Microsoft has announced yesterday a great tool for developers : Microsoft Teams App Studio. Despite the fact that all features are very useful and time-saving, the app model is also interesting. Let me explain why and how this tool will help to create apps for Teams

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Before App Studio, a developer created each parts of his application by using all the platform capabilities : Bots, Tabs, Connectors or Messaging Extensions. At the end, before to package, he needed to describe all the settings and capabilities of the apps in a JSON file (based on the Manifest Schema). The operation was not so easy because you need to validate with the documentation all the settings that iare mandatory or still what value is necessary in each section. The only way to check if your manifest is valid was by sideloading your app in Teams.

Now you can do each step in App Studio. All the former manual operations are now simplified and brought together in the same place

What can i do ?

Teams App Studio is available directly on the store (no separate installation, it’s the same model as a normal app)

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It’s a personal application, you can’t add it to a team. After the activation process, app’s icon is available in the new launcher, in the sidebar. It composes with several “Teams App Capabilities” :

  • A bot
  • 3 tabs :
Manifest Editor For me it’s the best tab, and it has a real value for all developers. This form helps to aggregate all settings and files for your application and generate the final zip archive.

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Card Editor This tab is similar in some parts to the website http://adaptivecards.io/. You can generate the code for your card. The code is directly available and you just need to copy paste in your editor.

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If you want to verify the final result, you can also preview this card directly in App Studio through the bot tab. After the authentication process, you will receive a message with your card

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Control Library Controls Design and options are also very important for developers. App Studio summarizes also the components that you can use with a “Teams look and feel”. They are based on React components and the code is also available in App Studio. You can also find the same tool for Office Development with Office UI Fabric.

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I was surprized by the app and the integration in Teams. For me a tool that you can use on the platform is interesting. It shows how Teams development platform can be modular and powerful.

App Studio should be now part of your developer tool bag!

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