Meta and Microsoft move to bring Workplace and Teams closer together

Microsoft Teams users can now access newsfeed updates in the corporate social network Meta Workplace without switching screens, thanks to a new integration announced Wednesday by the two companies. And plans to allow streaming of Teams video calls directly from Workplace are also in the works.

The integration is the first between Microsoft’s workflow collaboration tool and Workplace, which has more than 7 million paid subscribers. (There are already Workplace integrations available with Office 365 apps, including Microsoft SharePoint and OneDrive, with support for Teams on video devices Meta Portal (formerly Facebook) coming next month.)

The new integration offers two functions. First, the Workplace for Teams app can be pinned to the navigation bar next to Groups or added as a tab to provide access to the Workplace news feed within the app. Workplace content can be marked as “important” by Group admins to draw users’ attention to certain information. Individual users can also drag content from a Workplace group into a Teams channel to highlight with colleagues, and react to Workplace posts directly from Teams.

The video integration, which will go into effect in early 2022, will allow users to view Teams video calls from Workplace and comment in real time. Presenters in Teams will be able to track view engagement and reactions in both apps simultaneously.

Although the two companies compete in different ways (e.g., Microsoft’s Viva Connections also offers social networking capabilities, and both recently announced a competitive vision of deep collaboration) the partnership employee’s work.

Integration with Teams “will make it easier for people who use both tools at work to stay informed and create more opportunities for company-wide engagement,” said Ujjwal Singh, head of product at Workplace said.

Meta

Singh who said this early year that the Teams integration is ongoing, only to general customers who have been trying the integration, Vodafone and Flight Centre.

In a statement, Jeff Teper, Microsoft Teams CVP of product and engineering, said, “we work together to help our common customers unlock collaboration and break down gaps in their organizations. Their position is very reasonable.”

The integration must specifically benefit Workplace customers who see the app as their central employee communication solution but use it, said Angela Ashenden, principal analyst at CCS Insight. Use Teams for everyday productivity. This often happens at large organizations, where communications and HR teams rely on Workplace, while IT is responsible for Teams as a collaboration and productivity platform, she said.

With that in mind, integrations make a lot of sense for Meta because they help push information from Workplace to the users they tend to spend most of their time with. “By making news feeds available in Teams, Workplace can continue to reach those employees, while allowing directors and HR leaders to retain control over platform strategy,” she said. communication and interaction platform with employees.

However, Ashenden notes that while the integrations help bridge the two platforms, users of both Teams and Workplace still face challenges – especially due to the overlap between the respective chat functions. Their groups, Group Chats and Workplace Chats, can create confusion for employees.