September 29th, 2022

Microsoft Teams apps coming in preview to Office and Outlook apps on Android

Sanjay Joshi
Principal PM Manager

After nearly two years of working remotely, organizations and individuals are embracing a more hybrid workplace in 2022. This has created new expectations around work tools, as people are getting work done at different places, with different devices, at different times. Our mission is to empower the developer community with tools that let them “build once, deploy anywhere” across the Microsoft suite of apps. At Ignite 2021, we announced the preview of Microsoft Teams JS v2, which enables developers to extend Teams personal tab apps and message extensions to other parts of Microsoft 365, like Office and Outlook on web and Windows. The SDK was made generally available at Build 2022 and has helped developer community build once and deploy easily across multiple Microsoft apps on web and desktop: Teams, Outlook and Office. However, until now, developers were not able to extend the same apps to Office and Outlook on mobile. That changes today!

Join our Beta program

You can now run Teams personal tab apps on Microsoft Office app on Android. Join the Beta program on Office app’s Google Play Store page, by clicking “Join” under “Join the Beta” section. Teams apps built using Microsoft Teams JS v2 and Teams App manifest (version 1.13) will start showing in Microsoft Office Android app under the “Apps” menu. With this, developers can reach even more Microsoft 365 users and enable exciting mobile-first scenarios with a single code base. This feature is available in preview in the Office app for Android (version number 16.0.15726.20000 and above). We’re also actively working on bringing personal tab apps Preview to Outlook on Android in Fall 2022, and shortly after to Office and Outlook apps on iOS as well.

 

ServiceNow and SurveyMonkey personal tab apps running in Office Android app

ServiceNow and SurveyMonkey personal tab apps running in Office Android app

 

Build and run Teams apps on Office Android app

  • Download the Microsoft Office app on Android and join the Beta program on Google Play Store by clicking “Join” under “Join the Beta” section
  • Log into the Microsoft Office app with your work account (e.g., sanjay@contoso.com)
  • To get started with building a personal tab app and running it on Office app on Android, refer to the developer documentation. You can also try deploying this sample app titled NorthWind Orders: https://aka.ms/teamssdk-v2-sample.

 

  • PowerBI, Mural and SurveyMonkey, available on Teams store, also run on Office app on Android. These apps may not work for organizations using conditional access (same behavior as Teams mobile app).
  • We would like to thank our private preview partners for their feedback in shaping our public preview release and improving our developer experience. Aleks Bass, VP of Product at Momentive.ai, maker of SurveyMonkey, shared this about our partnership: “We are thrilled to make the SurveyMonkey Teams Personal App available in Microsoft Office for Android. With the addition of these flexible capabilities, customers are able to easily ask, listen, and act on insightful feedback, anytime, anywhere.”

 

Image MetaOS blog 9 26 partner logos

 

Admin controls

Teams personal tab apps are already in Preview for Office.com and Outlook desktop in Target Release, and IT admins can manage access to Teams apps by creating custom permission policies and assigning these policies to users using Teams Admin Center.

In addition to the above, with enhanced Teams apps coming to Office app on Android, we understand there may be additional management requirements specific to Office app on Android. You may want to:

  • Only allow specific users in your org to try enhanced Teams apps on Office app on Android, or
  • Block all users in your org from using enhanced Teams apps on Office app on Android.

You can do these using app configuration policy, documented here: Manage Teams apps running on Office app for Android (in preview).

Share Feedback!

Preview is the perfect time to give us feedback, and we want to hear from you! Let us know your experience working with Teams JS SDK v2 here and report any issues on GitHub. This release will be updated often. For additional information, visit our Teams developer center.

Follow us on Twitter @Microsoft365Dev to stay up to date on the latest announcements. You can also continue the conversation by joining us in the Microsoft 365 Tech Community!

Happy coding!

Author

Sanjay Joshi
Principal PM Manager

1 comment

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  • abhi (naturetales06)

    Awesome 👏 👏.
    Will try it out ! Thanks !