When to build apps in Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams is built with the purpose of enabling collaboration. With millions of people using Teams every day, Teams has become the digital platform for work and learning, which makes it a good place for collaborative apps.

Stand-alone apps are great for individual productivity, but if work and communication between people needs to happen in the same place, Teams is a great place for collaborative apps.

The sample apps for Microsoft Teams are great examples of these types of collaborative apps:

Watch this video to learn when to build canvas apps in Teams:

Apps for collaboration and centralized workload

  • Milestones sample app enables collaboration on project work items from within Microsoft Teams.

  • Bulletins sample app enables collaboration by providing a central place in Microsoft Teams for company news, frequently asked questions (FAQs), and links and contacts.

Apps for other workloads and deep integration with Teams

  • Inspection sample app enables collaboration by creating tasks in Microsoft Planner and posting messages to a Teams channel when an inspection is completed.

    You might ask why would I want to do inspections in Microsoft Teams? Because inspections require communication and follow-up, so doing them in Microsoft Teams where people are already communicating and collaborating. Since there's a hand-off between personas with an inspections (someone does the inspection, somebody reviews the inspection), having the apps in Microsoft Teams makes sense as that is where collaboration happens.

  • Issue Reporting sample app enables collaboration by creating tasks in Microsoft Planner when an issue is reported.

  • Profile Plus sample app enables collaboration by making it easy to find other people in your organization, view open positions for which you might want to apply, and start teams calls, chats, or meetings with colleagues in Microsoft Teams.

  • Boards sample app enables collaboration by facilitating pinning, sharing, and finding bookmarks in Microsoft Teams, including links to Teams, channels, files, and websites.

  • Perspectives sample app enables collaboration and inclusion by providing a place to listen and be heard in your organization. While Teams provides a great place to communicate, sometimes communication can get lost. Perspectives makes it each to find interesting discussions and give input on discussions.

So if your app relates to how users interact, work, communicate, and collaborate, Microsoft Teams is a great place to create your Power Apps.

See also