Schedule Meetings in Microsoft Teams With New Outlook Add-in

New Outlook add-in offers tighter integration with Microsoft Teams.

In early 2017, Microsoft rolled out Microsoft Teams, a chat-based workspace for Office 365. This versatile tool was a big hit with distributed organizations, and a new Outlook add-in offers additional functionality to this already popular cloud based collaboration tool.

What is Microsoft Teams?

Microsoft has dubbed Microsoft Teams as the “hub for teamwork in Office 365.” This tool offers instant collaboration that includes meetings, calls and chat, all accessible through one easy to use, cloud based interface. This tool is especially vital for distributed teams who may have colleagues located around the world. Microsoft Teams can be the tool that everyone uses to better communicate and collaborate throughout the hectic work day.

Importance of the Outlook add-in for Microsoft Teams

If there was one complaint about Microsoft Teams it was that it didn’t tightly integrate with Outlook, the world’s most popular corporate email client. Thanks to a new Outlook add-in, users can now schedule Microsoft Teams meetings right in Outlook, which will show up in your Outlook calendar as well as your meeting list within Microsoft Teams.

How the Outlook add-in works

To create a new meeting within Microsoft Teams, after installing the Outlook add-in, you’ll see a button titled “New Teams Meeting.” Once you click on this button, you’ll have the option to customize the meeting details. After scheduling the meeting, it will show up both in your Outlook calendar as well as within Microsoft Teams. All participants will receive the invite and be able to join the meeting from either Outlook or Teams.

Things to keep in mind about the new Outlook add-in

Because Microsoft is constantly rolling out new features for this Outlook add-in, keep the following things in mind:

• As of now, you can only invite individuals within your company to meetings via this Outlook add-in.

• The add-in will not work if there is an Authentication Proxy in the path of your PC and the Teams’ cloud based services.

• The Outlook add-in is currently only for Windows users, but a Mac version is said to be in the works.

Give the new Outlook add-in a try!

If you’re a Microsoft Teams user, we encourage you to give this Outlook add-in a try. It will be automatically installed if you’re using Teams and have either Office 2013 or Office 2016 on your Windows PC.

For more information about Microsoft Teams, or Office 365 in general, contact the MessageOps experts today!