Coordinate crisis communications using Microsoft Teams + Power Platform
Published Mar 08 2020 06:05 PM 101K Views
Microsoft
Whenever crises arise, questions inevitably come up about how to most effectively address them.  Regardless of geography or industry, a common challenge all organizations face when responding to crises, is determining how best to share real-time information and provide a platform for employees to connect.
 
Microsoft Teams can help maintain connectivity to aid in that information sharing, even while working remotely.  As we recently shared, there are lots of ways to get Teams for free – even if you work for a business that isn’t currently licensed for Teams.
 
Additionally to augment Teams' capabilities, we have released a free “Crisis Communication” app built with Microsoft Power Apps for any customer to download, customize, and deploy to their organization.  The app can provide users with a single portal to help ensure they are equipped with recommendations from global health authorities, topical world news, the latest information from government officials and experts, and company-specific content including relevant contacts, company news, and links to support channels.  Additionally, users can easily share their individual work status (such as working from home or out of the office) with their teams, and even automatically send help requests to a dedicated channel in Teams. 

Crisis comms app - home screen3.JPG
 
The first step in this process is to follow the complete instructions for downloading the Power Apps app, which can be found here.  Video instructions for downloading this app can be found  here.  In addition to existing customers, this app is available to users on the new Office 365 E1 trial.
 
Deploying this Crisis Communications app to Teams is a quick and easy way gain broad adoption, centralize discussions, and amplify information across the organization.  Teams Admins, as well as end-users, can add this app to Teams, albeit with slightly different steps.  Once you have downloaded the app following the written or video instructions linked above, the steps below walk through the process to deploy it to Teams.
 

1. Download the app from the Power Apps portal

  • On the Power Apps home screen, the Crisis Communication app will appear under “Your apps”
  • Click the “…” to the right of the app name, then select the “Add to Teams” option
  • This will download a zip file which can be uploaded to Teams in the next step, so save the file to a location you can remember and easily access

 
2. Add the app to your Teams app store
  • Once the app has been downloaded from your Power Apps portal as a zip file, open Teams and navigate to the app store. 
  • Use the “Upload a custom app” function at the bottom-left to upload the zip file you downloaded from Power Apps in the prior step. 
Teams Admins will be able to upload this for their entire tenant, whereas non-Admin users will be able to upload this file for themselves and their teams.

 
3a. Pin the app to your organization’s Teams app bar (Teams Admins)
Teams Admins have a great opportunity to drive awareness and highlight the apps that their organization should be using.  As with any app, Teams Admins can use the Teams Admin Center to pin this app to the Teams App bar for their entire tenant.
  • Under “Teams apps”, select “Setup policies”, and choose which policy to update (the “Global” policy, for example). 
  • Now select “Add apps” under the “Pinned apps” section, and select the app to pin (based on the name you gave the app in Power Apps). 
  • Shortly, all users in this policy will see this app appear on their Teams app bar.

 

3b. Pin the app to your personal Teams app bar (any Teams user)
Even if your Teams Admin has not taken steps to add this app to the Teams app bar for your tenant, any user can add this app their personal app bar. 

  • Simply open the app and once the app icon appears on your app bar, right click the icon and select “pin”.  The app icon will remain on your app bar to provide you easy access, even after you navigate away from the app.

 
Moving forward
The release of this app is the first step in this journey, and we will continue to add more capabilities over the coming days.  Please share app feedback and suggestions with the Power Apps Community
.
 
UPDATE (March 19th): The Crisis Communications app has received several updates to address user feedback, and now includes a version that is GCC (US Government Cloud) compatible in Power Apps.
 
For more guidance about deploying and using this or other apps that you have built as part of your crisis response, please see the Microsoft Teams and Power Apps whitepaper.  To learn more about how Teams can help you work remotely, without feeling remote, please visit the Microsoft Teams webpage.
 
This app is a sample and may be used with Microsoft Power Apps and Teams for dissemination of reference information only. This app is not intended or made available for use as a medical device, clinical support, diagnostic tool, or other technology intended to be used in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease or other conditions, and no license or right is granted by Microsoft to use this app for such purposes.  This app is not designed or intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, treatment, or judgement and should not be used as such.  Customer bears the sole risk and responsibility for any use of this app.  Microsoft does not warrant that the app or any materials provided in connection therewith will be sufficient for any medical purposes or meet the health or medical requirements of any person.
 
