Best Microsoft Teams Integrations To Improve Productivity in 2021

Microsoft is steadily expanding its collaboration app — Microsoft Teams, all thanks to the new ‘remote’ work culture taking the front seat.

Users are turning to collaboration apps like Microsoft Teams, making it necessary to look into more ways in which Microsoft Teams can be leveraged to its full potential. We have already covered the best tips and tricks to use Microsoft Teams in our last segment.

In this segment, we will look into the best Microsoft Teams integrations to sync your work and team collaborations. MS Teams workflow automations are designed to make you more productive, organized, and have unified communications — both internal and external.

How does this help? You not just save time but automate some of your daily collaborations and task management via these workflow automations. Plus, it is an added bonus to sync MS Teams with all of your favorite work apps and streamline your team’s entire work process.

Without further ado, let’s look into the best Microsoft Teams integrations that will change the way you use MS Teams and boost your overall productivity.

Microsoft Teams Integrations for Enhanced Productivity

Email users across the world are said to reach the 4.48 billion mark by 2024. It is obvious, email is here to stay and how. Businesses still rely on emails for communications, and that’s a great thing. Like every other business, you also have official email addresses where you send and receive emails that often need to be shared with your teams internally. Instead of manually sending important emails to their inboxes and waiting for them to read them, you can sync your email service provider with Microsoft Teams to send out instant notifications. After all, we all use collaboration apps to get work done instantly rather than waiting for an update.

Send Messages on MS Teams on New Emails

Microsoft Outlook

We will start with Microsoft’s own email service provider — Microsoft Outlook.

If you are not aware, Microsoft Outlook has an add-in for Microsoft Teams to host scheduled meetings with specific participants. Since the add-in is very new at this stage, it may have several restrictions on how you can use MS Teams inside Outlook. For details on how to add Teams to Outlook, follow the help doc from Microsoft.

Alternatively, you can use Automate.io to easily sync Microsoft Teams and Outlook. This Microsoft Teams integration lets you set up automated workflows to –

• Send a channel or chat message in Microsoft Teams on a New Email in Microsoft Outlook
• Trigger a channel or chat message in Microsoft Teams as a calendar event in Microsoft Outlook

There are various other triggers and actions that you can set up through this integration.

Gmail

Microsoft Teams integrates with Gmail much similar to what it does with Outlook. Majority of businesses have their email IDs on Gmail making it even more important to sync MS Teams with Gmail.

Putting Gmail and Teams on auto-pilot saves your time and effort in juggling between the two apps.

Microsoft Teams Integrations for Enhanced Collaborations

Microsoft Teams is one comprehensive collaboration tool. However, there might be chances that you are working with a client or a customer whose teams use other collaboration tools like Slack, Google Calendars, or Calendly.

Instead of going to-and-fro between multiple apps and keeping a track of all conversations and updates on more than one app, you can integrate these apps with MS Teams for a frictionless collaboration.

Send notifications on MS Teams for Internal Messages

Slack

Slack has around 10+ million active daily users collaborating with each other to get more work done. If you are working with a team that is on Slack and you are on MS Teams, you can always request them to add the MS Teams add-on to their Slack to have video calls and meetings on Teams directly from Slack.

Alternatively, you can sync your MS Teams and Slack, and create automated workflows to send channel or chat messages on MS Teams from Slack.

Calendly

Calendly is ideal for creating schedules and appointments, especially when you want to explicitly tell your clients or team members when you are available and on what days. Syncing MS Teams and Calendly can help you send out channel or chat notifications for new events in Calendly. This keeps your teams informed and your meetings properly scheduled around the times you are available. More power to organized meeting schedules!

Google Calendar

If you are a Google Suite user, you definitely use Google Calendar to schedule all your meetings and reminders. While adding a calendar event across the G-suite apps is pretty easy, you can set up automated workflows to set up Google Calendar events from your MS Teams messages as well. The Microsoft Teams integration with Google Calendar lets you add events on new chat or channel messages in MS Teams, get notifications on upcoming events or when events start and also send out chat or channel notifications on new calendar events. Sync Google Calendar and Microsoft Teams, and get started.

