Quick tip : how to do a poll during a Microsoft Teams meeting

 A colleague showed me last week how to do a poll during Microsoft Teams meeting - check out the video below on how to set this up yourself and add some interactivity to meetings

 

Integrate Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement apps with Microsoft Teams (Preview)

Warning: This preview is currently only fully available for organizations in the North American region.

Microsoft Teams is a chat-based collaborative tool, where people can work on documents, exchange information using chat – check out the what is Microsoft Teams video from the Microsoft teams video training series if you have not worked with it previously. One of  the interesting capabilities of Microsoft teams is that it allows you to add new apps within your team workspace – these apps are available in the Teams store, and can be custom built by you for distribution through the store or directly to your users (also Take a look at 30 invaluable integrations that you should be using with Microsoft Teams for some great examples of apps that are available)

In November 2018 Microsoft added a “Dynamics 365” app to this ever growing list of apps – it currently provides 3 important capabilities:

• Provide  Dynamics 365 chat bot functionality in the team  conversations
• Work with Dynamics 365 records directly from within Microsoft Teams.  Teams now has the possibility to link an existing Dynamics 365 record so that users are able to both view and edit information about this Dynamics 365 within Microsoft teams and even navigate to related records without leaving Microsoft teams.
• Link Microsoft Teams files to Dynamics 365 records

In the next sections we will delve a little deeper in some of the functionality.

Working with the Dynamics 365 bot in Teams
After you have installed the Dynamics 365 App from the Teams store (See Install and setup the Dynamics 365 App for Teams for more details) , you will be able to use the new sales bot functionality within the Conversations tab of the app

When you first open the bot you need to connect it to a specific Dynamics 365 organization instance – afterwards you are able change this setting.

For the moment the functionality is still rough on the edges basic but more functionality will probably be added throughout the preview.  The bot allows you to lookup information in Dynamics 365 using natural language – e.g. you can search for an opportunity “Audio equipment” by just typing “search audio equipment” or “lookup audio equipment” or “find audio equipment” which will surface a card with information about that opportunity.  Behind the scenes the bot will connect to the LUIS Azure Cognitive Services to understand the intent of your message to retrieve the most important information. Through the bot you will also be able to update basic information of this opportunity like the amount, close date, etc… This functionality is also available from within the Microsoft Teams mobile app

Working with Dynamics 365 records from within Microsoft Teams
You can now also add a new tab to the top of your channel which uses a specific app – if you link the Dynamics 365 app here you can connect it to a specific Dynamics 365 record.

Users who do not have a Dynamics 365 license or not a valid security role in Dynamics 365 will not be able to access the information but will receive a warning

Linking Microsoft Teams files to Dynamics 365 records
When you create a new Microsoft team behind the scenes a SharePoint Online site is being used, and each channel in a team gets a folder within the default team site document library (Read How SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business interact with Microsoft Teams for more details and watch the video Foundations of Microsoft Teams to get an architectural overview)  So basically the integration between Dynamics 365 and files in Teams is being built on top of the existing SharePoint integration for which the fundamentals already existed.

To be able to link Microsoft Teams files to Dynamics 365 records you will first need to activate preview functionality within your Dynamics 365 system settings (Settings>Administration>System settings)

Next a new button will appear in your mean which allow you to link to a specific team and channel.

The linked  Teams documents will appear in the same place as linked SharePoint documents (under the cover they actually are stored in SharePoint  - take a look at Showing SharePoint document properties in Dynamics CRM views for a more detailed explanation of how this is done).

For the official documentation on this preview see  Preview: Integrate Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement apps with Microsoft Teams

Trends impacting collaborative tools and platforms

I have been working for quite some years now consulting companies mostly on the technical side of building and designing collaborative environments but when preparing for a presentation about why people should upgrade their current environment to the latest (and off course greatest) version I tried to summarize some trends which significantly impact the way that we should think about these environments.

• It’s a multi-device & mobile world.  90% of people use multiple screens sequentially to accomplish their goals with search being the most common ways consumers continue from one device to another (Source Google: The New multi-screen world study )
• Social collaboration is the new norm. 82% of the world’s online population engages in social networks. The usage of social tools has changed the mindset of people and is blurring the division between private and work life. People are expecting to same ease of connecting with co-workers and keeping up to date  within the enterprise as they are used to connect and follow their social network outside  outside of it. The fact that a new digital generation ( a.k.a Generation Y) is entering the workforce will put even more pressure on companies to embrace social tools.
• Businesses are faced with an increased pace of change. Most people seem to think that the accelerating change is typical for technology but this accelerated pace of change also applies to business in general. According to research the average lifespan of a S&P 500 company is 18 years today (compared with 68 years in 1950). At this rate 75% of the S&P 500 will be replaced by 2027 (Source Innosight.com, 2012: Creative destruction whips through corporate America). Extrapolating from past patterns by the end of the year 2020, the average lifespan will have been shortened to about 10 years (See Survival and performance in the era of discontinuity). The only corporate survivors will be those that can increase the rate of creative destruction without losing control of present operations.
• No man is an island – collaboration is required for value creation. 66% of CIOs from top-performing organizations see collaboration as key to innovation. (Source: IBM CIO study, 2001). Most tasks performed by knowledge workers have become so complex that they require people with diverse skill sets and from multiple disciplines to collaborate. Unfortunately organization are still quite hierarchical organized which impedes efficient collaboration. Definitely read – Enterprise Social Networks what has changed and the changing role of middle management
• Renewed focus on people as the core asset in the battle for companies survival.  Although the next quote was made by Andrew Carnegie at the end of the 19th century it holds more true then ever.
The only irreplaceable capital an organization possesses is the knowledge and ability of its people. The productivity of that capital depends on how effectively people share their competence with those who can use it.
If you look at information workers (the typically users of your platform) you will notice a shift in structure based work (Processes, routines,controls,…) to more knowledge based work (research, problem-solving, relationship driven,…) But knowledge workers are more likely to excel when they are engaged. Gallup estimates that engaged employees are 18% more productive and that attrition decreases with 51%. At the same time employees are expecting more from their employers. They don’t just go to work to get paid, they want to be motivated, challenged and have a clear purpose( definitely check out the video What motivates us?)
Related posts:

• Enterprise 2.0 and organizational culture
• Knowledge and talent in a people ready business
• Knowledge is power! So why share your knowledge?
• The value in social networks
• Colleagues, Social Distance & Relevance in People Search, and other Social Networking tools in SharePoint