5. New Microsoft Graph APIs
The
Microsoft Graph is an application programming interface (API) that unifies access to the full Microsoft 365 suite of services. Developers consume data through a single public endpoint (
https://graph.microsoft.com) using REST calls or software development kits, which are available for almost every development platform. For Teams, Graph offers access to team, channel, and user information and allows processing automation.
The Graph API already had allowed developers to create teams, add members, create channels, pin tabs, install apps, and archive and delete teams.
New Graph API capabilities for Teams announced at Build include:
- The ability for trusted applications to now read 1:1 and group chat messages in addition to channel messages. This could be used to summarize, analyze, or archive conversations.
- The ability to create, read, update, and delete shift schedules in the Shifts app. This could be used to support integration with other workforce apps and to automate schedule management.
- Additional properties that allow you to create deep links to channels and teams as well as retrieve the email address for a channel, enabling the ability to connect channels with existing workflows.
6. New Developer Documentation and Training Materials
Microsoft continues to expand and enhance documentation and training materials for developers who would like to leverage the Teams platform. At Build, it launched a new
Teams Dev Center:
This dev center includes access to new interactive training videos and to a number of reusable, low-code
application templates. As a first example template, Microsoft created a custom stickers app. (As I noted in my most recent
Taming Teams article, the ability to create custom emojis/gifs/stickers is in the top 20
suggestions for Teams on UserVoice.com with more than 3,400 votes.)
Teams is much more than the next version of Skype for Business. Leveraging Teams’ superpowers of extensibility and programmability to automate and simplify business processes in your organization is the best way for you to become a superhero.
My team and I spend our time helping organizations succeed planning, implementing and operating communications and collaboration systems, most often within the Microsoft ecosystem, including Skype for Business, Skype Online and Microsoft Teams. Microsoft Teams specifically enables new opportunities but also brings with it new obstacles and pitfalls. If you have specific questions please comment below, send me a tweet @kkieller, or message me on LinkedIn.
(Note on photo above: Kai is my loyal five-year old Siberian Husky. Promise is a six-month old golden retriever being trained as a psychiatric service dog. You can follow Promise @_thegoldenpromise.)