As part of the status transfer, the person's location data is transferred to a customer's SharePoint in order to determine the respective crisis team measures for individuals. However, this can be adjusted by customizing the Power Apps template independently if required by the customer.
38 Comments
Brass Contributor

Brilliant, it's great to see Microsoft sharing timely practical and easy to implement solutions like this to all end users

Thank you for this Awesome Whitepaper about Teams and Power Apps, just Shared it here in the Netherlands :cool:

Copper Contributor

Excellent article and good advice.

Copper Contributor

Hi, are you able to confirm this app is completely free even with the flows being used?

Microsoft

@aclark_1, users who are licensed to use Power Apps and Power Automate (e.g., via an Office 365 license) can use this app and related flows. 

 

We are also giving all Power Apps users temporary access to a premium feature, Power Apps Push Notifications, to use Power Apps to push information to users.

 

For more details, please take a look at Power Platform blog published last week

Steel Contributor

I am not seeing it either of my tenants > has it been rolled out to the UK yet?

Steel Contributor
Microsoft

Hi @Tanya Denton yes that's the right location that this post will send you to, for the instructions to download the app. 

Iron Contributor

Hello, is this available in all tenants? I can't seem to figure out how to install it in ours.

Steel Contributor

@Pete_Daderko I think the confusion is, if people like me just took a quick read-through of the post, it sort of sounds like the app is available in PowerApps home without doing anything, at least that is how I first read it.  I think the fact you have to download from Github and create the solution before your steps is lost in the post :)

Iron Contributor

Thank @Tanya Denton , I missed that part as well. Will work on that. Thanks for the heads-up.

Copper Contributor

I was able to set this app up for our company. I would like to change the titles of the menu options on the home screen, such as Request. How do I do this?

Iron Contributor

I am getting an error. I've loaded and reloaded, connected and reconnected. What did I do wrong?2020-03-14_5-43-41.jpg2020-03-14_5-45-43.jpg

Microsoft

Thanks @Tanya Denton, helpful feedback.  I've tried to clarify that point in the post, and have also added a video tutorial for adding the app.

Steel Contributor

@Lisa Stebbins - I can't see from your screens, but did you recreate the SharePoint list connections?  Both Apps you need to delete the 'SharePoint' connections and recreate them.2020-03-16_08-45-57.png

Copper Contributor

Great App! I already deployed it in our tenant. Is there a way to integrate the crisis communication app in teams for mobile?

Iron Contributor

@Tanya Denton  I was able to resolve it. The admin user I was to use for this didn't have the Power App license needed. I use a different user for those components and it is working OK now. 

Copper Contributor

Can this be deployed by domain and not to the entire tenant?

Brass Contributor

Can I find out what part of the app uses the Azure AD connection? I am not able to set that up in my connectors because I am not a Global Admin. I need to understand if I need that connector for the app to function before I send a request to my Global Admins.

Copper Contributor

Expression.Error: The key didn’t match any rows in the table 

Details:

Key=
Id= nnnnnnnnn-nnnn-nnnn-nnnn-nnnnnn

Table=[Table]  

 

HELP! Help!

Brass Contributor

It doesn't show up in our power apps. Is there another location to find this?

 

 

Copper Contributor

We're having issues with "Share Status" in Teams...  everything works fine until the "Submit" button.  Functionality works in PowerApps.

Copper Contributor
Hi All, wondering if anyone can help, we have issued the crisis app out and some users are getting the below error when trying to access the app. It only seems to happen to a few users and most can access it fine. Does anyone have any ideas on what it might be? It seems to be linked to giving the app access to SharePoint when they first access the app. All other permissions can be granted by not SharePoint leading to the error below but confusingly it doesn't affect everyone? Any help is much appreciated
 

An error occurred

Connection not configured for this data source

Iron Contributor

I am tasked with re-creating the app using the account that I'd originally tried using and received errors. I know that it is because it is missing some required licensing that it doesn't have. Would someone be able to list the required licensing that is needed. And, if it's not too much, would these requirements hold true for the development of similar PowerApps and Flows if it were not the Crisis Comm template knowing that you have exempted users from some of the license requirement in this particular instance/app. I am getting a lot of push-back from our licensing manager to be able to justify which licenses are needed for an account which will be used to develop and configure Power Platform 'stuff' and I need a clear, concise list; I can't find anything when searching that clearly states in a way that he will be satisfied with.

 

E1, E3 or E5: Will and E1 have any restrictions of any kind when developing and configuring in any of the Power Platform apps? Which is the minimum requirement?

I presume that the Microsoft Power Apps Plan 2 (Qualified Offer) and the other licenses that are enabled with is required. Is there anything else? Anything in Azure (P1/P2)? Does this license cover the premium connectors that, outside of this instance, has special pricing?

 

Thank you.

