{"id":11835,"date":"2024-03-29T08:17:32","date_gmt":"2024-03-29T15:17:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/insidetrack\/blog\/?p=11835"},"modified":"2024-03-29T09:40:12","modified_gmt":"2024-03-29T16:40:12","slug":"work-smarter-in-microsoft-teams-by-leveraging-the-apps-ecosystem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/insidetrack\/blog\/work-smarter-in-microsoft-teams-by-leveraging-the-apps-ecosystem\/","title":{"rendered":"Work smarter in Microsoft Teams by leveraging the apps ecosystem"},"content":{"rendered":"
The use of business applications in Microsoft Teams has become a strategic advantage for many organizations, as they can accelerate the digital transformation of all business areas, generating a high demand for the Information Technology (IT) team to make these applications available.<\/p>\n
While use of apps for Microsoft Teams can be daunting for IT Teams to implement, due to the oversight of such things as security, compliance, access permissions, connectivity, etc., the benefits of the ecosystem greatly outweigh any perceived challenges.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s an endless amount of opportunity for organizations that take full advantage of the apps catalog available in Teams. By integrating with other tools and services, Teams apps can help users by automating routine tasks and manual processes and enabling access to the information and resources they need. This can help reduce distractions and interruptions, allowing users to stay focused on their work and be more productive.<\/p>\n
\u2014Mykhailo Sydorchuk, senior product manager, Microsoft Digital<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
I sat down with the Microsoft Digital team responsible for managing the Teams apps ecosystem here at Microsoft to find out what customers should be thinking about when it comes to supporting their organizations. The following summarizes what they had to say about accelerating the deployment and management of apps in Microsoft Teams, what users need to know when evaluating Teams apps, and the lessons we\u2019ve learned as Customer Zero for Microsoft.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s an endless amount of opportunity for organizations that take full advantage of the apps catalog available in Teams,\u201d says Mykhailo Sydorchuk, Teams productivity senior product manager with Microsoft Digital. \u201cBy integrating with other tools and services, Teams apps can help users by automating routine tasks\u00a0and manual processes and enabling access to the information and resources they need. This can help reduce distractions and interruptions, allowing users to stay focused on their work and be more productive.\u201d<\/p>\n
How does an organization go about deploying and managing their Teams app ecosystem?<\/h2>\n
It starts with the Microsoft Teams Admin Center, which allows administrators to customize their Teams app store experience to add company-specific branding and to manage which apps are made available to users. In addition, administrators should consider the following controls for creating a guided experience for users.<\/p>\n
Four best practices for administrators to manage how users discover and request apps:<\/p>\n
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- Only allow approved apps in the catalog. <\/strong>You want users to know they can trust the apps available to them, so make sure you are only enabling apps<\/a> that have been reviewed and pre-approved by your compliance team. Additionally, the manage requests<\/a>\u00a0function can be utilized by tenant users to request any unapproved\/blocked apps, or can redirect user requests to your existing app request process<\/a>\u00a0outside of Teams.<\/li>\n
- Use app permissions policies <\/strong>to control which apps are available to users in scenarios where only a subset of company users should have access to a specific app or group of apps. This article<\/a>\u00a0provides the steps on how to create an app permissions policy for your organization.<\/li>\n
- Proactively direct users to approved apps <\/strong>for your organization. Use this app setup policies <\/a>article to help install approved apps for users, so such apps are readily available to them. Additionally, you can utilize auto install approved apps<\/a>\u00a0feature for an automatic installation of allowed apps for users who already access these apps on the web.<\/li>\n
- Customize your app store. <\/strong>A branded Teams app store gives users more confidence that its admin team has taken the time to make the experience feel more custom and user-friendly. The customize store<\/a>\u00a0location in the Teams admin center allows administrators to select:\n
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- Organization logo<\/li>\n
- Logomark<\/li>\n
- Background image<\/li>\n
- Text color of organization name<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
This article<\/a>\u00a0provides more information about customizing your store.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\nOnce administrators have had the chance to set up the above guided experience for their organization\u2019s users. It\u2019s now time for the users to better understand how to best evaluate an app for use. To do this, it\u2019s important to understand a bit about an app\u2019s components and features.<\/p>\n
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- Understanding app components: <\/strong>Microsoft Teams apps are composed of one or more components defined in an app manifest. Apps by app features are noted in this article that better helps users understand the permissions of and the information accessed.<\/a> Before adding an app from the app store, a user can see the access an app will have by looking at the app\u2019s features and permissions section in the About tab (example About tab featured below).\n