Reach People on Microsoft Teams
Mass notifications are most effective when they reach people in applications and on devices they use every day. That’s why we added integration with Microsoft Teams to our InformaCast mass notification software. We’ve discussed the benefits of adding Microsoft Teams to your InformaCast ecosystem before on this blog, as well as how this integration works to activate and serve as a recipient for mass notifications.
InformaCast Fusion communicates with Microsoft Teams using a bot. The bot is necessary to send notifications to and from Microsoft Teams. In this blog post, we’ll cover installing and connecting the InformaCast bot from the Microsoft app store, sending a notification to Teams users from InformaCast, and how to trigger a scenario from Microsoft Teams using an adaptive card and Command Center.
Installing the Bot
Before installing the InformaCast bot from the app store, you need to set up your Microsoft Teams environment. While this blog post is focused on adding and using Microsoft Teams with InformaCast, we’ll outline a few tips for a successful setup.
First, we recommend creating a security team, or similar team type in your organization, if you do not already have one in your Microsoft Teams environment. This team should include administrators and/or personnel who you want to have access to triggering an InformaCast alert.
Within this security team, create an InformaCast channel. This is the channel from which the bot will be installed and initiated by administrators. If your Microsoft Teams environment has been set up, the InformaCast bot is ready to be installed and connected.
Connecting to InformaCast
Once you have opened and logged into Microsoft Teams, you’ll need to select the security team you just created. This is where an administrator will install and initiate the InformaCast bot.
Click the “Apps” icon and search for InformaCast. Before clicking to install, verify that the “Add to a Team” has your designated security team selected. If the correct team is selected, continue installing. This will cause a second pop-up window to appear where you can select the InformaCast security team channel you created earlier.
Next, there will be a notification on the chat. In the conversation from the InformaCast bot, select “Connect to InformaCast.” This will launch InformaCast Fusion and you will need to log in using a designated InformaCast administrator email. Once you’ve successfully logged into InformaCast Fusion, you’ll be returned to the Microsoft Teams conversation to see a successful connection.
To view the successful connection in InformaCast, go to the Recipients menu, and select “Microsoft Teams.” Under the general tab, a green dot will indicate a healthy connection. If the dot is yellow, you’ve missed a configuration step. Check that the bot is downloaded to Microsoft Teams and you have signed into InformaCast through the bot. If the dot is red, this could be due to a network failure or the bot being in a bad state. Try refreshing the webpage. If this doesn’t resolve the issue, contact Singlewire support.
Sending a Notification
When Microsoft Teams users are part of a message template or distribution list in InformaCast, they will receive a notification in Microsoft Teams, as well as any other devices the user is associated with, such as SMS, desk phones, and email. Sending a notification to Microsoft Teams users can be done from the InformaCast web console or mobile app. Quickly initiate from Command Center on the homepage, or from the message templates menu.
Next, to trigger a notification from Microsoft Teams using an adaptive card, you must first configure InformaCast Command Center. If you have not configured Command Center, visit the Singlewire Support Community for video tutorials to set up sites, site roles, and scenarios. Once Command Center is configured in InformaCast Fusion, open Microsoft Teams and select the security team and InformaCast channel.
Begin typing “@InformaCast” and click the InformaCast mention. You will be presented with the option to trigger a scenario. Choose a scenario from the dropdown. The scenarios presented are being pulled from the scenarios you configured earlier in InformaCast Command Center. If the scenario includes questions, select or input the appropriate answers. If the scenario is a single-button push scenario, click “Submit.” This will send the notification.
Visit our Incident Management page for more information about leveraging tools for virtual collaboration during a crisis.