Installing the Internal-facing Inbox Companion app for Teams

Stephen Boss Updated by Stephen Boss

This guide will walk you through connecting the Teams MSP bot to you your Company's tenant.

This guide is not for connecting your customers' teams environments, if you want to deploy the customer Teams app refer to this guide: How to install your custom Teams app on your Customers' tenants.

What is the Thread MSP Bot?

The MSP Bot provides you with several awesome service collaboration features right from within Teams:

  • Get notified when you are assigned as the owner of a thread(ticket).
  • Setup custom flows to get notifications for threads in a Teams channel of your choice
    • See all the updates on the thread in real time, as they are updated in your PSA or Inbox (replies, internal notes, status & board changes, etc.)
    • Manage the full lifecycle of the thread from Teams - collaborate internally and sync those notes with the PSA, send replies to the customer, update thread status, priority, board, etc.

Connecting Teams

Start from the following Screen and follow the prompts or follow the steps below

  1. Navigate to Thread Admin Panel -> Integrations -> Teams and click Connect
  2. You should see the screen pictured below
  3. Click on Connect with Microsoft Teams
  4. You will be taken to a Microsoft Online sign in page. Sign in with Administrator credentials to your company's Microsoft 365 environment.
  5. Permissions will be requested for the bot. Click Accept.
  6. After approving the permissions, you will be redirected to setup instructions for the teams app.
  7. Navigate to admin.teams.microsoft.com
  8. From the Microsoft Teams Admin center, starting from the left navigation menu, navigate to Teams Apps -> Manage Apps
  9. Download the MSP Teams app by clicking the button below.
  10. Back at the Manage apps menu of the Microsoft Teams Admin Center, click + Upload new app
  11. A pop up will appear to Upload a custom app, click Upload and select Thread.zip (the zip file you downloaded in step 8).
    No need to unzip this file, it is meant to be uploaded in .zip format
🎉 Congrats we've deployed the app! Next, we will add it to a Setup policy to install and make the app available for your users.
  1. Close the New app added prompt and navigate to Teams apps -> Setup policies
  2. Select Global (Org-wide default)
  3. Under Installed apps, click Add apps. On the right modal that appears, search for "thread" and select the Thread app. Click Add.
  4. You can optionally pin the Thread app but it is not required for the MSP app. When you are done, click Save.
  5. Please allow some time for the app to appear in your tenant. The app will appear relatively quickly on the web version of teams and may take a little longer on the desktop version.

🎉 Congrats!! You've finished installing the MSP Thread app in your tenant. Keep reading for instructions on how to add the app to a team.

Adding the App to a Team

To get the most out of the app, you will want to add it to a Team - this will allow you to set up flows to route tickets to channels and interact with the bot from the context of that Team.

  1. Navigate to teams.microsoft.com -> Select Apps from the left navigation bar
  2. Click on Thread, listed under Built for your org.
  3. In the Pop-out... 1. click the ⌄ to the right of the Add button -> 2. Click Add to a team
  4. On the following screen, you will be asked to add the bot to a team. Type the channel or Team name that you'd like to add it to.
  5. Once you've selected the Team/Channel, click Set up.
    The Team you are adding the bot to matters more than the channel. When creating a flow in Thread, you will have the option to create new channels from within Thread to route specific tickets/threads to.
    Keep in mind that the bot will not be able to interact with private channels within the Team.
  6. Choose whether you want to post to the channel about Thread and click Save.
  7. Then, you can see your integration is already set on https://admin.getthread.com/dashboard/integrations
  8. Awesome! Now you can create a channel/flow in Inbox and get notified of those threads in Teams!

FAQ

What if I want to add it to another team?

Repeat the steps in the section Adding the App to a Team for as many teams as you like. You only need to add the app to a particular team once. From there, the bot will have access to any public channels created under that team. Or, you can use our flow builder to create a new channel under that team.

What if I get no permissions message?

Please check your permissions in the Teams admin center, you can find instructions here.

How did we do?

Troubleshooting "You don't have permission" error in Teams

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