So thank you so much for joining us for another edition of Teams Superheroes. As
always I'm really stoked about what we're chatting through today.
Would you mind introducing yourself Prem? My name is Prem Mathiyalagan. I'm a program
manager with Microsoft Teams here. I work on the app platform within Microsoft
Teams. I come in everyday thinking about how every user that uses Teams can
bring the tools that they use on a daily basis within Teams so it's part of the
conversations that I have every day to just get their work done as quickly and
as efficiently as possible. So some of the things that I work on on
a daily basis is the app catalog within Teams where users can go and explore
the various apps that we have in Teams. Just to clarify for everybody watching, app catalog, and when
you reference that we're talking bottom, left-hand side of your Team's desktop
application where you click on it and you've got the app store sitting there
right? That's exactly right. So there's an apps button on the left hand side of
Teams. If you go in, that has all the different apps that we have within Teams
that you can bring in to your teams and channels and start using them and
there's other experiences within Teams as well or you can use apps on a daily
basis that I also think about. The big thing for us is to kind of make it feel
like the apps that every user needs to get their work done quickly and
efficiently is available to them at their fingertips,
where they need them and when they need them. Right, but for me it's not just about
bringing apps into Teams, because yes there is some inherent value to that you
have conversation around the applications and you have your teams and
your groups, but it's how does that application become more?
How is it easier for me to interact with that application inside of Teams? I mean
this is core to what you guys are working, right, which I find so exciting.
Exactly and like if you think about it, on a day to day basis, to get something
done, a user, our customers have to communicate with the rest of their team
right? On a daily basis. Really work g ets done as part of these conversations.
Tools are just a means for you to get something done right and
and we bring these tools in context of these conversations that's where we
light up the value for users. Now back to one of the first things we spoke about
here I think this is an incredibly important point because it's not just
about integration for integration's sake, because if we're being really
honest if somebody's a savvy user of technology, well there's absolutely a ton
of value to having applications alongside conversations, I want it to be
more you know you're like I want to get more out of my apps and for them to
follow me across the canvas of Teams, so I don't even need to context switch in
Teams itself, exactly, and so what you guys are doing there is just incredibly
valuable I think for everybody but I love that your mindsets also on the
end-user not just the technically savvy person who will go figure it out
themselves. So thinking about why you guys are doing this we kind of talk
through but maybe if you could walk through some of the details on what
you're working on in specifics around the application experience inside of
Teams. I just want to clarify for everybody watching this isn't just
Microsoft apps right? This is applicable to partners, this is applicable to
organizations who have built their own home-grown or line of business solutions
in Teams is that correct? Yeah absolutely correct. So I mean if
you think about the app catalog within Teams we have the obvious candidates
like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Planner. On top of it we have our external partners
that bring their tools into Teams. So some examples are apps likeTrello, MindMeister, Invision, and there's hundreds of apps within the catalog -
lots of good ones coming too - yeah and lots of new ones coming up too. And on top of it, every
company they've started building their own apps so they can bring the tools
that's needed within that company to be available for all of the users to
choose in Teams. So these are the line of business apps thats available. I think this one's really
cool right because it takes the, we start thinking about these applications
beyond just the ones that are there for productivity even though all of this is
in the context of productivity, right, and collaboration, but it's these HR
resources, these IT support, it's you know project management, all these tools
that aren't necessarily always related to what we think about when it comes to
Office and now we're bringing that together and it's just cool amazing
space that you guys have created with Teams that is fantastic.
Yeah exactly, and one of the recent features that we shipped for Teams actually
is a good manifestation of this. We have the app layout on the left side of Teams, so
if users click on dot dot dot button, you can see all the apps that's available for
users. One of the things we've done now is we've implemented a new grid
layout so it's much more usable for users right like they have a good sense
of what apps are available to them and on top of it we also integrated seach
right on top of it so even if a user wants to use an external app in that
context if they wanted to use one of the line of business apps published by their
company in that context they can quickly search for it and then start using it so
it's like without having to leave what they're trying to do like without having
to jump to this catalog page and find this app they can just get it right
there. Again this is to kind of deliver on the apps feel available to users
where they need them and when they need them philosophy right? Love that. That's a
good example. So you're not bouncing back and forth even in Teams any more at that point right? Exactly.
That's killer. Hey, so real quick, I forgot about this when I
mentioned earlier. If I'm a user and I watch this video and I click on my
bottom left hand side of Teams and go to the catalog and it's not empty
necessarily, but there's fewer apps, why is that? Well so obviously Teams is a big
enterprise product and we want to make sure that the IT admins of every company
they have full control over what's available to their users. So one of the
things we provide to IT admins within every company is this option for them to
limit access to a certain apps within their company for whatever reason.
