The Teams platform and interface provide many options for development and integration with line of business applications. Out of the box, Teams already boasts a large collection of connectors and bots for facilitating connectivity with third-party applications.
Developers are encouraged to use the platform to extend their native application's capabilities. Some of the core areas for development include the following:
- Conversational bots: Bots are applications that can interact with users through chat or respond to automated events (such as users being added to a team or a channel being created or updated).
- Tabs: Tabs can appear in channels or chats and can be used to render a web application or experience inside the Teams client, allowing users the opportunity to interact with a custom app without leaving the Teams experience.
- Webhooks and connectors: These integrations allow external services to interact with Teams, such as posting or updating messages in a conversation.
- Messaging extensions: A messaging extension allows you to invoke your (or a custom line of business) application's API from within the context of a chat or conversation.