Working daily with Teams, it becomes more and more apparent that Microsoft sees Teams as the Hub for not only Teamwork, but also a lot more, i often refer to Teams as a kind of looking glass towards underlying apps and files, giving the users a OneStopShop for the tools and info they need to “achieve more” 🙂
Today we also see a shift in the way people work depending on which generation they belong to, many still begin and end their day in Outlook, but for more and more this is shifting to Microsoft Teams.
Also among consultants and the like its often heard, in x Years Outlook will become niche/ legacy app – this is a blunt statement but still…
This could be the future.
And then this happened last week, Brent Whichel – Director and Modern Workplace Evangelist released a supercool little custom app, making this possible.
Obviously this raises many questions, and in my point of view its not a matter of replacing anything, but for me this is a perfect example of showcasing the power of App Studio in Teams.
Anyway – here are the steps you need to take to get your own Mail and Calendar app into your Teams client.
Initially go download the app itself – it consists of 2 graphic files and a json file doing all the cool things.
https://www.thomasjuhlolesen.dk\emailinTeams.zip
Now in Teams you have to add “App studio” if you have not done that yet.
Go to the 3 dots and select “more apps”
Now search for App studio and add it
Then open App Studio, and select “Manifest editor” click “Import and existing app”
Simply point to the zip file and click “open”
Now you can edit the name if needed, apart from that the app is finished.
To make it work add a www tab to any existing Channel in any Teams and point it to https://outlook.office.com/mail/inbox open the tab and authenticate. After you have done this once, the newly created app, can be accessed from the Ribbon dots.
Thats it.
Enjoy your new app – and Kudos to Brent Whichel for executing this idea.
And please consider, this is for demo and testing, not something that is enduser ready.
