Teams, but this is still one of our favorite apps for the collaboration service. Once added, the YouTube app will let you share links to playlists, channels, without ever having to leave the Microsoft Teams experience. You’ll also be able to search for videos with the in-built search bar, paste links, or even pin a video to the top of any channel in Teams. This will save you time in having to open up a web browser and search through YouTube manually.
Trello
Microsoft Teams might integrate with Microsoft’s own service, Planner, but Microsoft also offers Trello as an App on Teams. When added to Teams, you’ll be able to see all your boards directly from within Teams, without having to go to a web browser. You’ll also be able to create new cards, monitor activities on the board, as well as move cards. That’s essentially everything already included in the Trello experience, and it’s really convenient to have it all right within Teams, without needing to leave the app. You’ll be able to keep up with all your workflows at a quick glance and reduce the mess.
Wikipedia
If you’re looking for information at a quick glance, then Wikipedia is usually the place to go. While you could usually navigate to a new tab in your web browser to do so, the Wikipedia app in Teams lets you skip out on that trip. You’ll be able to leverage the power of Wikipedia right from within Teams. That includes searching for articles and sharing with coworkers.
Using Wikipedia in Teams is a bit different from YouTube or Trello. You’ll first need to ask your administrator to navigate here, and then add the app to Teams. Once done, you can summon Wikipedia searches from the search bar in Teams within any channel. Simply type in @Wikipedia search to summon the app, and then enter in your search term.
Microsoft Flow
We’ve previously explained how you can use Microsoft Flow to automate workflows, but there’s also a Flow app in Microsoft Teams. Once added to Teams, you can connect many business tasks and save your team some time. You’ll be able to automate many tasks like alerts, notifications, or launch bots within Teams. You can also configure Flow to show Tweets and other information from Microsoft’s other services directly within Teams channels.
…And there’s more!
We’ve only touched on four of our favorite core apps for Microsft Teams, but there are so many more apps you can enjoy. A full list of 220+ applications is available on Microsoft’s website. There are apps from various categories, ranging from analytics, artificial intelligence, collaboration, customer service, finance, human resources, and more. You also can learn more about how developers are building apps for Microsoft Teams by checking out Microsoft’s documentation.