Microsoft

Hi @Lisa Stebbins , please see this link for the Power Apps and Power Automate licensing guide.  Additionally, here is a link to licensing FAQs

 

As part of this effort, all Power Apps users are provided with temporary access to a Power Apps Push Notifications (which is typically a premium feature), so they won’t need any premium licenses to use Power Apps to push information to users. Push Notifications have been reclassified as a "standard" connector for the duration of the COVID-19 crisis.  Other Power Apps / Power Automate capabilities of the Crisis Communications app are considered "standard" features.

 

Hope that helps! 

Iron Contributor

Thank you @Pete_Daderko . I have a couple follow-up questions that takes us beyond our immediate situation.

1. When the Covid crisis is over and we return to "normal" will this app stop working due to the user account used to create it not having the proper licensing to support the premium features? What is/are the license(s) that is necessary premium features to work: does the Microsoft Power Apps Plan 2 (Qualified Offer) cover everything or are others needed in addition to it?

 

2. And, to satsify our license manager: Will everything work for Power Apps and Automate, including the premium features, if the user account is issued an E1 license (in conjunction with the the Microsoft Power Apps Plan 2 (Qualified Offer) and any other app specific licenses that are required)?  (He needs a yes/no type answer. :| )

 

Thanks again.

Iron Contributor

@Pete_Daderko  Darn, I was hoping I could edit my early reply. Anyway, one thing I didnt' indicate which started this whole conversation is that, when I attempted to enable this app the first time using the designated account, I received the errors noted above in my early post on 3/14. I found that, if I used by personal account (I am a tenant admin) for the connectors for the SP libraries as Tanya noted, then it worked fine. This was also true for the Flows: I had to use my personal account for the connectors to get it to work as expected. I need to eliminate my account and only use ITSS-PowerPlatform account to enable the app. I was assuming it was missing the Microsoft Power Apps Plan 2 (Qualified Offer) license but maybe I'm wrong? 

2020-03-26_13-46-31.jpg

Copper Contributor

@Pete_Daderko @Lisa Stebbins  I am also getting the error that Lisa was getting.

 

I have updated my user account licenses to enable power automate and power apps, but i am still getting the same error?

 

my organisation is a MS E3 client.

Iron Contributor

@Pete_Daderko 

E1 and E3 both work.

 

I had the "Power Apps Plan 2 (Qualified Offer) license added to the user and that corrected it.

 

Or, if you're using the new licensing options, I think the equivalent one is named Power Apps per User. You may also need to use the new 'sister' license for Power Automate called Power Automate per User along with it.

 

I am able to see what licenses a user account has via the Admin Portal->Users->Active and searching for the user name, then clicking on Licenses and Apps.

Copper Contributor

Hi @Pete_Daderko ,

 

During the configuration of Crisis Communication Admin's app  settings, there is no choice for the notification method. Is there any additional steps / something to change on my part?

 

agilancolbert_1-1586249404311.png

 

Thanks in advance :) 

Copper Contributor

Hi Guys, :smile:

 

First of all - amazing app and the tutorial is nicely done.

 

My question/problem:

 

How do I add links to the links tab? 

 

When I go to create links and want to click save I receive the following error.

 

"No data source provided" :facepalm:

Screenshot_1.png

Thank You 

Copper Contributor

@Benette Bezuidenhout 

i was getting the same error too. But i tried via the crisis communication sharepoint site.

 

site contents----->CI Usefulinks----->create new

 

 
 
 

 

 
 
 

 

 

 

Copper Contributor

@pchims 

 

Awesomeness!  Thank you :smile:

 

I tried that now and success!! :lol:

Copper Contributor

It was really nice tool. Currently it was tagged to single group. 

 

Is it possible to build multiple group within the same app. 

Copper Contributor

I have successfully set this up and have been working on testing within my department but we have seen a version that includes the ability to edit your work status, has that function been removed or is there a way to enable it?  I am also interested in adding additional statuses like "At The Office" but can not figure out how to do this either can you point me in the right direction.  Thanks

Copper Contributor

Hi,

 

Thank you for this useful blog. had a query, how do we deleted any news article or tips that we've created on the crisis communication admin app, i do not see a scroll or delete option.

 

Regards,

Shraddha 

Copper Contributor

This app have one thousand bugs, after months was overlooked by develop team. I posted some troubles in PowerApps forum without a answer 

Copper Contributor

I had the same issue as Fernando, a ton of bugs on install, missing icons, links going to the wrong place. So posted some questions on how to get an installer that works and got nothing back so wrote it off as a bad investment of my time

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‎Jan 26 2021 12:49 PM
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