Out of all the team chat apps out there, Microsoft Teams' distinct advantage is its integration with Microsoft 365 products such as Excel and Outlook. Streamlining work and communication is a huge plus for small businesses needing to move quickly.

But let's face it: businesses don't just use Microsoft 365 products to scale. From project management apps to CRM tools, you'll want a secure way to connect them to Microsoft Teams.

With Zapier, you can connect all your apps and create automated workflows—what we call Zaps—that let you better handle team communication, streamline projects, get important reminders, and more. 

Table of contents

• Monitor communication

• Get important reminders

• Track leads

• Keep a record of document changes

• Streamline your tasks

• Stay up to date on marketing efforts

Monitor communication

The great thing about Microsoft Teams is that it virtually eliminates internal emails. Unfortunately, you still have to monitor your email if you're communicating with potential clients, vendors, and other outside people.

If you're spending the majority of your time in chat, emails will pile up quickly. (I speak from experience.) Try these Zaps, which will send a message in a Teams channel or chat whenever you receive an email.

Get important reminders

You likely spend a significant amount of time in Microsoft Teams, so why not use it as a place for team reminders? For things you need done on a schedule—hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly—you can use Schedule to send the messages for you. Here are a few we recommend:

If you need to remind your team about an upcoming meeting, you can use Zapier to automatically send a reminder message whenever there's an upcoming event on your calendar.

What if you work with tools that don't integrate with Zapier? If your apps have webhook functionality, you can use webhooks to connect your must-have platforms with Microsoft Teams.

Track leads

If all goes well, your marketing efforts will generate leads. Many form and lead management apps have their own notifications, but if they come in by email or are only accessible in that app, there's a risk of overlooking one that will turn into a sale.

Use an automatic workflow to send notifications of new leads to a specific Teams channel. Members of your sales team can jump in and claim specific ones to follow up on, so you'll never have to worry about whether a lead went unclaimed.

Keep a record of document changes

Many spreadsheet apps allow multiple collaborators, which is a lifesaver for folks who tend to break spreadsheet formulas or just need a little extra help updating an expense report.

You can use a Zap to automatically notify you in Microsoft Teams whenever there's a new row or updated information in your favorite spreadsheet app.

Streamline your tasks 

People ask you to do things all the time, probably in Teams. But those last-minute requests can easily slip through the cracks if you don't routinely check your messages, or another even higher priority request gets thrown your way. 

Zapier can help lift the burden. Whenever someone sends a message in Teams asking you to do something, these Zaps will set them up in your task or project management tool, automatically. 

Want to flip these workflows around? If you're anything like me and forget to check your task management tool for any new projects you're collaborating on, you can easily set up these workflows to alert you in Teams whenever a task has your name on it. 

Stay up to date on marketing efforts

Marketing is a ton of work. To capture even one person's attention, you have to be in all the places: Google search, social media, SMS, and so on. And once you're in all the places, you need to not only track those efforts, but respond appropriately when necessary.

These Zaps will send updates to a Team channel, so you can keep track whenever someone leaves a Google review on your business, sends a message to your business Facebook page, and more.

Take your team chat to the next level

The more you can connect your Microsoft Teams account with the rest of your company's tech stack, the more you can scale your business and get more done in your day. 

But this is just the start of all that you can do with Microsoft Teams and Zapier. Zapier supports thousands of apps, so you automate almost any task at work. Start building your Zap now and see what you can create.

This article was originally published in October 2020. It was most recently updated by Elena Alston in August 2023.