How to Use Office 365 Connectors to Communicate with Third-Party SaaS Apps

Office 365 Connectors allow organizations to move information between third-party SaaS apps to boost productivity and efficiency.

There’s no denying that small to midsize companies are migrating to the cloud in droves. Software as a Service (SaaS) adoption has been steadily rising over the past few years. A survey from 2017 regarding SaaS penetration indicated that 94 percent of companies were planning to use some type of SaaS app in their business by the end of the year.

While the use of SaaS applications has allowed companies to be more efficient and productive in their business, it has also created silos within these companies where it is difficult for SaaS tools to communicate with each other.

Office 365 Connectors allows communication to flow between SaaS applications

If you’re an Office 365 user, you’re in luck thanks to a new tool from Microsoft dubbed Office 365 Connectors. With Office 365 Connectors, you can push information from third-party SaaS apps directly to Microsoft Teams as well as other Office 365 apps. This allows you to keep SaaS notifications and information contained inside Office 365.

How to add an Office 365 connector to Microsoft Teams

If you’re looking to add a connector to a Microsoft Teams channel, simply follow the following steps:

• Click the More options button beside the channel name where you’d like to see notifications from other SaaS apps.
• Choose the Connectors
• Click Add next to the connector that you’d like to use in your Microsoft Teams channel.
• Now you’ll simply need to authorize the connection between Microsoft Teams and the third-party SaaS app of your choice.

Popular connectors available with Office 365

There are more than 90 connectors available to connect with Office 365 and boost your productivity and communication between your team members. Below are just a few of the connectors available:

• JIRA
• Twitter
• Zendesk
• GitHub
• Trello
• OneDrive
• Salesforce
• Dropbox
• Dynamics 365

If you don’t find the connector that you’re looking for already built into Office 365, you can always build your own custom connector if necessary.

Example use cases for Office 365 Connectors

There are thousands of different uses for Office 365 Connectors, but we thought it would be useful to outline a few of the more common applications to show the versatility of this new tool that marries Office 365 with your other favorite third-party SaaS apps.

Ensure all support requests are handled as quickly as possible

If your team handles a large number of customer support requests via email, you likely use a SaaS-based help desk software such as ZenDesk. Once this connector is enabled, you can ensure that all of your team members are immediately notified when a new support ticket has been submitted so that it can be handled in record time.

Track software updates in real time

Often, engineering teams are disconnected from operations and other departments within a growing company. This can create situations where one area of a company may not know whether a certain feature or bug fix has been released. Thanks to an Office 365 Connectors, you can solve this by connecting a software update tracking tool like JIRA with Office 365. This way any new software updates or bug fixes can automatically be posted to a shared Microsoft Teams channel for all members of a company to see. This way if a customer were to call in or send an email related to the status of an update on a bug fix, operations team members could easily check within a Microsoft Teams channel as opposed to having to reach out to an engineer directly.

Track social media interactions

More and more individuals are airing all their grievances about a company directly to social media and expecting a near immediate response. If your organization isn’t actively monitoring your social media channels, you could be left in a situation where you’re seen as not responding to customer support inquiries in a timely manner. Thanks to an Office 365 connector you can easily log all social media inquiries directly into Microsoft Teams. This way everyone is aware of social media messages, whether they’re good or bad so that the appropriate individuals can respond to them as quickly as possible.

This is just a few examples of how Office 365 Connectors work, but it should give you a sense of the value in connecting all of the different disparate SaaS tools that you and your team utilize daily.

Interested in learning more about Office 365 Connectors?

If you’re looking for additional use cases for Office 365 Connectors, or you’re simply looking for help enabling this feature within Office 365, feel free to contact our team today.