Microsoft 365 Community Microsoft Teams, 9 Jul 2021

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From YouTube: Our learnings from the AppSource submission for Microsoft Teams

Description

In this 17-minute all audiences-focused demo, Florian Grasel - a first timer documents the journey - a 7-step process of going from idea to app in AppSource. Solid tips beyond the process that every product team should consider ranging from extension opportunities and testing to devices and post publishing maintenance. Prepare to fail gracefully and learn openly as the journey includes working closely with a Microsoft submissions team that’s completely interested in your success. This PnP Community demo is taken from the General Microsoft 365 Development Special Interest Group (SIG) - Bi-weekly sync call recorded on June 24, 2021.

Demo Presenter - Florian Grasel (Smarter Business Solutions GmbH) | @trailbeard

Supporting materials:
• Documentation - Publish your app to the Microsoft Teams store | https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/platform/concepts/deploy-and-publish/appsource/publish
• Documentation - Commercial marketplace certification policies | https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/legal/marketplace/certification-policies
• App – TagTeam | https://appsource.microsoft.com/en-us/product/office/WA200002829

Learn more:
• Learn more about the Microsoft 365 Patterns and Practices community at: http://aka.ms/m365pnp
• Visit the Microsoft 365 Patterns and Practices community YouTube channel: https://aka.ms/m365pnp-videos

A

I want to take you on the journey uh from our idea to the app sort and what we have learned when we submit our first app to the to the app source so um yeah from my side, uh I'm jordan garza, I'm a company owner from a small company in austria, mainly in the sherman teams, development, and we have five people and we are working since 15 years in the microsoft sharepoint and teams, yeah development and yeah yeah.

A

So, let's start through what we had was an idea starting in march 2022 at the beginning of the pandemic, our sharepoint and teams, individual development projects were going a little bit, not not so smooth. So I didn't want to to put my colleagues into short-term working, so we decided uh hey, let's build an ad for the app store and learn something and yeah what the basic idea was. We looked through the microsoft teams, new devices and in the top 10 there was the support, hashtag functionality and we thought hey. This sounds cool.

A

Let's give it a try. We know that microsoft will bring this up because it's already available in camera and stuff like that, but yeah we had the idea that we want to learn something.

A

We want to put something in the app sort of first app and uh we want to develop something useful for us and for the community because, as freezie thunderstead is showing here, we had the same problem that uh we, our team's channels, were growing uh on and on and- and we want to make an a little bit more structure with with tagging into it and yeah.

A

So we gave it a try and started in april 2020 with an mvp, and we choose our extended point and luckily, with this with detecting functionality, we need nearly everything we need a bot. We need a message extension and we need a tab for it. So it was a good thing to learn.

A

We planned our texture and, of course we need some uh something to save and stuff like that. So we need some some asia in the background and we planned our authentication so yeah. Meanwhile, we put it also on on the market to test it. We presented to existing customers and we put uh some some cash note on our website to get a little bit feedback. What others think about this functionality and yeah. The idea was good and- and we give it a try and started the development and had a few consumptions about it.

A

So we started with um the principle of leeds privilege, because we we know that it's a big issue when you install something from the store. It should be um yeah at least privilege and stuff, like that. So um we tried to to fight um here as freeze as possible to this day. um We want to use our whole defaults and all the learn here for deployment and stuff like that, because, as I said before, we were only individual project development and therefore yeah.

A

We also put everything into devops, but uh we wanted to put here the whole development to staging and production to the azure um into devops that we can really um yeah have a smooth deployment uh from new functionalities and stuff like that yeah then uh we also looked at the date step and adaptive card development, of course, um because we also only uh put this in the in the.

B

A

Projects and yeah, of course, we used here the fluent ui and stuff like that, and then also we did our homework with the ether architecture and stuff like that. So um what was the outcome? um My time is a little bit uh short, so I only will hear in the screenshots, because uh the basic part is coming afterwards with the with the submission process, so uh what it basically has done in in september last year uh we were able to tag messages.

A

We could mention the tag, team, bot and and search for um for tags and text the message or go over the message, extension and search there and put some some um tags.

A

Some adaptive card back into the into the message that we have there uh adaptive card with a deep link to our dab to have them easily find the text messages in our tab, so to say, yeah that we can yeah go to the tag, text, tab and yeah, search there and and filter there and and stuff like that and make combinations and get out your information quite easily.

A

So this was, we thought, um as as we were known from our individual development projects um and thought hey come on, let's put it in the store, it should be quite easy and we started with the documentation and found out um come on. That's not that easy, as we thought we put it on our wiki and and created work items based on it and, as you see on the right side, um yeah, it was nearly more work items for for the publishing process than for uh the the the building of the app itself. um Yeah.

A

As, as I said, we are not a product company. We are an individual development company, so we had to learn heroes, a lot and it took us really a long time for uh finishing yeah the whole things about screen jobs and marketing, material and and stuff like that. um So we did here a quite hard had here a quite hard time.

A

Also, of course, the the projects were going on after the first lock down and stuff like that, so um yeah we shifted it a little bit and then the real submission process started in uh end of february this year uh we said: hey come on, let's give it a try, uh let's put it on the store um and we yeah put it on the store and two days later, we failed gracefully so to say, as it is also written in the documentation that you should fail gracefully.

A

um We have all done this, so uh our first four critical faders were some basic stuff in the manifest that we um yeah missed our microsoft partner network id and stuff, like that, and our terms of use did go on the on the wrong well and and something uh but the basic uh problem was uh the broken functionality and uh the broken functionality was that we um have, of course, a message extension to to taxes and also we of course also used your teams and stuff like that to put it in and and created the manifest.

