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Dev-Docs # Teams app that fits 1739185401111 #12272

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---
title: Build Apps for Teams Platform
author: heath-hamilton
description: Learn about Microsoft Teams and associated organizational goals, why should you build apps on Teams platform, and how does Teams app help meet business needs.
ms.topic: overview
ms.localizationpriority: high
ms.date: 02/06/2025
---
# Teams app that fits
# Build Apps for Teams Platform

Microsoft Teams offers a collection of apps that are provided by Microsoft or external services. Teams apps can be tabs, bots, or message extensions or any combination of the capabilities. You can extend Teams apps to work on Outlook and Microsoft 365 App, too. These apps expand the value of the Teams collaborative experience for users.
## Overview

Apps can be personal or shared. A personal app enables a one-on-one communication and a shared app lets multiple users share app space to collaborate.
Microsoft Teams offers a variety of apps, provided either by Microsoft or external services. These apps can be tabs, bots, message extensions, or a combination of these capabilities. You can also extend Teams apps to work on Outlook and Microsoft 365 App, enhancing the collaborative experience for users.

## Driving organizational goals
- **Personal Apps**: Enable one-on-one communication.
- **Shared Apps**: Allow multiple users to collaborate within the app space.

Collaboration and communication are key for an organization. Concise communication, integration with necessary services, and on-the-go accessibility is why organizations are increasingly choosing to rely on apps.
## Driving Organizational Goals

Organizations use it to connect with their customers, provide services, and share information. But that's not all! Apps are the meeting place for people to work together. A well-placed app helps build a cohesive environment for external and internal business needs.
Collaboration and communication are essential for organizations. The need for concise communication, integration with necessary services, and on-the-go accessibility drives organizations to rely on apps. Apps help to:

Let's look at some areas where an app helps to meet a business need.
- Connect with customers
- Provide services
- Share information
- Foster a cohesive environment for internal and external business needs

:::image type="content" border="false" source="../msteams-platform/assets/images/overview/why-teams-apps.png" alt-text="Screenshot shows you why should you build Teams app.":::
### Benefits of Teams Apps

| **Development options** | **Business opportunities** |
| --- | --- |
| - Desktop app <br> - Web app <br> - Mobile app | - Increase user engagements <br> - Make your app discoverable on Microsoft Teams Store |
| **Customer benefits** | **Internal workflows** |
| - On-the-go accessibility <br> - Secure customer data <br> - Ease of communication | - Automate repetitive tasks <br> - Simplify tasks with bots, such as Q&A and helpdesk |
| **Development Options** | **Business Opportunities** |
|------------------------|-------------------------------------------------|
| Desktop app | Increase user engagement |
| Web app | Make your app discoverable on Microsoft Teams Store |
| Mobile app | |

You can build apps with Teams platform by extending app capabilities to fit your needs. Create something brand new for Teams or integrate an existing app.
| **Customer Benefits** | **Internal Workflows** |
|----------------------------------|-----------------------------------------|
| On-the-go accessibility | Automate repetitive tasks |
| Secure customer data | Simplify tasks with bots, such as Q&A or helpdesk |
| Ease of communication | |

Take a look at these example developer personas and app scenarios:
- **Create New Apps**: Build from scratch to fit your needs.
- **Integrate Existing Apps**: Enhance current applications for Teams.

:::image type="content" border="false" source="assets/images/overview/dev-persona.png" alt-text="Screenshot shows you the developer persona and user stories."lightbox="assets/images/overview/dev-persona.png":::
### Developer Personas and App Scenarios

You can meet all of these scenarios with Teams apps and enhance collaboration within your Teams across Microsoft 365.
Illustrate how Teams apps can enhance collaboration across Microsoft 365 by viewing developer personas and user stories.

