I really like Microsoft Teams. Spend most of my day on it. It is simply awesome. If there was a way to chat reply on a desktop version – it would be perfect. And an easy way to send e-mail directly from teams without switching to a mailer.
While chat reply is an unreachable promised land (it’s been promised for some time but is still unreachable), we decided to do something about the e-mail. Here is what we came up with.
The Processica E-mail App is a native Teams app that can be downloaded for free. It implements (among other things) a function to send e-mails directly from Teams. It uses only Microsoft Cloud technologies and can be installed in your MS Tenant. This is how it works:
1. Select your recipients
It could be one person or a list of recipients. There are several sources for recipients addresses:
- Org-wide Contacts. If you are an admin or in the admin’s circle of trust (verified by permissions) you have access to all the contacts in your organization. You can use any or all of them as a source for the Processica E-mail App.
- Individual Outlook Contacts. Whoever’s listed in your personal contact list will be available in the E-mail App.
- SharePoint Contacts list. If you have an e-mail contacts list on any SharePoint Site you have access to, – the E-Mail app can derive e-mail contacts from there. This is also a great way to import contacts from internal sources. These contacts are not bound to your org alone but could be any e-mail (within your tenant or outside). Doesn’t have to be an O365 user either.
2. Create the message itself
This is where you can use our slick html editor. You can create the message in the editor, itself or upload it from storage/template. Graphical resources are kept in your OneDrive.
If you don’t like fancy or HTML, the plaintext option is also available.
3. Send it right away or schedule it. As simple as that
4. Check the progress
By default, e-mails are sent using Microsoft Internal Outlook API. It is quite suitable for most cases (though it does have some limitations), but if you need a more powerful sender with advanced features, SendGrid and Mailgun are also available (as premium features).
Actual sending is implemented as an Azure Logic Apps, so you can see a detailed progress report.
5. Get a result in report view
Quick reporting is available right here in the app. If you need something more sophisticated, you can always export reporting data to Power BI.
It’s worth mentioning that the E-Mail App supports more sophisticated functions such as the ability to approve e-mail before sending. There is also a set of functions to communicate with your recipients using dynamic cards or web-forms. We also support SMS if e-mail becomes too cluttered.
Processica Apps are built on Azure Logic Apps, which allows you to add any steps you may need to your e-mail preparation, sending, receiving replies, and preparing the results. The entire Suite is flexible should you need to add your own logic and integrate with other components within MS or outside. The solution is designed to be used as a no-code, but you can also use coding while interfacing or executing. Both approaches are fine with us 😊
And that’s about it! Feel free to reach out if you have any questions. And don’t hesitate to suggest any other functions use-cases you’d like to see as a part of the E-mail App or the entire App Suite.
