In Outlook, excel and Word I’ve created context menus, which when chosen by the user, allows the user to jump to a desktop application (passing along the context of course as well). It all seems old school these days but think VSTO, Addins or even vba.
Is something like this possible from a Teams conversation?
EDIT - Example:
In a conversation in MS Team John types a message to Fred "Hey Fred please look at file number 123456." Now currently Fred has to highlight and copy this number, open a Desktop app and paste the number to search for the information.
If John writes the same message as an EMAIL to Fred, then because Fred has my addin installed, the addin recognizes the number 123456 and Fred simply right clicks on the number and chooses a context menu. (The addin sends a message through a WCF connection to the Desktop app) The Desktop app springs up to the foreground and displays the file to Fred.
So far from my reading of MS Teams I only read and see things about the http protocol which is nice but I am hoping there is something more.
From what I can understand developing with Teams currently means web only addons/extension or whatever they call them now. Communication with native applications is not possible for developers, even Microsoft is still trying to link documents in Teams to their own desktop apps.
I never want to open the document in Teams, or in Office Online. I always want to use the native desktop program. Would be nice if there was a global setting so documents always opened in desktop applications. (Microsoft Teams UserVoice December 2017)
It appears that Microsoft Teams does not support any of the coding opportunities currently available for Outlook, Word or Excel as according to the comments above these are "Advanced Threat Protection blocks unsafe protocols".
Sadly web only addons/extension and the requirement for them to be centrally uploaded effectively makes things very difficult for people working within a corporate environment where there is
an IT department who creates so much red tape that your application for something ends with a negative result. Gone are the days where people can code up something for a few people to use in their organization.
If you have landed here from a Google Search my suggestion would be to create a browser extension with a native host. You can do whatever it is you want with the Teams user interface and
send the information through the native host to your desktop applications. This will not work with the Microsoft Teams App, however as this app is simply the website in a window it is possible that people will just use a browser anyway.
Related
I have developed a very basic Outlook Web Add In, with the purpose of loading a Power Apps app by using an iframe object with a URL pointing to the app, all this from Office 365 on desktop devices.
It works as intended and, when loading, Power Apps asks the user to login first, this isn't the app itself asking to login, but Power Apps asking the user to identify first and then loading the app. This also works, at least on some devices.
It has come to my attention that some users can't make it past the login request, as instead of opening a browser tab and showing the login form, the iframe in the Add In, shows this message, which, obviously, makes users think the app isn't working:
This app isn't working. Refresh your browser or try again later
Apparently this message is not that uncommon and at least from what I've read it isn't clear enough either.
Besides that, Windows is displaying this message:
You'll need a new app to open this about link
I'm not even sure what it means, but it shows a list with zero apps that can open this "about link", and the option to go the Windows Store.
What should happen (and happens on some devices):
User is shown login request (by Power Apps)
User logs in
App is loaded and shown to the user
What happens (only on some devices):
User is shown login request (by Power Apps)
Windows can't open a web browser, so the user can't log in
Message saying app isn't working appears, because app was never loaded.
As I don't quite understand why this only happens on some cases, I have been testing the issue, and I have found that when the Power Apps login button is clicked, a file called ielowutil.exe, which apparently stands for Internet Low MIC Utility Tool, is executed before the web browser is shown with the login screen, and this only happens on the devices that can eventually load the app, the ones that fail never run this program.
From what I understand this file is related to Internet Explorer.
The Outlook Web Add In is already working within a web browser, according to Microsoft the browser is chosen automatically (Browsers used by Office Add-ins), so if it's already opened then I don't quite understand why it can't open a new tab/window.
The combination of system requirements for Office Add-ins and Power Apps may be the cause of the error here. While some combinations of platforms and Office versions still support IE 11 for add-ins and may default to opening URLs in IE per Browsers used by Office Add-ins and Support Internet Explorer 11, it looks like IE is no longer supported by Power Apps (see Supported browsers for running Power Apps).
