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Connecting Microsoft Teams to Slack via Unthread

Grace

• 4 min read
Connecting Microsoft Teams to Slack via Unthread

According to Microsoft's report in 2023, there are 320 Million active users of Microsoft Teams. On the other hand, Slack has a much smaller number of active users, 35 millions to be exact.

In a world where companies are using chat apps to communicate with each other, this widespread adoption presents a challenge: how can organizations effectively reach users across these two dominant communication tools?

Multi-platform Pain Points

Companies prefer to communicate with a platform they are familiar with. But while this preference will help streamline communication and reduce the learning curve within the team or the company, collaboration with other teams and companies is inevitable. Here are some of the challenges that one may encounter when collaborating with other teams and companies that use different platforms.

Fragmented Communication and Information Gaps

Currently there’s no native way to directly message or share files across these two platforms. This can create silos and hinder communication between teams. Employees may also miss important files and messages.

Operational Inefficiencies and Collaboration Challenges

Employees may be forced to copy information between platforms, increasing the risk of errors, data loss, and duplicated efforts. This constant switching not only takes time but also delays communication, slowing down decision-making and collaboration, ultimately impacting the overall efficiency.

Technical Barriers

As an organization expands, ensuring interoperability between platforms becomes increasingly complex. The exchange of data across platforms may introduce security issues, especially for sensitive data. Therefore, having them securely synchronize in real time is top priority.

Photo by GuerrillaBuzz / Unsplash

Cost Implications

Catering to both platforms requires managing multiple licenses and subscriptions, additionally, integrating and maintaining interoperability is costly in terms of time, training, support, manpower, and finances.

Ways to Connect Slack to Microsoft Teams

1. Unthread

One of the goals of the creators of Unthread is to help companies manage their internal and external communication efficiently and effectively. That covers the integration of Slack and MS Teams. Here are the instructions in setting up this integration.

  1. Visit “Settings” > “Microsoft Teams” page on your Unthread dashboard.
  2. Choose the Slack channel you want Teams messages to be posted to.
  3. Click “Connect”. This will trigger a popup asking for authorization to access Microsoft Teams. Confirm this.
  4. Depending on your permissions within Microsoft, you may be asked to submit a request to your Microsoft Teams administrator to approve the integration. If this is the case, you will be prompted to do so. Once the request has been approved, you will need to return to Unthread and click “Connect” again.

At present, keep in mind the following limitations:

  • Direct messaging synchronization between MS Teams and Slack is not supported by Unthread.
  • Formatting of each message is not preserved when synced.
  • The auto response functionality is currently not supported.

2. No-Code Tools

One example of No-Code software is Zapier. Here’s the most basic way to do it:

  1. Select a trigger from Microsoft Teams
  2. Set up an action from Slack

Zapier also offers different templates in connection to this. You can check them out here.

3. APIs, Webhooks, and Bots

For more advanced users, the possibility of leveraging APIs and bots for integration exists. However, this approach often requires technical expertise.

Why Choose Unthread?

If you want to skip doing the legwork of creating the workflow while bagging all the other features that can help your customer support hassle-free, Unthread is your best choice. We offer:

Unified Inbox Across Emails, In-App Chats, and Microsoft Teams

Unthread, being an omnichannel platform, centralizes support tickets into the web dashboard and into Slack from different platforms like emails and in-app chats, and Microsoft Teams. This feature skips the switching between applications allowing the agent to resolve the issue all in Slack or web dashboard, whichever is preferred, and have all the chat history in one place.

Seamless File Sharing

Files shared in Microsoft Teams are reflected in Slack and vice versa. No files are lost, keeping everything safe and secure.

Traceability and Analytics

Tracking response times, resolution times, and all the other relevant customer experience metrics across all channels (Slack, Teams, etc.) are consolidated in Unthread’s Analytics dashboard for efficient report creation and data driven decision making.

Wrapping it up

In conclusion, while there are other options to connect Microsoft Teams and Slack to each other, Unthread offers a more comprehensive solution other than simply connecting both platforms. Although there are limitations, Unthread’s out-of -the-box functionality eliminates the complex setup processes, making it a valuable tool for organizations leveraging both communication giants.

More Information:

Steps To Connect Microsoft Teams to Slack Using Unthread

References:

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