Microsoft Pulls Third-Party Services into Office 365 with Connectors

Office 365 business users, take note: Microsoft has officially launched its Connectors for Office 365, which lets you authenticate into other services and interact with them via Office 365's Groups. Not only is this a useful way to keep your services under one roof, but it also allows multiple team members to benefit from the actions of a single account—if you're all using a single Twitter handle for your company, for example.

"Office 365 Groups is a service that enables teams to come together and get work done by establishing a single team identity and a single set of permissions across Office 365 apps. Setting up an Office 365 Group automatically creates a shared inbox, calendar, notebook and files. Now, any Groups member can add Office 365 Connectors for their group's use, in seconds, to bring filtered information in the shared inbox that is relevant and contextual to the team's needs and interests. For example, a product lead using the UserVoice connector can help her entire team track the latest feedback on a new product launched in market," reads Microsoft's description.

These Connectors aren't new, as Microsoft officially debuted a preview of the feature last November—albeit one much more limited in scope and availability than yesterday's release. And they aren't available for all Office 365 users to play with. First off, Microsoft is rolling out Connectors to its First Release customers right now, and general availability will come "shortly." Second, you'll need an Office 365 work or school account in order to use them, as that's the only way to get access to Office 365 Groups shared inboxes.

Nevertheless, Microsoft is launching Connectors that tie into plenty of other services. And setting up a new one is as easy as hopping into one of your groups, selecting the new Connectors tab, and authenticating into an existing service.

"Over 50 Office 365 Connectors are available today, spanning popular applications across productivity, news sources, HR systems, sales, project management, marketing automation, entertainment, eLearning, developer tools and many more. Some examples include MailChimp, Asana, GitHub, Stack Overflow, Aha, Zendesk, Salesforce, Twitter and UserVoice. We are also working with many other partners to enable additional connectors that will be made available soon."

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You can also access Connectors via Outlook 2016 and the Outlook Web App, as well as Microsoft's Groups app for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone.