Out now: My new Microsoft Teams Development book!

It’s been a LONG time coming, but I’m really excited to let you know that my new book: Building and Developing Apps & Bots for Microsoft Teams is now available to buy.

Over the past 10+ years working as a developer in this space I’ve seen a shift in the Unified Communications (UC) developer ecosystem. It used to be a highly-specialised niche, a fairly narrow field. To be an expert in this field you needed to fully understand all parts of the limited SDKs available and be able to extract every last piece of functionality out of them. Since the advent of Microsoft Teams, the field has widened hugely and there are now many different ways to build on Microsoft’s UC platform. The rise of no-code and low-code technologies has made everything more accessible to more people but has introduced a lot of choices and trade-offs. With choice comes confusion.

Is this book for you?

You’re a developer or system architect who wants to build applications on Microsoft Teams but you don’t know where to start. There seem to be so many different entry points, multiple SDKs and no clear path forward. You’re not sure what’s possible and you don’t have months to investigate every different approach. You’re frustrated at how complicated it all seems to be.

You’re not a developer and you don’t want to be. Microsoft keeps talking about “no-code” and it sounds interesting because you have some ideas for how you can make your organisation work more efficiently. You feel like you’re missing out on an exciting opportunity, but how do you get started? Is it really true that you don’t need to know anything about development?

You’re an IT manager. You suspect that your Microsoft Teams deployment could work better for your people if some rough edges were rounded and things were better integrated. You have a development team but you’re unsure what to tell them to do. You’re concerned that people outside of IT are starting to build apps. Are they secure and compliant? How can they be controlled? You don’t want to lock them down if they’re adding business value, but you don’t understand enough about them to know how safe they are. You’re overwhelmed at how quickly everything changes and don’t know how to make the right decisions.

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The last few years have cemented Microsoft Teams as a critical part of the workflow of the business. The benefit that applications can bring to Microsoft Teams to make people more productive and efficient is becoming a differentiator in business. Staying on top of the best ways to build on top of Microsoft Teams ensures your organisation stays in front: if you don’t figure this out, someone else will and they will overtake you.

Adding the right applications in the right places will improve productivity because users will have immediate access to the data they need, right where they are already having conversations about that data. If you could increase employee productivity by 10% with a few key integrations to legacy line-of-business applications, what would that do to your business?

Let’s say your average monthly income is $10,000. Imagine that making your sales team work more efficiently using some specialised apps in Microsoft Teams (enabling them to be more productive) resulted in 10% more sales. That means, for every month you’re not providing them with those apps, you’re paying a cost of $1,000 in lost potential. 10% is not an unreasonable productivity gain for putting the right information at the fingertips of those that need it most and these savings are real.

How this book came about

I like to speak at conferences. It’s a good way of sharing knowledge and learning at the same time. I enjoy the conversations, the networking and the community. The Microsoft Teams community is a special place and I’m proud to be a part of it.

Over the past few years, I’ve noticed a shift in the content at these conferences, particularly around developing on the platform. It used to be that people broadly understood what was possible with the development tools, even though they didn’t know exactly how to go about doing it. Now though, because of the explosion in new tooling, new SDKs and no-code approaches such as Power Platform, people aren’t even sure anymore what’s possible. There is a lot of confusion out there.

That’s not all though. There’s something new happening – excitement! People are excited about the possibilities that now exist. There is a lot of interest in building applications on Microsoft Teams and a lot of people who want to understand it more. Every proof of concept I hear about reports more productive, happier users.

That’s why I wrote this book. I wanted to provide an overview of the entire ecosystem in one place, in enough detail so that you would know what is possible, what is easy and what is hard, and the different approaches. I wanted to address the needs of both pro-developers and non-developers. I wanted to offer a starting point for people who want some of that excitement.

Here’s (exactly) what you get:

• A book that is for developers AND normal people – this book is intentionally directed at both developers and non-developers. That’s because although they have very different needs, there is a lot of cross-over and I think it’s valuable for each side to have an understanding of the other. You do not need to be a developer to get value from this book!
• Published Online – when you buy the book it’s available for immediate download in PDF, EPUB and MOBI format, or you can start reading it in a web-browser. This range of formats makes it easy to add to your reader of choice.
• Buy Once, Update Often – when you buy this book you’re buying updates over time. This was a key factor for me in choosing the publisher. The only way to keep a book like this relavent over time was to use a platform that supports regular updates. Buying the book means that you will get every single update for free and you will always be up to date.
• 60-day 100% Happiness Guarantee – Administered by Leanpub (the publishers), within 60 days of purchase you can get a 100% refund on any Leanpub purchase, in two clicks. I’m taking a risk doing this – I can’t make you give the PDF back. So, you could just buy the book, ask for a refund and rip me off, but I’m going to trust that you’re not going to do that.

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If you’ve read this far, then I’m guessing you probably already understand and can relate to what I’m talking about.

You already know that there is a lot of potential in the Microsoft Teams Development Platform – potential that you are not realising right now.

It’s time to change that, time to understand what’s possible and start building applications today for Microsoft Teams. Don’t do it alone, let me guide you through the choices and give you the benefit of 10 years of experience. Click the button below and start the journey today.