Creating a team in Microsoft Teams
Connecting your Teams channel to StagingPro
Introduction
Communication between team members is vital in any development project, and with teams working remotely and across different time zones, keeping in touch is more important than ever. StagingPro has the native ability to send notifications to Microsoft Teams (and other channels) each time a deployment event occurs.
Creating a team in Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams allows you to specify different groups of people you regularly communicate with. Under each of these groups (known as “Teams”), communication is through smaller chats (known as channels). These channels allow users to communicate with individuals or larger groups within the team.
Before looking at channels, we first need to ensure that you have at least one team configured. If this is your first time using Microsoft Teams, there are three easy steps to follow when setting up a new team. You can find more detailed information on the Microsoft website by clicking here.
Step 1: Open Microsoft Teams. Click on “Teams” in the left-hand side panel.
Step 2: Click the “Create Team” button as indicated below
Step 3: Give your team a name. Please note that this name needs to be unique, but Teams will warn you if your name clashes with another name previously set up. Click “Next” when you are ready.
Step 4: Finally, we need to add team members. Start by typing the first few letters of a team member’s name, and Teams should display the desired user. Alternatively, you can enter a team member’s email address, and if this does not exist in teams, they will be allowed to join this team as a “guest.”
The image below shows that your team creation has been successful.
Creating a new Teams channel
If you have followed the steps in the previous section, you would now have successfully set up a Team, so next, we need to take a look at creating a channel. Think about channels as separate “chat” windows between individuals or groups of users within the team.
Step 1: To set up a channel, click on the “…” that you will see to the right of the name you have given to your team. When the popup menu appears, click on “Add Channel.”
Step2: Next we need to give the channel a name. Once again note that this has to be a unique name but Teams will notify you if the name you choose clashes with a name previously created.
Your channel has now been created.
Connecting your Teams channel to StagingPro
Now that you have both a Team and a channel, we need to link these to StagingPro so that notifications will be visible to everybody with access to the Teams channel.
Step 1: Hover over your new channel name until the “…” appear and click this.
Step 2: From the popup menu that appears, click on “Connectors”
Step 3: A list of connectors available on your pc will be displayed. Click “Add” next to the “Incoming Webhook” option.
Step 4: In the confirmation screen that appears, click on the “Add” button on the top right of the screen.
Step 5: Repeat Step 1 by clicking on the “…” next to your channel name and clicking on “Connectors” from the popup menu.
Step 6: This time, click on the “Configure” button next to the “Incoming Webhook” option
Step 7: Give your webhook a name and click “Create”.
Step 8: Your bottom of the screen will change slightly to include a link. Click on the red highlighted button in the image below to copy the link to the clipboard.
Step 9: Open StagingPro, navigate to “Settings” and click on the “Status Notifications” tab. Click on “Add Channels” and select the Microsoft Teams icon.
Step 10: Paste the previously copied link into the highlighted textbox and click on “Send Test Message”.
Step 11: Leave the default message or type your notification and click send. You will see a notification window confirming that the message has been sent.
Step 12: Go back to teams and confirm that the test message has appeared in your new channel.