## Build apps with Microsoft Teams platform
:::image source="assets/images/overview/dev-persona.png" alt-text="Screenshot of developer persona and user stories.":::

Teams apps help your collaborative workspace to be more productive by bringing key information, common tools, and trusted processes to where people increasingly gather, learn, and work. Apps are how you extend the capabilities of Team platform to fit your requirements. Create something brand new or integrate an existing app, and you utilize benefits of Teams platform for your particular business needs.
## Building Apps with Microsoft Teams Platform

The benefits of building apps span from meeting organizational goals to increasing internal productivity.
Teams apps make a collaborative workspace more productive by integrating key information, tools, and processes in a single location. Here’s why Teams is ideal for your app requirements:

Here's why Teams is best suited for your app needs:
1. **Communication and Collaboration**
- Successfully integrate systems for communication and action within Teams
- Push notifications based on external events or actions

* **Communication and collaboration**
2. **Social Interactions**
- Utilize the social aspect of Teams to foster company culture
- Use apps for polls, feedback, connection, and communication

Most successful Teams apps involve pulling information from another system, having a conversation about it, and letting users take action. Teams lets you do all these tasks directly within the Teams client. You can even push information to a targeted audience based on an event or action in an external system.
:::image source="../msteams-platform/assets/images/overview/scenario-social.png" alt-text="Teams app for building team culture.":::

* **Social interactions**
3. **Common Business Processes**
- Automate tasks like sales reports, project tracking, resource reservation, help desk requests, and expense reporting.

Teams is a social platform; custom social-focused apps encourage your team to extend your company culture into your collaboration space. Use apps for sending polls, letting people share feedback with each other, enabling connection, and communication.
:::image source="../msteams-platform/assets/images/overview/scenario-approval-flow.png" alt-text="Teams app for internal use.":::

:::image type="content" border="false" source="../msteams-platform/assets/images/overview/scenario-social.png" alt-text="Screenshot shows you the Teams app for building team culture.":::
4. **Personal Apps with Tabs and Bots**
- Use conversational bots to simplify complex information sharing.

* **Common business processes**
5. **Surface Existing Apps**
- Extend web apps, SharePoint sites, or other applications to Teams for increased user engagement.

Tasks like creating and sharing a sales call report, tracking your project timeline, reserving common resources, submitting help desk requests, expense reports are repetitive tasks. They make for effective Teams apps.
:::image source="../msteams-platform/assets/images/overview/scenario-dashboard.png" alt-text="SharePoint site ported as a Teams tab.":::

:::image type="content" border="false" source="../msteams-platform/assets/images/overview/scenario-approval-flow.png" alt-text="Screenshot shows you the Teams app for internal use.":::
6. **Teams Store Advantage**
- Improve app availability and marketing through the Teams Store.
- Great for startups to increase product awareness.

* **Personal apps with tabs and bots**
7. **Build Once, Run Everywhere**
- Extend your Teams app across Microsoft 365 for a seamless cross-platform user experience.

One-to-one conversational bots are one of the more open-ended features in Teams. The conversation is just between the bot and your user. You have the flexibility of including dialogs (referred as task modules in TeamsJS v1.x) to simplify complex sets of information.
## Next Steps

For example, if your app is a design tool with multiple collaborators, a shared bot that notifies all users helps to build user engagement.

Additionally, a chat bot can be an easy replacement for emails and phone calls to IT or HR departments.

* **Surface existing app**

If you've got an existing web app, SharePoint site (or SPFx extension), PowerApp, or other web-based application, it may make sense to enable some or all of it in Teams. Extending existing apps and porting interactive functionalities to Teams helps to grow user base and user engagement for your app.

:::image type="content" border="false" source="../msteams-platform/assets/images/overview/scenario-dashboard.png" alt-text="Screenshot shows you the SharePoint site ported as a Teams tab.":::

* **Teams Store advantage**

Push your app on Teams Store to improve app's availability and you can use it as a marketing opportunity. If you're running a startup, Teams platform helps to increase awareness of your products. Teams Store marketplace can be a great platform for large audiences to discover your app.

* **Build once, run everywhere**

Extend your Teams app across Microsoft 365, which provides a streamlined way to deliver cross-platform apps to an expanded user audience: from a single codebase, you can create app experiences tailored for Teams, Outlook, and Microsoft 365 app environments. End users don't have to leave the context of their work to use your app, and administrators benefit from a consolidated management and deployment workflow.

Use the latest app manifest and Teams JavaScript client library versions to enable your personal tab and message extension apps to run in other Microsoft 365 experiences in addition to Teams. You can reach users on platforms such as Outlook and Microsoft 365 app all with the same codebase, broadening the reach of your app and streamlining your development and distribution processes.

## Next step

> [!div class="nextstepaction"]
> [From ideas to Teams app](overview-story.md)
- [Proceed from ideas to creating a Teams app](overview-story.md)