Microsoft Teams Announcements from Build 2019.

Partner Center support for Teams apps: coming soon 
We will be giving partners the ability to submit Microsoft Teams Apps from Partner Center straight into Microsoft Teams. Partner Center, the same system used by Windows and Xbox developers, replaces the Seller Dashboard tool, and will provide a simpler, more reliable, and more streamlined experience for developers.

Creating offers and app purchase: coming soon 
We believe that a healthy app ecosystem requires a viable business model for partners. This (Northern Hemisphere) summer, we will allow partners to create per-seat offers for their Teams apps and integrations. These offers will be available for partners to purchase licenses on behalf of their customers or for end-users to purchase directly through AppSource. These licenses can then be used to deploy Teams applications to specific users using app setup policies.

App distribution: app setup policies 
As an admin, you can use app setup policies to customize Microsoft Teams to highlight the apps that are most important for your users. You choose the apps to pin and set the order that they appear in the app bar, for desktop and mobile. App setup policies let you showcase apps that users in your organization need, whether they were built by Microsoft, our partners, or your developers. You can also use app setup policies to manage how built-in features appear, inside of Microsoft Teams, for your organization.

Managing user access to apps via policy
You can now manage access to apps for individual users through App permission policy. This policy lets you control who in your organization can interact with specific apps & integrations. You can also limit access to apps built by your organization, letting you phase the app rollout.
In addition to user policies, you can define org-wide settings to block certain apps outright for your tenant.

App Certification pilot
Today, before IT teams enable applications and services in their organizations, they are often reviewed across a wide range of security and compliance criteria. We want to make this easier and more transparent for Microsoft Teams apps. The App Certification program will streamline the process of gathering and reviewing partner app information related to its security, data handling, and compliance practices. We are gathering this information from our partners, combining it with publicly available information on each app, and making it accessible in one central location, in a consistent format, for all our partner apps.

Message actions 
Messages are at the core of collaboration in Microsoft Teams, but collaboration is more than just messaging. Quite often, messages are only the beginning of an interaction; they need to be followed-up on, turned into notes, or used to kick-off workflows in other systems. With Message Actions your app can initiate those actions directly from the message, closing the collaboration loop and keeping the communication lines alive.

New ways for bots to power key workflows, including in private chats
We are enhancing the Teams experience by launching a new UI-based way of interacting with bots to complete tasks and workflows. With these new capabilities, you can take action on individual messages and post dynamic cards, including examples such as polls, action items, and kudos. Bots can now interact with users inside of 1:1, group, and meeting chats.

Single Sign-On for Azure Active Directory users: coming soon
Single sign-on (SSO) will soon be available for Microsoft Teams apps that use Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) for authentication. Apps running inside of Teams can get an access token without requiring the user to log in again, simplifying and streamlining the user experience. Log into Microsoft Teams, and you won’t have to log into any app which supports Azure AD.

More immersive tab experiences
We are providing a variety of new improvements to the tab experience in Teams. First, the ability to connect your existing SharePoint Framework (SPFx) investments is now generally available. We are also releasing new ways to build rich and immersive tab experiences that integrate native device functionality, such as accessing the microphone, camera, and geographic location. We’ve also enabled back-button support and deep links into Teams.

Link unfurling
One of the most common ways to share content with other people in Microsoft Teams is using links, whether it’s for an update for that task you’re working on, or for sharing the latest Game of Thrones trailer. For any publicly accessible link, Teams already shows a preview of the link, including information like an image, title, and a description.

We now allow apps to customize these previews for domains that they are interested in. Apps can register a message handler for domains that they want to serve and will get a queryLink event every time a user pastes a link from that domain while composing a message. The app can generate a rich card representation of the information behind that link, delivering a better experience for everyone who reads it.

Reach users on their mobile devices: coming soon
Historically, only Teams apps with bots could be used on mobile devices. Soon, the iOS and Android Teams clients will be at parity with the desktop and web platform: users will be able to use message extensions, channel tabs, personal apps, and task modules on mobile devices. No longer will users have to be concerned about what app features can or can’t be performed on a phone or tablet: it will just work everywhere.

Share to Teams: developer preview 
Sharing web content from any web site into Teams is now much easier now that developers can put a Share to Teams button on their web sites with just a few lines of code. The Share-to-Teams button will display a popup window allowing customers to either share a link to a channel or, if they are a Teams for Education teacher, they can create a Teams assignment, attaching the URL from the referring web site as a resource.

New Teams APIs for Microsoft Graph

Manage shifts: developer preview
The Shifts app in Microsoft Teams enables employees to view their upcoming shifts, see who else is scheduled, and request time off, and enables managers to create, update, and manage shift schedules for teams. Microsoft Graph now has APIs in preview allowing your app to create, read, update, and delete shift schedules, enabling automated schedule management and integration with workforce management systems.

Improvements to automating teamwork
Microsoft Graph APIs enable you to automate your team’s lifecycle, from creating the team, adding members, creating channels, pinning tabs, installing apps, and archiving and deleting teams. The following improvements are now generally available:

• Installing or upgrading apps now supports application permissions as well as user delegated permissions. Application permissions are a great way to install or upgrade an app across all teams in a tenant, and to create new teams from scratch that include apps.
• The Channel.webUrl property allows you to create deep links to your channels and teams.
• The Channel.email property gives you the email address for a channel, enabling you to connect those channels with existing workflows.
• Teams Graph APIs are now available for government customers in the GCC High and DoD clouds.

Reading organizational messages: developer preview
Microsoft Graph allows the applications you trust to read your channel messages, and now read your 1:1 and group chat messages. You can use these beta APIs to archive conversations, have your bot read recent messages for context, or analyze your messages for patterns.

Reusable, low-code Teams app templates 
Building an app from scratch takes time and a thoughtful approach. To make this process simpler and quicker, we are launching Teams App Templates. These App Templates are fully built Teams apps that are community driven, open-sourced and housed on our Office Dev GitHub link.

Key benefits:

• Plug and play experience: Deploying an app to cloud is usually a tedious affair. We’ve automated the whole experience where you can go from the GitHub code > Azure deployment > App on your Teams tenant in a matter of few clicks. No code required.
• Solid code base: All app templates are created using best practices from a security and infrastructure perspective. In addition, since the code is open sourced (under MIT license) you can scrutinize it with a fine-tooth comb to make sure it meets your data and privacy standards.
• Customizable and Extensible: The app templates come fully built out of the box and can also be easily integrated to other applications (for example existing application such as HR). Easily tweak a feature or add custom branding to the app.
• Detailed documentation: All app templates will be accompanied by end-to-end documentation on solution architecture and deployment and configuration steps. In addition, there will also be blogs and video tutorials to make getting started easy.

New and improved platform documentation and training content 
Today we are announcing new and improved Teams developer & IT professional documentation at aka.ms/teamsdev:

The post Microsoft Teams Announcements from Build 2019 appeared first on EnterInIT.