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New Microsoft Teams App Camp Details How to Build, Sell Teams Apps
The brand-new Microsoft Teams App Camp is an on-demand workshop with labs featuring videos and more that detail the ins and outs of building apps for Microsoft Teams collaboration software and selling those apps in the product's app store.
The Microsoft Teams App Camp On Demand site builds on the Teams Toolkit that features project templates that provide all the code, files and configuration needed to help developers get started with a Teams app project, and guidance such as "Build apps with Microsoft Teams platform."
However, it takes a tech-agnostic approach, not requiring special tools, just ubiquitous, vanilla JavaScript. In fact, the only parts of the camp that aren't technically agnostic are those needed to integrate with Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365.
"Teams App Camp is an on-demand workshop complete with videos and hands-on labs in which you'll extend a simple web application to become a full-featured Microsoft Teams application, complete with a sample license service based on Microsoft's Commercial Marketplace," Microsoft's Bob German said in an Aug. 30 announcement.
[Click on image for larger view.] Microsoft Teams App Camp (source: Microsoft).
The camp site provides two lab paths, A and B, the former for apps using Azure Active Directory and the latter for using a non-AAD identity system.
After completing a basic core app (the classic Northwind Orders application), the Extended labs tab lets devs "Choose your own adventure!" by fleshing out their app with features including dialogs, deep links, meeting apps and messaging extensions, along with guidance for selling an SaaS-based Teams Extension.
"The Microsoft Teams app model is designed to make it easy for software vendors to reuse their application features and code," German said. "Ordinary web pages can be exposed as tabs and dialogs in Microsoft Teams, and web services can be updated to communicate with Teams using Microsoft Graph and the Azure Bot Framework."
A Resources tab provides everything from Teams development fundamentals and documentation to working with tabs, bots, notifications and much more under the Azure AD SSO (single sign-on) heading.
The camp also provides a host of videos, with topics ranging from business briefs (selling and buying apps in the Teams marketplace) to many technical briefs that address both building and monetizing a Teams app.
"At the completion of App Camp, you'll have a working Teams application running in your own Microsoft 365 Developer tenant," German said. "And you'll know how it works and how to plug it into Microsoft's ecommerce machine. Don't miss this opportunity to learn how to build revenue-generating apps and sell them to the enormous Microsoft Teams user base."
About the Author
David Ramel is an editor and writer at Converge 360.