Microsoft Teams has become a popular video conferencing tool, especially with remote working growing in popularity. While it may seem like Slack is a go-to for remote teams, Microsoft Teams is growing at a much faster rate than Slack with over 270 million monthly active users .
The reason? Microsoft Teams offers apps and plugins that add more functionality, make teamwork easier, and improve the overall user experience. Teams’ ability to integrate with other Microsoft apps like Outlook, Word, and SharePoint also makes it very popular.
In this guide, we’ve given you an overview of the 11 best Microsoft Teams apps and integrations to make Microsoft Teams even more powerful.
11 Best Microsoft Teams Apps
1. Trello
Advantage:
- Simplified task management
- easy collaboration
The inconvenients:
- It works best for simple rather than complex tasks.
Trello is a kanban-based project management tool. Most modern teams, especially those operating remotely, need project management software to facilitate collaboration. Trello offers pre-made templates that you can use to assign tasks and help your team members move tasks around in a pre-made workflow.
By integrating Trello with Microsoft Teams using the Trello connector, you can simplify task management. You can collaborate on Trello tasks by answering a manager’s questions from Teams.
Trello also sends notifications in Teams when cards are created or deleted, assigned to a team member, or when a member adds a comment.
2. Polly
Advantage:
- Offers many customization options
- A quick way to get feedback from your team
The inconvenients:
- More customization options also give Polly a steep learning curve.
polly is a poll app. The Microsoft Teams integration lets you run polls and add polls or quizzes to a Microsoft Teams channel or group chat. You can simplify requesting feedback from your employees quickly and easily.
Once you’ve added a poll to the Teams app, you can ask team members to vote, and that’s it. Polly will automatically give you the results of the survey in real time.
You can also configure Polly to schedule or hide poll results or keep voting anonymous. You can also allow teammates to collaborate through a discussion forum by enabling comments.
Of course, you don’t necessarily need to use Polly for client work. You can also keep employees engaged by asking them to vote on where the next office party should be planned.
3. Congratulations
Advantage:
- Excellent tool to improve team morale.
- Easy to use
- Efficient customer service
The inconvenients:
- Lack of customization options
Keeping your employee morale high can be a challenge, especially when working in a remote environment. Platforms like Prestigio can help you keep your team’s productivity level high and improve your employee retention rate.
Fortunately, Kudos also integrates with Microsoft Teams. You can send, receive, or approve acknowledgment messages to make your communications more engaging for the team.
Kudos will also allow you to add a Kudos feed to your channel in Microsoft Teams, allowing all members to see how good work is rewarded.
The best part is that the acknowledgment messages don’t have to sound robotic. You can personalize them by modifying the built-in recognition messages to speak directly to the person receiving the award.
4. Scrum genius
Advantage:
- Quickly set up and share reports in Teams
- Easy to install and use
The inconvenients:
- There aren’t many customization options with queries and analytics.
Scrum Genius automates asynchronous status meetings. The cloud-based solution helps businesses track project progress by running automated weekly check-ins and meetings. It collects information for project managers on the status of tasks, what was accomplished during the previous day or week, and any bottlenecks the team is facing.
Now imagine getting all these updates on your channel. You probably use MS Teams every day, so you no longer need to spend time going to your ScrumGenis board and manually looking up data. ScrumGenius will broadcast the summary of the recording directly to the teams in real time.
5.wiki
Advantage:
- Lightweight app for notes
- Has a chat option
The inconvenients:
- Not as powerful as OneNote
Imagine this. You are the project manager. You need two different teams to collaborate on a project. You create a new channel in Teams, but since the two groups may have different working protocols, you should create a rulebook that outlines the rules of engagement for the specific project.
This is where the Wiki app comes in handy. It’s included in new channels by default, but many users remove it because they have other note-taking apps.
However, Wiki has several use cases. For example, you can provide a low-resource solution to create a rulebook. You can create process maps and provide details on how each team will contribute to the project. You can also add FAQs.
Of course, you can also use a OneNote page or a SharePoint Wiki app. That said, Wiki is a great lightweight alternative when all you need is a few quick pages illustrating the rules and other information.
6.Karma
Advantage:
- Provide ongoing access to the entire team to celebrate accomplishments
- Provides an interactive way to improve employee engagement.