Microsoft Teams for Project Management

Microsoft Teams has various native features that are designed to boost the productivity of your teams. With features like background changes, message threads, access controls, high contrast mode, channel-based working, Microsoft 365 integrations, together mode, etc. MS Teams keeps its users engaged and focussed.

However, there are several other project management apps that you already use. Instead of juggling between your project management app and MS Teams, integrate Teams with your choice of project management app to send out instant notifications and sync work better.

Set up Tasks on MS Teams Chats and Messages

Trello

Trello is one of the popular project management apps. The Kanban style of organizing work is not only easy to understand but even easier to get started. Add to this, Trello has a host of power-ups [including Automate.io] to connect with other apps.

If you are using Trello to manage your work and Teams for your collaborations, set up automated workflows between Trello and Teams to sync your entire work process.

Asana

Another project management app that various businesses use is Asana. Asana has elaborate features like goal tracking, task management, recurring tasks, and more. If you are using Asana to track and manage your work, and have Teams for collaboration, integrate Asana and Teams for an enhanced productivity workflow.

Google Sheets

Using Google Sheets is one of the simplest ways to track and manage work. It has several add-ons and formulas that make it an ideal choice for project management. If you are using Google Sheets to maintain a track of work progress and want to send out updates on MS Teams whenever a new row or column is added or do the reverse — update Google Sheets on a new MS Teams message, connect Google Sheets and Microsoft Teams to get these workflows in place.

Microsoft Teams Integrations for Marketing and Sales

Whether you are designing marketing or a sales strategy, you have elaborate discussions before its final. And these discussions are not those formal ones like on emails. You go back and forth on your ideas with your teams over your internal messaging apps. Not just this, even after your plan is in place and implemented, you want regular updates in your internal channels to keep a track of your campaigns. To put this entire workflow in place, you can simply integrate Microsoft Teams with your marketing and sales apps- it can be your form builder app, marketing automation tool, or CRM.

Leave the rest to automation!

Send Updates To MS Teams on New Form Entries

Google Forms

Google Forms is the easiest form builder to quickly capture information. All form entries are automatically captured on Google Spreadsheets. When a new form response is captured, you can send either a chat or a channel message on MS Teams to notify your team members about the same. Sync Google Sheets and Microsoft Teams to automatically send a chat or channel message on MS Teams on a new form response.

Typeform

Interactive forms add an edge when trying to capture lead information, be it for sales or for marketing. Typeform lets you build interactive forms that help in capturing maximum information quickly. Like with Google Forms, you can send notifications on MS Teams on a new form entry (via webhook). Whenever a new response comes in, you and your team instantly know about it. Integrate Typeform and Microsoft Teams to set up automated workflows between the two apps.

Send Leads and Deals Details To MS Teams Chats or Channels

Hubspot

Marketing automation tools like Hubspot give you insights on when a new contact signs up on your platform or when a marketing email is opened, along with details on which lead is on which buying stage. All of these details are important when planning and tracking your marketing campaigns. Since you collaborate and discuss ideas on MS Teams, integrate Microsoft Teams with Hubspot to get instant Teams notifications on new activities in Hubspot. Send out updates on email bounces, lead details modifications, new contacts, email clicks, and more.

Pipedrive

Tracking a sales lead and engaging it throughout the sales funnel requires close monitoring. And that is done through a CRM like Pipedrive. From accessing the buying intent to the time it will take to convert (and everything in-between), Pipedrive lets you create an entire sales workflow. To keep your team posted about all the sales activities happening inside your Pipedrive CRM, integrate Pipedrive with Microsoft Teams. This Microsoft Teams integration will help you send instant notifications on new contact activities, updates on new or existing deals, and more.

In Conclusion

Remote work is here to stay, for a long time now. As we move into a new way of working and settle ourselves in, using Microsoft teams with other apps is going to help you do a lot more in less time. After all, we are now in for a smarter way of working, and the possibilities with apps like Microsoft Teams are endless. Check out all other MS Teams integrations that you can try.