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3 min read

New ways to use apps and get more done in Microsoft Teams

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New features in Microsoft Teams make it an even more powerful hub for teamwork by enabling you to use apps in new ways—including the ability to command apps and take quick actions from the command box, as well as include content from an app in a conversation. This marks the biggest single release of new functionality since Teams launched last March.

Screenshot displays how you can now include content from apps—like a news article—directly in a conversation in Microsoft Teams.

You can now include content from apps—like a news article—directly in a conversation.

Use your favorite apps in new ways in Teams

Teams brings together everything a team needs in one place. You can integrate the apps and services you need, including Office 365 apps like Excel, and ones from our partners, including Trello, InVision, and SurveyMonkey.

Today, we’re introducing new ways you can use apps in Teams:

Include information from an app in a conversation—Now you can have a conversation about content from an app without the need to include a screenshot or a hyperlink to the information. In the same way that you can add an emoji or GIF, you can now bring information from apps into a chat or channel message with a simple click. For example, you can search for a specific task in Trello, a work item in Wrike, or a weather forecast, and include an interactive card with that information into a message.

Animated screenshot displays how you can include information from an app, like Wrike, in your Microsoft Teams conversations.

Include information from an app, like Wrike, in your conversations.

Access a personal view of your apps—The new personal apps space makes it easy for you to access the apps you care about and see all the items that you have been assigned to across apps, like tasks in Planner, issues in Jira Cloud, or your filters or pull requests in Bitbucket Cloud. You can also easily see items you have recently accessed, such as OneNote notebooks or videos from Microsoft Stream.

Here you will also find Who—a new app powered by the Microsoft Graph—which allows you to search for people in your organization by name or topic. To access your personal apps space, click the … in the left navigation menu.

Animated screenshot displays how you can access your personal apps space in Microsoft Teams.

Access your personal apps space in Teams.

Animated screenshot displays how you can add Microsoft Stream to your personal apps space to watch videos uploaded by your coworkers, in Microsoft Teams.

Add Microsoft Stream to your personal apps space to watch videos uploaded by your coworkers.

Discover apps for Teams in the new Store—We made it easier to search and discover apps and services available in Teams in the new Store. Now you can search for apps by name, category (such as Project management or Analytics and BI), or integration type (such as Bots, Tabs, or Connectors), and then choose to surface in your personal app view or in a specific channel in Teams.

Screenshot displays how you can discover apps and integrations for Microsoft Teams in the new Store.

Discover apps and integrations in the new Store.

Command apps, take quick actions, and search—all from the command box

Search is one key way people navigate Teams to get to the information they’re looking for. We integrated commanding with search and moved the command box to the top of the screen, so you can now command apps and take quick actions right from the box, in addition to searching across people, messages, files, and apps.

Command apps from the command box—We’re rolling out the ability to query or command an app right from the command box. Starting today, you can search for information in an app, such as an image in Adobe Creative Cloud or a news article, and easily insert a specific result into a chat or channel conversation. Over time, we’ll add more command functionality, like the ability to create a task in your project management app or start a build in Visual Studio Team Services. Simply type @ into the command box to display the list of apps you can query and command.

Take quick actions with slash commands—Slash commands are shortcuts you can type in the command box to quickly perform tasks or navigate Teams. For example, you can use a slash command to set your status to “away,” add a user to a team, or call a coworker. To get started with slash commands, type / to see the list of commands currently available.

Use slash commands to take action quickly in Teams.

Let us know what you think!

These features are rolling out starting today, and you can expect to see them in your Teams client shortly. Try the new features and provide feedback using the feedback link in the lower left corner of Teams.

—The Microsoft Teams team

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