Blog Post

Microsoft Teams Blog
3 MIN READ

Explore brand new experiences in the Updates app in Microsoft Teams

Yuxiang_Z's avatar
Yuxiang_Z
Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft
Nov 27, 2023

 

Updates in Teams is an out-of-the-box app that enables people to streamline their work reporting process. From a weekly update to incident report, Updates makes it easy for people to manage them all in one place. In response to valuable feedback from our customers, we have added lots of exciting features such as a new onboarding experience, data export, commenting and more to better meet our users’ needs. Updates app supports users to fully utilize platform features and boost teamwork efficiency.

 

What's new

We have launched several highly requested features to enhance the overall experience and simplify the report process.

  • Modern onboarding experience: New users can streamline team's work reports more quickly and easily.
  • Export update data to Excel file: Updates viewers can easily export received submissions to an Excel file. Moreover, they can filter the data by request, submitter and date range before exporting.
  • Summary view of received submissions: Updates viewers can switch between different viewing modes and customize the key data statistics according to business requirements. This enables them to track submission status in real-time and identify potential issues promptly.
  • Collaboration features (e.g. like, comment, read status): Team members can easily show appreciation for good reports and engage in discussions about specific content, which fosters collaboration and improves team communication.

 

Modern onboarding experience in chat, channel and personal app

To help customers better understand the Updates app's value and streamline the team reporting process, we have upgraded the product's appearance and user experience. This makes it easier to convey the product's value and applicable scenarios, while simplifying the process of creating requests and submitting reports.

New design in a chat group

 

Once there’s some data in the chat to follow up on, we're providing a better design to help users stay focused on the work that needs to be done.

Dedicated working space in chat or channel to stay focused

New design in Updates app

 

Export to Excel file

With the new export feature in Updates, users can now easily export all their received update submissions to an Excel file. This new feature was added in response to top customer feedback and makes it easier to analyze, archive and share data with others.

Export data to Excel file in Updates app

 

Summary view of received submissions

In addition to viewing content submitted by individuals, viewers can now access data organized by question. This allows them to focus more specifically on the summary of content related to a particular topic. The viewers can also customize which specific data statistics are displayed, depending on what is most important for their business needs. By having this flexibility, they can more easily track the status of submissions and identify any potential issues that need to be addressed.

Data highlights and easy to switch viewing modes

 

Ready by, like and comment

When teams sync up their weekly reports, they often want to give feedback and chat about the content. To encourage even more collaboration, we've added some awesome new features! Now, team members can easily check if their info got across, give each other virtual high-fives for good reports, and leave comments or start discussions if they need to. These features are designed to boost teamwork and make work more efficient.

Read by & Like an update

 

Leave comment in an update submission

 

Ready to get started?

All above introduced features are available in Updates app now. Users can easily access the product in the following places to promote team collaboration:

  • Chat group
  • Teams team channel
  • Updates personal app

 

Welcome to share your comments and discuss with us!

 

Updated Nov 28, 2023
Version 2.0
  • eriksamson's avatar
    eriksamson
    Copper Contributor

    This app is great in theory and has been somewhat helpful, but there are too many issues with it and with the most recent changes, I feel like it's not been an improvement regarding functionality only in the interface.  

     

    Here are the issues I have with it currently: 

    • Creating your own templates no longer exists.
      • When contacting support about the missing ability to create templates was a nightmare. After 5 attempts to ask why the ability to create templates was missing. They would point me to Teams templates, which is not the same thing.  I finally just told them to close the case.
    • The recent update no longer appends the date to the title.
    • It does not take into consideration days when you are on PTO, so it lists you as a late submission.
    • If you have a lot of people that need to submit, you have to list each one individually. This is a problem for someone who has 20+ people who need to be added.
    • During the time change, the submission time did not adjust and needed to be adjusted manually.
    • I am unable to delete any requests under My Requests that I have created, you can only disable them.  
    • 2 hour notification no longer working after Thanksgiving weekend update
  • Hyrych's avatar
    Hyrych
    Copper Contributor

    Exciting news! I'm eager to explore the brand new experiences in the Updates app in Microsoft Teams. The evolution of collaborative tools is always intriguing. By the way, have you considered incorporating slack sms for enhanced communication within your Teams environment? It can be a seamless way to boost connectivity and streamline information flow. Looking forward to discovering these new features together!

  • phenry1175's avatar
    phenry1175
    Brass Contributor

    Teams has been broken since the 27th.

    "We're sorry. We've run into an issue."

    Over and over and over again.

    Nothing seems to fix this.

  • aahsansolvefy's avatar
    aahsansolvefy
    Copper Contributor

    Its a great app to work with. But there is one issue I am facing that if someone wants to use endpoints of APIs to get access to updates app data e-g getting or updating daily updates must have APIs that can be accessible to users so that one can integrate updates app to any other website or app. I want such API like microsoft graph API to access MS teams data. some one please help

  • Daniel Matousek's avatar
    Daniel Matousek
    Copper Contributor

    We are trying to use the Updates App however we keep getting this error:

    Please advise to how to fix!

  • Daniel Matousek When the tenant first user comes to Updates app, it usually takes a few minutes to set up the environment before users can use Updates smoothly.

    Let me have a further follow up with you.

  • carlblunck's avatar
    carlblunck
    Copper Contributor

    Yuxiang_Z I am apart of a teams channel that has set up a weekly update.  But I am not listed as a submitter.  I am still getting all of the notifications from it though.  How can I turn these off?

     

    Thanks
    Carl

  • carlblunck When a recurring update is requested from a chat or channel, there'll be a card before each due time in the group to remind the relevant submitters, and the data can be viewed through the card afterwards. This makes it easy for users to collaborate without leaving the current conversation. If a request is created from Updates app, only submitters or viewers can receive the notifications.

  • JHoff1525's avatar
    JHoff1525
    Copper Contributor

    Seeing similar issues commented by eriksamson

      

    The Updates app connector does not provide Occurrence as Reporting Period as it does in the download, I now have a data mismatch after importing the excel file and updating via connector at 1000 records. Can no longer count the unique reporting period so I have no constant to measure response rate against going forward. 

     

    Should be an option to suppress requests to users marked as out of office, Teams has presence and reports on Out of Office.