The inconvenients:
- The automated rewards system does not support coins
Karma is an app that helps create an environment of positivity. You can use Karma to give “congratulations” to your colleagues as long as they do well: submit work before the deadline or exceed expectations. If you’ve used Reddit before, you can think of “congratulations” on Karma as similar to upvotes on Reddit.
You can use Karma to appreciate good work, collect feedback, and track performance. The app automatically creates employee profiles and gives you insights on your dashboard.
Karma’s integration with Microsoft Teams helps encourage employees to adopt Teams faster, making collaboration easier. Earning more praise also pushes employees higher in the rankings, increasing employee engagement and motivating them to perform better.
7. Robotic assistance
Advantage:
- Easily export timesheets and minimize manual workload
- Integrates with popular platforms such as Teams and Slack
- Simplify permission management
The inconvenients:
- Does not allow to export balance sheet history
AssistBot helps you collect data on time off, vacation pay, number of hours worked, and more. It’s basically a time tracker, but with a few extra features. Employees can track hours worked directly from the Microsoft Teams app by sending “in” and “out” messages.
You can choose to periodically export timesheets or analyze time spent working for each client specifically from the AttendanceBot dashboard. However, this doesn’t just make things easier for you. It also makes things easier for your team.
For example, your team can request approvals from Teams chat by mentioning @attendencebot. A message might say something like “Request a week from January 15”. AttendanceBot will notify you when the request is approved and automatically populate the schedule with the details.
8. Power BI
Advantage:
- Consistent and innovative updates
- Smooth learning curve
- pocket size
The inconvenients:
- Bulky user interface
Power BI is a suite of business intelligence, data visualization, and reporting applications from Microsoft. If you want your reports and analytics to be integrated with Microsoft Teams, you can use the Power BI integration for Teams.
This will add a Power BI tab to the Teams interface. With Power BI integrated with Microsoft Teams, you can start discussions on a specific report and invite your teammates to contribute.
9. MURAL
Advantage:
- Multiple frames to set storyboards, people cards and more
- integrated chat
- user-friendly interface
The inconvenients:
- Works a little slow sometimes
MURAL is a visual collaboration and brainstorming tool that helps teams find solutions to business challenges. You can create sticky notes, add text, draw mind maps, and even add GIFs to your WALL whiteboard.
When you integrate MURAL with Microsoft Teams, a tab appears in your Teams workspace. Once MURAL is integrated, you can start with a template and add members by inviting them. The members you invite will receive a private message.
You can also bring visual collaboration into a conversation when needed by finding a relevant model through the messaging extension. Here’s how adding a visual collaboration component to Teams meetings can help you solve problems more intuitively and efficiently.
10. GitHub
Advantage:
- Large and helpful community
- Lots of git guides and documentation available
The inconvenients:
- Security issues from past breaches
GitHub is a hosting service for Git repositories where developers can store, track, and collaborate on software projects. However, GitHub is more than just a development platform. It’s also where developers and programmers from around the world come together to share knowledge and general interaction.
Using the GitHub Teams app refines your experience with several features. For example, you can browse issues, read and close tickets, and access GitHub links right from the Teams interface. You can also reply to comments and subscribe or unsubscribe from GitHub repositories from Teams.
11. Health Heroes
Advantage:
- Ideal for remote teams that barely travel during working hours
- Encourage the spirit of competition with a leaderboard
The inconvenients:
- Requires employees to have fitness equipment
Remote work has one big downside: the lack of physical activity. Even with a desk job, he had to commute a bit during his working hours before 2020 to, say, hop on a train and walk to the office.
Remote teams need to be more proactive about their health because instead of walking to the conference room, they can now only use video calls and other communication tools. This is where the health hero helps
Health Hero helps improve the health of your employees and raise awareness about their well-being. Once your employees pair their health tracking device with Health hero, they will receive points for each activity. The app will create a leaderboard, encouraging competition among employees.
Microsoft Teams Apps can be more than video conferencing
Although Microsoft Teams is a communication tool at its core, it can do so much more than other voice and video calling tools like Zoom and Skype.
You can unlock the full potential of Microsoft Teams by integrating it with other apps in your tech stack. This allows you to bring information from all your systems into Microsoft Teams, streamlining your communication.
