Microsoft 365 Community Community Demos, 2 Jun 2022

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From YouTube: Power Platform + Microsoft Teams: Create a "back-channel" internal chat for any meeting

Description

In this 9-minute citizen developer-focused demo, Amber Weise delivers an essential tool – QuickChat, a Power App that pulls in your calendar information, displays a list of meetings from which you choose one to initiate an internal chat in Teams. How? A Power Automate workflow grabs meeting attendees (members of your domain), creates a Team Group chat and creates the initial chat message that’s sent by the Power Automate bot informing individuals a chat in which they are a participant has been created. This PnP Community demo is taken from the Microsoft Power Apps community call – May 2022, recorded on May 18, 2022.

Demo Presenter
• Amber Weise (Microsoft) | linkedin.com/in/amberweise/

Supporting materials
• Article - Power Platform + Microsoft Teams: Create a "back-channel" internal chat for any meeting | https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/power-platform-microsoft-teams-create-back-channel-internal-weise/
• Repo - Power Platform | https://github.com/amweise/PowerPlatform

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Learn more
• Microsoft 365 Unified Sample gallery - https://aka.ms/m365/samples
• Microsoft 365 Platform Community in YouTube - https://aka.ms/m365/videos
• Microsoft 365 Platform Community Blog - https://aka.ms/m365pnp/blog
• Microsoft 365 Platform Community - https://aka.ms/m365pnp

A

So if you give me 10 minutes today, I think I can show you something that is pretty useful to the majority of folks here. um So a quick introduction here, my name is amber weiss. I am a power platform global black belt at microsoft, which is just a fancy way to say that I'm here to help customers adopt the power platform kind of remove those technical blockers. So I am on our technical specialist team, so I focus on the you know the true technical side of the power platform, I'm based in milwaukee wisconsin.

A

I've been with microsoft for about four years, so I want to first talk about a moment that I had with my teammate. We were. We were chatting in our global black belt group chat and somebody said: how do you always create those back channel like those chats that you have? You know you're you're in a customer call and you're, also like with the microsoft folks, and you want to pull your team aside to ask them a question: how do you create those those you know?

A

What's the app that you use and um our team's like yeah, we do that manually and so when you're, a team full of power, app nerds, somebody's going to say, okay I'll, go build that right. I wish there was an app for that, and so I think that this was a great. You know real use case for me to be able to take.

A

You know a moment where I had the I wish there was an app for that moment and turn it into something that actually has really grown to be an awesome app within microsoft, that a lot of folks are using. So if you've ever had that moment where you want to, like you know, ask your teammates: hey pull off to the side. How am I doing on time? Is my pitch landing uh hey? Who wants to take that last item as a follow-up right? These are the things you maybe want to start.

A

That side group chat to say are: we is everyone fully aligned on what's happening here? um So if does this resonate with anybody like maybe thumbs up, give me a thumbs up reaction? If anybody has ever had this experience, where you're in a a chat, you want to pull some people aside right, and so what I did here is I created this app.

A

I called it quick chat and what it is is it's a powerapp that I surface in teams that allows you to take the meetings on your office, 365 outlook, calendar and then um specify you know, being able to click on that item and being able to pull everybody internal to your organization, who's on that meeting in the chat in a chat and start a group chat um using those individuals.

A

So, as you can see here, this is the the user interface and I'll actually show you a demo of this. But what it does is a power automate. Workflow is kicked off. That then looks at your domain right that at microsoft.com part of your email and then says who's everybody who's on this call. That is also a part of that same domain for me at microsoft.com.

A

So it filters through all of that and then actually creates a group chat and then sends um you know renames. The group chat according to the the actual invite and then sends that first message saying: hey amber weiss has created this group chat using power, automate shameless plug for the power platform, always but that's how the whole process works, and it took me two hours to build this and I think that's you know the beauty of the power platform. Is that quick time to value two hours?

A

And I say guys, how does this look looks great you're, like cool? You should add this feature in that feature right, and I think that probably resonates with all of us here is that the power platform you know, allows you to build things fast and really prove out value for a use case, and so this is a screenshot here of that last message that comes out and says: hey, you know, welcome uh amber started this chat.

A

Another thing I added to this is a way for an app to have organic growth. So I know that you know there's kind of, like the shame on you. If you use the share with everyone option, when you're sharing out a power app right like not really best practice, does everyone truly need it, but there's some times where you're saying well, I want this to be able to grow organically, and so what I did in my app is.

