Say you’re a small business owner, and your teams work remotely or are embracing hybrid work. You’re already using Microsoft Teams for communication, but that’s not quite enough—you need collaboration tools and features as well.
Microsoft Teams is absolutely a helpful tool for team communication. It helps employees connect across locations, supporting remote and hybrid work while providing helpful productivity tools for each meeting. However, its flexible AppSource environment also allows organizations to add new functionality.
With that in mind, let’s look at some of the best apps for improving collaboration within Microsoft Teams (and that won’t cost you extra).
Asana
Asana is a task management and collaboration tool that helps teammates collaborate on tasks, share their progress, and stay organized. Each task can be assigned, managed, set up with subtasks, and tracked from start to completion, and the Microsoft Teams integration lets users access their tasks from within Teams. With the Asana integration for Microsoft Teams, users can:
- See tasks, projects, and status updates from within the Teams environment
- Receive Teams notifications about task updates
- Capture and assign action items during Teams meetings
- Combine Rules in Asana with Teams to automate processes
Azure Boards
Azure Boards for Microsoft Teams is designed to help employees plan, track, and discuss work across Teams environments. Azure Boards helps teams collaborate and manage their workflows from within Teams with flexible work tracking, activity monitoring, and even drag-and-drop sprint planning. Teams and Azure Boards users can:
- Connect Teams channels to DevOps projects
- Create new work items in Teams channel projects
- Receive notifications for work items
- Search and share items with colleagues
Calendar Pro
The necessity of calendar apps almost goes without saying these days, but integrating Calendar Pro for Microsoft Teams helps teams schedule Teams meetings, synchronize schedules, and send invitations to contacts easily. Adding Calendar Pro to Teams helps users to:
- Share schedules
- Add, organize, and color-code events
- Tag and filter events
- Track daily tasks and scheduling
- List and schedule resources like meeting rooms
Draw.io
While Microsoft Teams may have a built-in whiteboard for sketches, sometimes a more complex diagram is necessary. That’s where Draw.io comes in, bringing everything from simple sketches to complex diagrams to Microsoft Teams. Draw.io enables users to:
- Create charts and diagrams
- Brainstorm with sketches
- Import data from OneDrive and Google Drive
- Automate diagram creation from data points
- Share and collaborate on diagrams
Fellow.app
Fellow.app is designed for collaborating on agendas, sharing meeting notes, and documenting action items within Microsoft Teams. This is designed to make meetings more productive and convenient, with easy access to notes and shared agendas before, during, and after Teams calls. With Fellow.app, users can:
- Add talking points and action items from channels into meetings and call notes
- Take real-time notes during calls
- Share agendas with meeting attendees
- Keep goals and to-do lists accessible in Fellow tabs, located in channels or group chats
Figma
Figma is a collaborative interface design tool that’s excellent for visualizing products, creating prototypes, and UI design. It can work within Teams with the Figma App for Microsoft Teams, allowing users to explore ideas together on whiteboards, present designs, and share updates from within the Teams environment. Figma for Teams helps users:
- Share design files and receive real-time feedback
- Create custom Teams tabs with embedded Figma files
- Comment on designs and get file notifications directly within Teams
Jira Cloud
Jira Cloud (which uses the Atlassian platform) is designed to help teams plan, track, and manage their work with dynamic issue information and workflows. By adding Jira Cloud to Microsoft Teams, users can connect their communications to a shared view of their work. This includes:
- Find tickets in Microsoft Teams meetings and sort them by completion or assignment
- Converting messages from Teams chat into new issues
- Collectively create, edit, and view tickets with meeting attendees
- Adding comments to existing issues
- Customizable and personal notifications
- A Jira tab for teams and channels
- Multiple tickets in a single message, which can expand into link cards
Lucidchart Diagrams
Lucidchart Diagrams for Teams, made by Lucid Software, is all about team collaboration through visuals. This includes flowcharts, network diagrams, org charts, wireframes, mockups, and more, which can be embedded and edited within team channels. Users can also import visual files from programs like Visio, and integrate Lucidchart Diagrams with other solutions, like Salesforce, Jira, and G Suite. On Microsoft Teams, users can:
- Work together on charts and diagrams such as mind maps, mockups, and Venn diagrams
- Access visuals from a wide range of libraries
- Import files from other essential business tools
- Access their documents in personal tabs
- Build and share customized templates
Poll Everywhere
Sometimes you just need to know what your team is thinking. In these cases, sending out polls is a great way to get feedback and start conversations, engaging with employees during remote meetings and calls. Poll Everywhere for Microsoft Teams helps presenters and organizers gather consensus, quiz their audience, and send out surveys during meetings to:
- Ask multiple-choice questions for insights and voting
- Gather real-time feedback from team members
- Keep meeting attendees engaged
- Track responses to questions over time
Trello for Teams
Trello is one of the more popular project management tools available, allowing teams to organize tasks through boards, lists, and cards. The Trello app for Microsoft Teams takes Trello’s free features and adds them to Teams, so users can view Trello boards and create and manage cards without leaving the Teams environment. Its capabilities include:
- Create and assign cards and tasks in Microsoft Teams
- Check the latest progress and updates on cards and to-do lists
- Add Trello boards as tabs in Teams channels
- Get notifications about Trello card updates
- Set due dates and mark cards as complete
While these are some of our favorite free collaboration apps for Microsoft Teams, they’re far from the only ones. There’s no small amount of apps and tools out there designed to make collaborating within Microsoft Teams even more efficient, so there will almost certainly be one for teams and businesses of any size.
