Four new ways to simplify your work with Microsoft Teams and Power Automate

by Scott Muniz | Aug 20, 2020 | Uncategorized

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

Microsoft Teams can help people stay connected while working apart with capabilities like chat, meetings, and calling, but users often ask how it can help streamline the work they do. Fortunately, Teams and Microsoft Power Automate work seamlessly together to simplify how you and your team work – whether you’re on the Sales team, the Product team, the HR team, or just the office ping pong team.

Power Automate allows you to create low-code workflow automation for yourself and your entire team using logic-based building blocks, starting with a trigger that sets one or more actions in motion. The new “for a selected message” trigger is unlocking new ways to drive business processes, starting from a message in Teams. Below are four examples of how teams are doing this, but the possibilities are endless. Templates are now available for each of these scenarios to help you get started right away!

1. Sales teams: Convert a chat to a Sales opportunity
“Create an opportunity from a message” template
Creating a customer opportunity is a critical step in any Sales process, and often that opportunity starts with a conversation. Now Teams users can create an opportunity right from the conversation where it began.

When you build the workflow below using the “for a selected message” trigger, anyone in your team can easily create a Sales opportunity just by clicking the “…” on the right side of a message and selecting “Create Sales Opportunity”. Simply fill out a custom form, and the information you enter is automatically sent to your CRM system.

2. Project Management teams: Track project information where your team works
“Create an item from a message” template
A rich and open dialogue means that projects can happen faster, and nearly all projects require us to keep lists – whether that’s a project status, the plan for an event, or a list of materials to develop.

SharePoint lists are a great way to organize information and rich file types for you and your team, and now Teams users can easily add content to their SharePoint lists directly from chat with this new Power Automate trigger. Once the flow has been created, users can add critical data to their list right from a chat – for example, when they learn that a project deliverable has been received.

3. Product teams: Streamline product development
“Create a work item from a message” template
The product development process is complex and often relies on multiple teams working together. With so much collaboration and planning happening over chat, messages can be a great way to request or report new work items to your development team.

By combining the “for selected message” trigger with the Azure DevOps “create a work item” action, you can now use the message as the starting point to create a work item. All the necessary details can be added to Azure DevOps to provide more details for the work item.

4. Any team: Follow-up on important conversations
“Follow-up on a message” template
Many of us have been there – you receive an important message right as you’re about to start a meeting or are in the flow of important work. Now it’s easy to remind yourself to follow-up on an important message from a colleague at a later time, like after your Teams meeting or once you’ve finish working on an important document.

Building a simple “follow-up” flow will allow anyone on the team to create a custom message reminder just by clicking the “…” on the right-hand side of a message and specifying when they want to be reminded. The Flow bot will send a reminder and a link to the message right in Teams.

Check out the “for a selected message” documentation to learn more about this new capability. Of course the examples above are just scratching the surface of what is possible for you and your team to automate, so check out the Power Automate templates for Teams and learn to build your own flows to achieve even more. We’re excited to hear about what you build!

[Guest Blog] Navigating my own journey in tech

by Scott Muniz | Aug 20, 2020 | Uncategorized

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

This article was written by Microsoft Ignite 2020 Humans of IT student ambassador Ebonee Swann, a Computer Information Systems graduating senior from Grambling State University. This is the second article in a series featuring this year’s student ambassadors. Ebonee shares about how she is currently navigating her personal career journey in tech.

Meet Ebonee – this is her story:

Ebonee Swann – Grambling State University Computer Information Systems undergraduate and Microsoft Ignite 2020 Student Ambassador

I always knew at a very young age that I craved a passion for technology. The small things such as troubleshooting the Wi-Fi at my Mom’s house would excite me. It was something that I looked forward to outside of school and going to cheer practice. Everyone in my household knew if they had a tech problem, they could count on me. I knew growing up that was the direction I wanted to take, but I just didn’t know how I would get there. Eventually life began to hit, and it was time to choose the college that would give me the tools I needed for success.

What changed my aspirations on life?

Nelson Mandela once said, “It always seems impossible until it’s done”.  This has been my personal mantra since my high school graduation in 2016. I never knew where I would end up or which college I would attend until I tried my luck at Alabama State University. I started off as a computer science major and quickly knew that it was NOT the major for me. After a few classes, I realized that I was unhappy there, and that I wasn’t going in the right direction. I decided it was best if I sat out a semester. During this time, I evaluated my life goals and decided to come up with another plan.

After tedious research I just knew that the college I transferred to next would be my last – I did not want to have to keep transferring and become unsettled each time. The college I decided to attend was Grambling State University – enrolling as a computer science freshman. I know what you’re thinking: why was I once again going down the same road I was before I left school the first time? I did not what my options were, but I knew it was time to make a change for my life and break generational curses.

Once I enrolled, I began looking at different options to change my major and sought the help of friends who were Computer Information Systems majors and ultimately helped lead me in the right direction. It was a big adjustment since it was a major that includes marketing, management, and accounting. After the first semester of changing my major I saw the change within myself. I started to take school more seriously, gained valuable connections and built positive relationships with my professors. Grambling State’s motto is, “Where everybody is somebody“, and I never really understood the full meaning until I started to take my career plan more seriously. I knew at that very moment I was finally gaining the keys to success and would do everything to make the best out of it. I fell in love with my school and professors more because they started to pour into my life more. I then learned about the importance of networking and setting goals for a real tech career after college. Now that I had the tools, I needed it was time to put them into action.

I’m not going to sugarcoat it – the journey is not easy: I went through numerous interviews and rejections. However, I always viewed them as stepping stones for my next opportunity. I knew I had to be patient and remain humble even on days when I wanted to give up. 

Today, I am now a graduating senior at the phenomenal Grambling State University. I have been given so many amazing opportunities that will stick with me for a lifetime. Being chosen for the Microsoft Ignite Student Ambassador is an opportunity that I would never imagine getting and it shows me that other people see and value my hard work.

I want to leave you with these words as you think about your own tech journey, no matter what stage you are in life: Never give up on your dreams even if someone says they are too big.

I want to give a huge thank you to my GSU family for molding me into a powerful and ambitious woman who will help shape the future of tech. 

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