A

I created this ability to share the app with a friend, and all a user has to do is input um their. You know internal friends, uh microsoft, email in there and then I actually take it put in a sharepoint list and then pick it up from there and then it what it does is. It adds the user to the backend group that manages access to the app and then, whenever somebody is added to that that group, it also sends them an email saying: hey you've been added to this quick chat group.

A

Here's what this app is all about: here's: how to pin it in teams all of those really um awesome features, so that was kind of a side piece that I added on and continued to add on. As I'm seeing you know, new requests come in about this application.

A

So let me give you a quick uh peek at this app, so what I do here is, I actually have it pinned on the rail in teams.

A

This is a demo environment, um but make it really easy for if I'm in a a meeting to be able to come in here and say, hey I'm on you know, I'm in this meeting right now who's a part of that, let's show the attendees okay, these are the people that would be added to the chat with me and what I can do is I can choose to add optional attendees as well.

A

Otherwise I can just start that internal chat and then what you'll see is that the workflow will run and then it'll add those folks into the chat, rename the chat for me and then send that initial message. So in a moment here we'll see um that group chat being created and there we see it and it says internal and then sync on project the name of our specific meeting and then says that I've created this chat and then we can go in and start typing away and talking with each other.

A

So you know it's a cool app, we've all created, really awesome apps, and I think this is a really um great app that a lot of folks have been using within microsoft, but I think the one of the cooler like bigger pictures here is the you know: power platform plus microsoft teams story um so being able to enhance and augment really that teams as a platform by using power platform. I think that being able to meet the users where they are is really important.

A

A lot of us spend the majority of our day in teams and so being able to have that app pinned right on the left left side. Rail is really um helpful and easy to access for folks and also a you know. A shameless uh plug here is like imagine if we could drive power platform interest through teams right, it takes that one message when you're in a big chat and then also that message comes through saying, amber created this group chat via power automate and everyone's like wait. A second.

A

I want that right and so what? If we ever? What? If we could get to that point where the team's usage and power platform usage was the same right, that's like the dream goal here is to make everybody who's in teams using power platform, and I think this is a great way to do it.

A

It gives you a like hand like hands-on example of how to make this happen, how to use the platform and actually a lot of our sales folks, they'd say you know I pitch power platform all day, but I don't have an app that I use day in day out that I can actually like connect with a customer and say hey. This is how I use power platform every day, and this has kind of been on their tool belt now is they'll, say hey!

A

You want to see something I use every day, so it's kind of empowered, a lot of folks in our organization to be able to create these chats and then also being able to just talk about the the power of power platform, plus teams and honestly I'll also add, plus azure, because I have app insights tied into this as well so I'll put in the chat some reference materials for a linkedin article, a blog that I wrote and also where to grab it on github feel free to take it modify it run with it.

A

Let me know if you have any ideas, this is really was just again born out of having that. I wish there was an app for that moment, and uh you know it kind of has turned into something that a lot of folks have drawn really uh interest to. So with that. That is uh all I have for you today, so I'll see. If there's any questions.

B

Amber there was one question that popped up and I think people said after you add the internal attendees. Can you take them out? I thought I saw that capability in there in your app.

A

Yeah, so you could take folks out of a of the meeting or, if you're, like, oh, hey and also I do want to add this additional person. You could do that. Okay, um I don't want this to be like a you know like a a secret app where we have like a secret meeting. It's more about being able to.

A

You know quickly, do things that you do anyway manually and having those moments on the side to say: hey did somebody catch that last follow-up item like how do we, you know, so being it more of a again empowering the end users rather than you know, creating little secret side chats but yeah, it's really uh been, you can easily add and remove people you can, you know, add and continue as like a persistent chat because it doesn't go away after the meeting.

B

That's awesome. I can totally see how this could hook into that meeting capture app. That's one of the sample templates. Nice fit one more question for you. I love the solution. You did to help organically grow it by letting people spread. The word through the app is that a component by any chance.

A

It's not, but it definitely.

B

Should be, I would love to snap that component into lots of different apps. That would be cool.

A

Yeah I say that my uh my goal for this next fiscal year is to be more. You know I create these awesome things and I forget to package them and put them out there and.

B

See how it goes be.

A

More intentional about doing that. um So I'll definitely put that on my list. It's a great point.

B

Awesome. Thank you very much.

B

uh I see people asking in chat when is the app available or uh we'll get the heidi's about to drop these links into the chat for you, so you can download it and try it out.

B

That's awesome and then.

A

I'll put the chat up, yeah I'll, put the links in the chat um so that you all can grab it from github.

B

Thanks a ton amber.

A

Thank you. I'm.

B

Awesome, I'm gonna be downloading it this afternoon, too,.

A

B

Always have a busy day after these community calls to try out all these new things. I see.