Adding Apps And Websites To Teams
Microsoft’s Teams communication and collaboration platform has experienced phenomenal growth since its introduction in November 2016. Organizations of all sizes and in all industries now use the tool for various applications, including communication, collaboration, and file storage. However, many users in these organizations fail to take advantage of one of the platform’s most important features – the ability to customize their environment with apps and websites. In this article, you will learn how easy it is to add an app or a website to your instance of Teams.
Adding Apps
Microsoft enables you to add a wide variety of apps to your Teams environment. To add an app, first select the Team and the Channel where you would like to access the app. Then click the plus sign (“+”) near the top of the window to add an app. Upon doing so, the service displays the Add a tab dialog box pictured in Figure 1.
From the Add a tab dialog box, select the app you want to include. Although Microsoft produces many of the apps available for integrating, many apps are available from other companies, including Adobe, Team Viewer, Survey Monkey, YouTube, Zoho, and others. Upon selecting the app you want to add, follow the prompts to add it to your instance of the platform. Of course, if an app requires signing in, you will be prompted to enter your credentials. Likewise, if the app requires a subscription, you will be prompted to create an account or enter your existing credentials. Nonetheless, once you add your desired apps and complete any necessary configuration steps, you can work with them directly from within Teams.
Integrating Websites
Just as you can add apps to Teams, you can also integrate websites into Teams. Of course, once you do so, you won’t have to leave teams to work with the websites you integrate, increasing your personal and group efficiency.
To integrate a website into Teams, begin by clicking the plus sign near the top of the Teams window. Then, instead of choosing a specific app, select the option for Website. In the ensuing Website dialog box, enter the website’s name and URL, as shown in Figure 2. Finally, click Save to complete the process.
As shown in Figure 3, once you complete the steps outlined above, you can access the website directly from Teams.
Summary
On its own, Teams is a marvelous tool for increasing communication, collaboration, and productivity. However, as is often the case, some of the best benefits of this tool are realized when we integrate it with other applications or websites. Fortunately, as you see, this is a feature that is exceptionally easy to configure and use. Therefore, if you use Teams, consider how you can take advantage of the opportunity to add apps and websites to increase your productivity.
Interested in learning more about Microsoft Teams? Consider participating in a K2 Enterprises training session.