For users who experience the issue you mentioned because of IE, you may need to add an alternate experience for the add-in to gracefully fail (see Determine at runtime if the add-in is running in Internet Explorer) or consider a different solution for hosting the Power Apps app.
I would like to create an application for Microsoft Teams but I don't understand what capability I have to exploit.
I would like the application to be called up from the application bar and opened to full screen.
The same behavior that occurs for the "App Studio" application.
I need to bring something that is not accessible, either by chat or tea; the app should manage a flow in a personal window.
I looked at the manifest definition document but found nothing.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/platform/resources/schema/manifest-schema
I would like to replicate the application behavior like AppStudio or Microsoft Planner, to name a few.
For example App Studio
A possible alternative, could be to insert a button in the chats and open a popup with the configuration page.
I saw this behavior for the AzureDevOps extension.
Unfortunately this also seems to be a capability not available.
Azure DevOps
Do you have any idea how to do it?
Thanks a lot
Correct solution is static tab for personal use.
Complete answer
We are looking into the opportunities of apps within Microsoft Teams. We are using Microsoft Teams extensively and believe it can be the application to use as a single entry point to all relevant information. For example, we want to show the internal company news within Teams.
We are currently envisioning what the preferred way for us would be, based on O365. There are however a number of challenges we currently face with Microsoft Teams and wonder if there is a solution for these or if there are items on the roadmap that can help in this scenario:
Show the app on the left menu bar
Currently personal apps can be added on the left navigation bar. We
would like to add a button which is not hidden behind the ellipsis
but right on the menu bar itself. If possible even change the order.
Will this be a possibility or will the apps remain behind the
ellipses?
Deploy the app within the company only We would like to create company specific apps which work with company data.
We can create apps like this, but from a deployment view, we can only use side loading or the online store. For company specific apps this will not be a valid option (5000+ users). Will this become available?
Automatically deploy the “personal app” for all users
When deploying an app to the left bar, it is considered a personal app. Will it be possible to provision this app for all users within the company?
All three of these are on the roadmap, with item 2 (duplicate post) being the first one likely to appear in the first quarter of calendar 2018.
Is there a way to have an outlook add-in that uses a global scope? I want to be able to launch the add-in at any time, but not necessarily relate it to a specific e-mail. According to the documentation I found, the closest thing would be to have it appear as a Module, but then it only works on the desktop version (not the web), and doesn't allow you to view it alongside e-mails. It would be ideal if this could run on the side of the screen, similar to how Skype works on the web version of Outlook, on both the desktop and web versions. Is Skype a special case, or is it possible to build an add-in like that?
Web-based add-ins work in the context of the current item only.
Instead, you may consider developing a browser plug-in which modifies a web page dynamically. And for the desktop editions of Outlook you may consider creating a COM based add-in which allows to customize the UI in the way you need. See Walkthrough: Creating Your First VSTO Add-In for Outlook to get started quickly.
My organization utilizes a browser-based app (Chrome/Firefox) and Skype to allow kindergarten students to read books with adults, remotely.
One of the biggest problems we have happens with this scenario:
Tutor calls a dedicated Skype number that resides on student laptop (Windows 7)
Student answers Skype call
Skype application window remains open, blocking browser
Student does not know how to close Skype window
Student cannot see browser until support remotely connects to laptop and minimizes Skype window
Training the students, at that age, doesn't work. Teachers tell them not to mess with the laptops, anyways.
So the question is this:
Is there a way to automatically minimize Windows application windows via a custom script or is there a way to force browser windows to regain priority on the desktop based on certain triggers?
I'm looking more for pointers on where to do research or what to look at. I can probably build a solution if I know there's a tool or library where I can start.
Have you tried to start Skype with the command line parameter
/minimized
That would start Skype minimized to the tray.
And on a second note I would imagine that when the kids can answer a Skype-call, they could be taught to press ALT+TAB after they have answered the call (and thereby switch to the browser).
You could also try http://ahkscript.org/ (Auto Hot Key) which is a scripting language for automation of common tasks.