Today, we are pleased to announce the latest additions to Teams Microsoft Graph APIs, including resource-specific consent permissions for chats and delegated permissions for tags. These additions complete the capabilities for chats and tags APIs that enable you to integrate applications into how users communicate.

Chat messages

As main elements in collaborations, chat messages are supported through various Microsoft Graph APIs. For example, we can think of an application that requires a ticketing system to streamline customer support.

When a customer messages a support agent in this app, conversation items can quickly become tickets to address the customer’s concerns or invite other agents to collaborate. To give other agents context, Tabs can be created to share important details. Once the ticket has been actioned, messages can be exported and the chat lifecycle can repeat.

Following an application workflow, permissions must be granted to access chat messages. What permissions accomplish at their core is to access data in Microsoft Graph via consent process by the user, admin, or team owner.

Chat messages already support delegated permissions and application permissions. The first function is on behalf of the signed-in participant, and the second requires admin consent. These permissions allow applications to read and write chat messages and members of 1:1 or group threads, so applications can offer individualized solutions or target a participant’s specific tasks.

With the recent resource-specific consent permissions for chat messages APIs (beta), team owners and chat owners can grant consent for an application to access and modify chat data. These permissions allow applications to read, write, and manage chat messages and settings. They also read the applications installed in a chat and its meeting properties, and can access media, join calls and send notifications to chat participants.

Tags

As organizations grow, there is a constant challenge knowing the right group of people to reach, searching for items with the information of the participants to contact can lead to delays in collaboration.

With the latest teamworkTag APIs (beta), you can categorize people based on attributes, such as roles, projects, skills, training, or location. For example, a “Nurse” or “Manager” or “Designer” tag enables you to create groups of people in Teams without typing every single name. This is because tags function as targeted communication. Once a tag is applied, communicating with the right people becomes a quicker task.

Users can @mention in a channel when a tag is added so everyone assigned with that tag will receive a notification. For example, you can use an @customerSupport tag to reach to all customer service agents. This notification works just as if the agents were @mentioned individually.

Tags currently support delegated permissions and application permissions. Both of these enable teamworkTags to read and write tags in Teams on behalf of the signed-in participant and the second requires an admin consent to function.

Thanks for taking the time to learn more about chat messages and tags capabilities. They equip different collaboration patterns as unique as each organization.

Happy coding! We look forward to seeing what you build!