Microsoft Teams gets live share feature and new collaboration apps

At the Build 2022 developer conference on Tuesday, May 24, Microsoft announced new tools for developers to create collaboration solutions for Teams and Microsoft 365. The Redmond giant has also unveiled a new Live Share feature for Microsoft Teams apps.

The new Live Share experience is based on Fluid Framework and enables meeting participants to create, edit, annotate, communicate, zoom in and out, and collaborate on shared content with colleagues. This feature is designed to support various collaboration scenarios, such as technical revisions, video workflow reviews, and game-based programming classes.

Microsoft has released Teams SDK extensions in preview to help developers and independent software vendors (ISVs) add the new Live Share capabilities to their apps.

New Approval APIs

In addition to the new Live Share feature, Microsoft announced the general availability of Teams JavaScript SDK 2.0 and App manifest version 1.13. It should help developers extend the personal tabs and search-based message extensions of their Teams app to other Microsoft 365 apps such as Outlook and Office.com.

There are also new Create, Read, Update, Delete (CRUD) Approvals APIs that will be available in preview this summer. The new APIs allow developers to integrate approvals functionality into their applications.

Add Microsoft Power Apps collaboration controls

Next, Microsoft plans to add support for collaboration controls to its Power apps this summer. This means that developers can now integrate Teams meetings, chat, files, tasks and approvals directly into their Power Apps.

The company is also introducing several new Microsoft Graph APIs for Teams in public preview. The new APIs add support for several new features, such as federated chats, read confirmations and subscriptions for chats and membership changes.

Microsoft Teams Toolkit for Visual Studio Code

Microsoft has announced the general availability of the Teams Toolkit for Visual Studio Code and Visual Studio this month. Allows developers to quickly create and deploy Teams apps to the web and mobile. The Teams Toolkit offers several features for building and publishing assignments, notifications, and responses for business actions.

Updates to the App Store for Teams

Microsoft Teams App Store gets a number of enhancements to help developers generate revenue with their apps and increase engagement. These include new AI-powered recommendations and app flyouts and license management capabilities. There is also a new in-app purchase for Teams apps and you can check out this support document for more information.

Microsoft Loop improvements

Microsoft has announced that developers can create Loop components starting next month. However, it is up to developers to decide whether to convert existing Adaptive Cards or create new Adaptive Card-based Loop components. In addition, it is possible to copy and paste these Loop components into Outlook emails and Teams chats, although there is no ETA.

Automation tool for app compliance for Microsoft 365

Last but not least, Microsoft has launched a new App Compliance Automation Tool for Microsoft 365 apps in public preview. The new tool should enable independent software vendors (ISVs) to ensure that their apps meet security and compliance requirements.

Microsoft Teams is also getting a slew of new collaboration apps from ISV partners. The list includes Bosch Cognitive Service Maintenance, Figma, Observable, MURAL, ServiceDesk Plus Cloud and SAP S/4HANA operational buyer chatbot.

Source: Petri