I was really excited about this feature that I got to test because I'm on the
early engineering builds recently, but how much can we talk about user app pinning?
Oh yeah, I would love to talk about user app pinning, that's probably a crown jewel
in some of the things that we've done recently in user experiences. So
again this is not a feature that's been fully rolled out yet, it's available to
our beta users now and we're looking to roll this out proudly. What we've had so
far is that you just have to click the dot-dot-dot and then select the app that
they want to use. We've improved that experience but we've
also noticed that there's a select few apps that people need on a daily basis
to get things done. So now what we provide users is that they can simply go
to the dot-dot-dot flyout and then right-click on the app that they use on
a daily basis and pin it onto the left side of Teams. So right now it's at their
fingertips. I think one point maybe we clarify that too is that if this hasn't
rolled out to a certain organization, tenant admins can do this today for
users right, and what I found a lot of organizations have found really
compelling as a way to start is how do you take something like a adoption
and change management tool or a website that you use internally to educate your
people how to use technology and pin that in Teams? So teaching people to use
Teams in Teams is one simple example, and obviously the possibilities are
endless, but I love that we're making it more personal for the end-user as well
so I can customize my experience that's awesome.
Yeah this is really just to cater to the unique needs that every user would have
within that organization. So the other thing we were chatting about earlier too
was app install flow. Can you talk to us about what you're working on there? To clarify there, so I'm a user,
I want to, like you mentioned Trello earlier, I want to
bring Trello into my Team's experience. So I go click on the store icon, I go in
and it's that experience right there how do we make that simpler right? Exactly. So what
we've done in new install flow, like if your user goes to apps on the bottom, left hand
side of Team's, is they can select an app and now we have a slightly larger
canvas with screenshots and videos as the centerpiece right? We've
learned from user research that users use these screenshots as a
valuable piece of information to understand how each app works right? So
that's the centerpiece, and then we also have better descriptions for every app
and we have a simple call to action which is just an add button for users
right? So it's super clean, I love how it's turned out and I love the fact
that we have videos and screenshots as the centerpiece of it and
users can just click the add button and start using the app. So I know
there's only certain things that we can share with all the goodness that you
guys are working on next because this video of course will be publically available,
but is there anything that we can share on what your team, even if
just what you're thinking about is the next evolution of what you're building?
One of the things that we're working on that I'm so super excited about is this
concept of if a user uses an app once for themselves or in any of their teams,
we're trying to make it available across all the Team's channels and chats that
they're part of right, as they start you know using the other channels.
So the app follows you basically? The app follows the user right. This doesn't mean
that once you add it in one place its installed every for you because that
would be bad. This is just to make sure that the app is available to them at the
top level like where they need it right? So I am super excited
about because in this case you know if I'm a user of a given tool, it's
highly likely that I would want to use it in other conversations that I'm part
of. So we'll take an example right if I use Trello, I'll pick that as an example,
and I've used it to pin a board to a team, and I'm working in another team and
I go to the tab gallery, this is when you click on the plus button to the top of
Teams, Trello would be one of the apps that is already available in the
team. That user would just click it and start using it they don't have to go
back into the catalog to go find for it, they don't have to go search for it, it's
just right there right? We're trying to also continue to look at how we can
build overall relevance of how these apps are surfaced to the user and this
doesn't just include the tab gallery, this is when you click on the plus
button, this also includes how apps are surfaced within the catalog itself like
how we can make it just more relevant so the app that might be useful to that
given user, that's more prominently placed as opposed to just having to go
hunt for them. So these are a couple of features that we're super excited about
should be rolling out in the next, you know, few months. In terms of, if I
want to start leveraging applications in Teams, where would you recommend me
to go first as an end user? The one place I would recommend you go to is the apps
button on the left hand side, bottom left hand side of Teams. That would
have the full selection of apps that we have and you can start using your
favorite app. The catalog would also have any apps that your company
might have published for you. And a reminder that if you go look
and see it, and you only see a few apps on there you don't see any in some cases,
make sure you reach out to your IT department because they're the ones who have
the ability to determine which apps you can see in that store. So this is awesome.
Prem, you're a legend dude. Thank you so much for spending the time. It's awesome to
have you on here, our first actual engineer too on the call so it's great to
have you here and hear all the work that you guys are doing so appreciate your time man.
Awesome thank you so much, cheers. Cheers.