Microsoft Teams just added two new apps to boost your productivity

Microsoft has unveiled two new Power Apps to add to its Teams online collaboration package, with Bulletins and Milestones arriving as line-of-business applications for Dataverse for Teams. 

The Bulletins and Milestones apps are built on the Power Platform, and so can be extended using the low-code platform within Teams to tailor the apps to each business's needs, which Microsoft said would enable "immediate productivity gains". Dataverse is the new name for Microsoft's previously vaguely named big data service called the Common Data Service (CDS), which it used inside Teams. 

Bulletins, as the name suggests, is about keeping work teams informed as they're working remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Keeping your team informed of the latest company news and information is critical in normal times – even more so when team members are working remotely during the pandemic," Microsoft says. 

"The Bulletins solution empowers the communication team to share company or departmental news and information in a central place. News articles can be organized under categories and contain rich content, including images, videos, actionable buttons. Publishers can also view metrics for articles posted, such as view rates over time."

Users on Teams can pin the Bulletins app on the left panel of Teams and can customize their views or bookmark interesting articles.

It's also optimized for iOS and Android devices to allow users to post or read new messages. 

Microsoft is thinking about frontline workers in the field who need to send and receive prescient information, such as weather updates and system outages. Companies can also add their own branding to apps. 

Milestones is another Teams app that aims to help users keep track of the status of goals that teams have set. 

"Milestones improve collaboration for these cross-functional teams by creating a central place to track status and updates. This app can be pinned to the team's channel or on the left rail for easy access," Microsoft said.

The app is also extensible, allowing it to be used with other project tracking software but in a friendly low-code package that allows users to update fields, add new fields, or add notifications based on a particular workflow. 

Microsoft has unveiled two new Power Apps to add to its Teams online collaboration package, with Bulletins and Milestones arriving as line-of-business applications for Dataverse for Teams. 

The Bulletins and Milestones apps are built on the Power Platform, and so can be extended using the low-code platform within Teams to tailor the apps to each business's needs, which Microsoft said would enable "immediate productivity gains". Dataverse is the new name for Microsoft's previously vaguely named big data service called the Common Data Service (CDS), which it used inside Teams. 

Bulletins, as the name suggests, is about keeping work teams informed as they're working remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Keeping your team informed of the latest company news and information is critical in normal times – even more so when team members are working remotely during the pandemic," Microsoft says. 

"The Bulletins solution empowers the communication team to share company or departmental news and information in a central place. News articles can be organized under categories and contain rich content, including images, videos, actionable buttons. Publishers can also view metrics for articles posted, such as view rates over time."

Users on Teams can pin the Bulletins app on the left panel of Teams and can customize their views or bookmark interesting articles.

It's also optimized for iOS and Android devices to allow users to post or read new messages. 

Microsoft is thinking about frontline workers in the field who need to send and receive prescient information, such as weather updates and system outages. Companies can also add their own branding to apps. 

Milestones is another Teams app that aims to help users keep track of the status of goals that teams have set. 

"Milestones improve collaboration for these cross-functional teams by creating a central place to track status and updates. This app can be pinned to the team's channel or on the left rail for easy access," Microsoft said.

The app is also extensible, allowing it to be used with other project tracking software but in a friendly low-code package that allows users to update fields, add new fields, or add notifications based on a particular workflow.