The question was straightforward from one of my customers: we want Outlook visibility in Microsoft Teams. In this how-to, I guide you through the process of building an App in the left bar of Microsoft Teams using the Developer Portal. You can expect to complete the entire process in approximately 30 minutes.

First action:

Add the “Developer Portal” as app to you Teams

Next step: Let’s build

Click on “New App” and give it a name you like, I just called it “Outlook”

On the Basic Information page change all the info you like and add an Application ID.

To get the Application ID, go to Azure and your Enterprise Applications: Enterprise applications – Microsoft Azure (Open it in a new Window or Tab)

Click on New application

Click on Create your own application

Give it a name: I called it “Outlook in Teams” and select “Integrate any other application you don’t find in the gallery (Non-gallery)”

In the Overview page copy the Application ID to your clipboard and copy in the Teams Developer Portal to the Application (Client) ID field (under Basic information).

Add the other requierd information like Privacy policy and Terms of Use URL. Click on Save and go to the Branding tab in the Teams Developer Portal, I downloaded the following icons from Internet and used them as Icons

Add the Outlook as Personal app

Go to the App features and select Personal app

I created 3 tabs,

1. Webmail > https://outlook.office.com/mail/

2. Calendar > https://outlook.office.com/calendar/view/workweek

3. Contacts > https://outlook.office.com/people/

Your can add more if your like.

Repeat this for each URL you want to add.

Order your tabs, if needed

Publish your app

Click on “Publish to org”

And select Publish

Add your new App to all users in your tenant

Go to the Teams Admin Center, Manage apps:

Manage apps – Microsoft Teams admin center

Search your app: Outlook

Open the app Outlook and Puplish your app

Now go to the “Setup Policies” App setup policies – Microsoft Teams admin center and open “Global (Org-wide default).

Click on ” Add apps” and search for Outlook and add it to the “Global” policies.

The last part is to add the Outlook app to the Pinned apps, click on “Add apps” search the app and add it to the “Global” policies.

As I want all my users to see the App in the top of the left bar I moved the app up to place 2, you can do this as optional step:

End result

When you did all the actions, it can take up to 24 hours before the app is visible for all users. Sometimes it helps to logout and login back again in Microsoft Teams. The result looks like: