Microsoft Teams Integration: How to Use It

ProjectManager’s Microsoft Teams integration allows you to quickly access and edit tasks via Microsoft Teams on your desktop and mobile device. Use the demo video and documentation below to get started.

 

Table of Contents

• Installation
• View Task Details
• Search for Tasks
• Edit a Task
• Comment on a Task
• Create a New Task
• Connect a Channel and a Project
• Daily Task Reminders
• Switching Workspaces
• Getting Help

Installation

This page focuses on how to use our Teams integration day-to-day, for initial setup instructions, please see our related guide: Installing our Teams Integration

View Task Details

To display task information, post the following message to any channel:

@projectmanager task TASKID

Task ID must be the ID of any task in your account, for example:

• @projectmanager task A-1
• @projectmanager task BUG-292

If you're in a Direct Message with the bot, you can shorten the command to simply:

task TASKID

You can find a Task ID from inside ProjectManager in a couple of ways. The simplest is to look at the top of the Task Detail view, above the Task Name, you'll see the ID:

The Task ID can also be found at the end of any task web address.

After running the command, the task details will be posted to the channel for you and your team to see:

Clicking the View button will show all the task details on ProjectManager, and clicking Edit will let you update the task progress from within Teams. More about that here.

Search Your Tasks

If you don't know the ID of the task you want to share, you can search through your tasks by posting the following Direct Message to the app:

task-search KEYWORD

The keyword can be anything you want to search for, for example:

• Search sales
• Search design

To perform a search in a shared channel rather than a Direct Message to the app, simply mention the app before the command:

@projectmanager task-search KEYWORD

Note that your interactions with the bot will be visible to other users in the channel.

When you perform a search, matching tasks will be shown in the thread:

Click the Post button beside a task to post it to the channel.

Edit a Task

Each task posted to a task to a channel via the View or Search commands will have an Edit button below it. Clicking the Edit button will let you change the name, description, progress or due date:

Comment on a Task

Whenever a task is posted to a channel, there will be a Comment button below it. Clicking the Comment button will open a simple text box where you can enter your comment:

Once you click Save, the task will be added to the task immediately. 

Create a New Task

You can create a new task by posting the following Direct Message to the app:

task-create

Again, this can be run in a public channel if you're okay with other channel users seeing the results. To do this, simply mention the app before the command:

@projectmanager task-create

In either case, the app will ask you for the task details:

After filling in these fields and clicking Create Task, the task will be created immediately.

Connect a Channel and a Project

Many people create channels for each project they are working on, to keep discussion centralized. If this is you, we have some tools to make it easier to access project information from inside the channel. For example, you can:

• See the latest project information with one short command
• View upcoming and overdue tasks with a click
• Have a daily task summary posted to the channel automatically

To use this feature, simply post this message in any channel:

@projectmanager project

If you don't currently have a related project, you'll see a reply explaining how the feature works and giving you the option to choose a project for this channel:

Now that you're connected, running the same command at any time will show information about the related project, for example:

Below the project information are some action buttons:

• Tasks due soon → Posts upcoming and overdue tasks into the channel
• Daily updates → Automatically posts a task summary to the channel each day
• Edit project → Allows you to update the status, target date and more
• View more → Opens the full project view in your browser
• Remove related project → Resets the channel to have no related project

Daily Task Reminders

You can choose to have a summary of important project tasks posted to a channel each day. You can toggle this feature on and off using the Related Project feature above. Once enabled a summary of your incomplete project tasks will be automatically posted to the channel once a day, for example:

Clicking a task name will show the task in a new window in case you'd like to view the task details or make changes. Clicking View full project will open the project plan view so you can see the entire project and its tasks in context.

Switching Workspaces

You can switch Workspaces by disconnecting from the current Workspace and reconnecting to the new one. To see your current connection and disconnect from it, type this into a Direct Message with the ProjectManager app:

personal_connections

This will show you if you're connected and give you the option to disconnect. The first time you use the app after disconnecting, you'll be asked to reconnect. At this point, you can choose between any of your Workspaces.

Custom Features

If you would like to extend our standard MS Teams integration with bespoke features, we have some tools to help:

• You can use Zapier to create a custom integration with no code, learn more.
• If you have in-house developers, you can point them to our Developer Center.

Getting Help

If you're ever unsure about what to do, you can post the word "help" inside a Direct Message to the app. You can also run this command in any channel:

@projectmanager help

This will give you information about how to use the app.

If you have any other questions or suggestions, please email us.