A

But we missed one thing that we have, of course, and compose extension and and another one. uh The comment box- and we also yeah, uh put in the in the manifest the comment box, unfortunately, and microsoft of course, find it very uh fast and um yeah.

A

As the comment box has um and complete uh different context of the teams, we were not able to show our settings dialogue because yeah it doesn't make sense to to to use the tagging functionality in the comment box, because we only could generate them and card and or a deep link to a tab but yeah. That makes not really as sense here in this case um so yeah we missed this completely and microsoft.

A

Yeah get us on the on the road again and of course, um as you see, these four failures were only some manifest problems, so we thought: hey come on um a few hours later we tried it again, yeah and and put it on the on the store again and, as you see um yeah also, three days later, we got the next rejection from microsoft.

A

um Also again, there's four failures, uh also something in the in the manifest, but also again, some broken functionality, um wonderful and yeah. What problem was here, of course, microsoft tried it out everywhere and we didn't yeah thought about this uh yeah honestly, because uh for us, what was it? It was clear. We have only draft api functionality to to search messages in teams, channels and stuff like that, but not in private channels or in private, chats or group chats.

A

So it was clear that our functionality, our message extension, is not useful in a in a in a private channel but yeah, um which is, of course also there and microsoft tried it out and we faced all the grace for it, because we showed some some menu that it's not working in a private channel.

A

But what we also forget again was the settings dialogue and this course, as you see, also the settings there are a lot displayed blank um because yeah, the context is different and we have no uh context there for showing the tabs or the tags to grade for this uh in in, in this case, yeah so yeah, we we failed again um and yeah, that's that was it was not cool yeah and then we set back a little bit and once it's, of course we could.

A

We very easily put it again in the manifest and and submit it, but then we read everything in this in this documentation, because the first time as you have seen, we only took three four hours time for it and there is a small sentence beyond there.

A

That's uh written in the in the in the bottom, uh the next steps- and we missed it the first time and nearly at the second time, also that the next step should not be to resubmit it, uh but to contact the team submission team because they will give us more guidance and more help, and they even rolled it into the into the statements that we should contact them but yeah. Unfortunately, we have missed this um because we were too enthusiastic to get into the store.

A

So um then we started the real work with the team, submission team and uh yeah. We had a half hour presentation with them and showing them everything, and then they reached us again with and of course they make a recording on it and um they're showing this also to the other team members, and it gets us back with some more detailed information. What we should do and what we should fix and yeah we worked really hard on.

A

It was for better description and for some graceful error messages and uh also created new logo, and I want to show you um what microsoft is really doing, how far they are going, and this is really good for us, because um yeah they're doing here really and a great job uh to help us for well. I only can't talk from from our side, because we are some individual development company um to get here, really the the focus on a product and really to see um yeah.

A

What on what things we should consider yeah and the, for example, the even looked on our website for the privacy statement and the terms of usage and uh compared the the team's tag team logo with the logo from our website and asked hey. This looks not a nice user experience. This looks a little bit uh different and so um yeah.

A

We we uh had to explain this and and also to to check this so and then it was a little bit drawing our other things to do, but we tried to to figure it out, and the next step was the whole testing of the whole mobile functionality, because mobile first, of course, we we tried this out also with some emulators and stuff like that, but yeah microsoft also found to to issues on android and ios devices, and happily um we could also help microsoft to find a bug or to to to fix something on the on the android device, because we have some deep linking from from our message um from our message card to to the tab, and this was not working in android and yeah.

A

We found out that this is really some some issue on the on the mobile platform and microsoft already fixed this, and so we could move on and yeah. Happily, um we made it to the store um around two months, two months later and yeah. I want to share some lessons learned what from our side, but we have learned that we should consider this submission checklist from the beginning.

A

Of course, because there are um very helpful insights, for example, with this yeah clicking everywhere and doing everything and and and and consider what the user is really doing, um not what uh what the developer is um wants him to do so to say um think about the extension points. um It's also very interesting because um yeah, we like you, have seen in the manifest, because you should really um try to figure out what you want to do, what creative functionality you have and what you can use for it.

A

We found out at the end, because we are now two months nearly on the on the store and have around 200 tenants trying it out um that we should have done more. A and b tests on the market and and try to to yeah make a few functionalities a little bit different and stuff like that, that we also should buy android and iphone uh devices for real testing on the on the mobile, because this could would have um yeah do some some uh less work for us.

A

um That really, of course, should calculate our asia cost, because, um as test staging and and uh production environment is costing, of course, something and what we have missed at the beginning, that the application insights is a really powerful tool, but at the first submission we basically missed the client functionalities.

A

So we have included this now and yeah. We first were really afraid, because we had a lot of of errors in it in the in the asia application inside, but we found that out that this is coming from some robots which are using to try to to sign into wordpress and stuff like that. So um yeah, don't don't be afraid of these errors.

A

uh Sometimes they are not that bad yeah, yeah and, of course, as I already talked about it after the episode publishing the work is not over especially um to consider what what people are really using or not, with the application inside, it's really helpful and so yeah. Currently, we are thinking what to go on. As we said we, this is free and we we wanted to put this for the for the community um yeah. We are considering how to that.

A

We maybe also put it on github and stuff, like that um or yeah also doing a little bit rework on it and yeah. So if you have some feedback for us, uh please feel free and- and um also like I said it's it's it's free of use and and we I think we will really will publish it on there on the github for open source.

A

So um hopefully that didn't took too much time and.

B

Excellent stuff, lauren yeah, very, very cool. Thank you. As mentioned in the chat, this is invaluable information. No doubt this is valuable for everyone. That's looking to get into this space and uh you provided that exposure. So thank you.