Microsoft Teams Developer Preview announced

Microsoft today announced Teams, a new chat-based workspace for Office 365 users. Microsoft Teams allows users to communicate with each other within a team, and it includes a lot of integrations, too. However, users will also be able to extend Microsoft Teams with bots and much more. Today, Microsoft is also launching the Developer Preview for Microsoft Teams. With the developer preview, developers can integrate their own apps and systems right into Microsoft Teams.

Firstly, the developer preview will allow developers to build custom tabs which will essentially allow users to show a whole range of things. For instance, you can show a graph which shows the growth of your app or company. In addition to custom tabs, Microsoft is also allowing developers to build intelligent bots right into Teams. This is made possible using the Microsoft Bot Framework, which already works with services such as Skype, Facebook Messenger, and even Slack. If you build a bot using the Bot Framework, you will be able to connect it to Microsoft Teams — and of course, you will also be able to use it from other services, too.

And lastly, Microsoft Teams Developer Preview also allows developers to build Office 365 Connectors. This will basically allow users to automate things — for instance, there’s a connector for GitHub which will show the latest commits and more right on Teams once setup. Thanks to this feature, developers can also build their own Connectors and connect them up with their team on Microsoft Teams.

If you are a developer willing to start building for Microsoft Teams, you can get started here.