Microsoft Teams has become the hub for teamwork in many organizations. With its tight integration across Microsoft 365 apps like Word, Excel, SharePoint and Outlook, Teams brings together chat, meetings, calling and file collaboration into a single platform.
ButTeams is most powerful when it can connect beyond just Microsoft apps. Integrating Teams with your other cloud software for sales, support, marketing and more can take your team‘s productivity to the next level.
That‘s where automation comes in…
Why Automate Microsoft Teams?
Automating routine tasks between Teams and your other systems eliminates manual busywork for you and your team. Instead of constantly switching between apps, you can automatically:
- Get important notifications and alerts in Teams channels or chats – No more missing customer emails or support tickets.
- Create and update Teams cards with data from project management tools, help desk, documents and more.
- Sync task status, sales deals, lead updates and other key info into Teams conversations in real-time.
- Build transparency by keeping all team members on the same page with changes happening across your business.
This keeps Teams as the central hub for your team while removing bottlenecks from manual work.
How to Automate Workflows with Microsoft Teams
Zapier is the easiest way for non-developers to automate Microsoft Teams. You don‘t need any coding skills to build simple or complex workflows between Teams and other apps.
It works like this:
- Connect Microsoft Teams to any of the 3000+ integrated apps on Zapier.
- Pick a trigger – this decides when your Zap runs: When new data is added, at a schedule time, etc.
- Choose an action – what you want the Zap to automatically do in Teams: Post message, create task card, add row to table, etc.
- Set filters to customize your automation to trigger only for specific scenarios you care about.
These are called Zaps, which you can set up in just minutes with no developers needed. Let‘s look at 6 ways you can automate some of Teams‘ most popular features.
1. Get Real-Time Email Notifications
Missing important customer emails or notifications is easy if you‘re heads down in Teams chats and meetings. Zapier‘s Office 365 integration lets you get email alerts from Outlook right in any Teams channel or direct message chat.
Now anytime emails come matching your filter, your team is notified instantly so you can provide excellent customer service. No more manual checking! Other popular email integrations like Gmail work similarly.
2. Automate Reminders for Meetings and Deadlines
Teams allows you to set reminders on Planner task cards, but what about important meetings or project deadlines in your calendar? This Zap builds automated reminder messages in any Teams channel or chat based on events from Office 365 Calendar, Google Calendar, or any supported calendar app.
No more worrying about forgetting internal meetings or external deadlines! Now your team gets friendly reminder messages in advance of appointments so everyone shows up prepared.
3. Track New Lead Notifications
Sales teams love using Teams as a hub for working leads and closing deals. But without automation, new leads from your website, landing pages or ads can be missed in noisy Teams conversations. This Zap posts new lead notification cards in any Teams channel automatically when submissions come in from forms or other marketing tools.
Now your sales reps have visibility when leads come in from campaigns or other sources, allowing them to follow up faster. This helps your team‘s win rate by responding quickly when prospects are hot.
4. See Office Document Updates
Collaborating on Office documents from Teams is easy. But it can be tough to keep track of who changed what, and when edits were made. Rather than manually reviewing audit logs, this Zap posts in any Teams channel or chat when changes happen on your shared Office 365 documents.
Now your team has greater transparency around edits on shared Excel financials, Word marketing assets, Powerpoint decks and other files. Commenting right in Teams helps align better and speeds up reviews.
5. Sync Project Tasks into Conversations
Teams enables basic task management with Planner integration. But for power users, dedicated project tools like Asana, Trello, Jira and others are preferred. Rather than forcing your team to switch between apps, this Zap posts cards automatically in Teams channels/chats when actions occur like:
- New tasks assigned in Asana
- Tickets resolved in Jira
- Checklist items marked complete in Trello
Now your full team stays updated on important project changes without having to login to other systems. Comments, task progress and relevant discussions can happen transparently in Teams around the work.
6. Get Marketing Campaign Alerts
For marketing teams, set up Zaps to post alert cards in Teams channels when important campaign events occur such as:
- Email sent and opened ✉️
- Tweets and posts published 🐦
- Ads running or paused 📺
- Landing pages and forms submitted 🙌
No more manually logging into multiple point solutions to check metrics or remember if your latest assets and offers pushed. Now Zapier can handle posting into Teams automatically so your marketing channels are visible in one place.
Conclusion
Microsoft Teams excels at uniting your collaboration, communication and content management into a cohesive hub for teamwork with Office 365 integration built-in.
But to operate at maximum productivity for busy teams, automation is key to removing manual processes between systems.
As this guide demonstrated, it only takes minutes to set up Zaps that sync notifications, tasks, documents and data between Teams channels and your other essential SaaS apps.
Now your team can work efficiently together whether selling deals, executing projects or running marketing campaigns without having to switch context or re-learn new UIs constantly.
Check out hundreds of Microsoft Teams templates to streamline workflows in:
✔️ Sales & CRM
✔️ Support & Feedback
✔️ Finance
✔️ HR & Recruiting
✔️ Software Development
✔️ Marketing & Social Media
By taking advantage of automation, you allow people to focus on more strategic high-value work rather than manual processes. This compounds to make bigger business impacts over time.
Try out pre-made Zaps to supercharge your team‘s collaboration today! Let me know in the comments if you have any questions.
