How to Install the Teams Add-in in Microsoft Outlook
Adding Teams features to Outlook uses an Add-in. However, since Teams and Outlook are both Microsoft products, all you need to do is install both programs to use them together.
Just make sure you close and restart whichever application was installed first before opening the second one to ensure that the Add-in gets picked up during launch.
How to Use the Teams Add-in for Microsoft Outlook
The Teams Add-in provides many useful functions for Outlook, as described in the following sections.
Contact Team Status
You’ll be able to see the Teams status of contacts Teams status as part of their avatars. To the lower right of the contact’s picture you’ll see a badge, and its color will mirror that of their status in Teams. For example, green means available, while red means currently in a meeting. You can hover your mouse over the badge to get a tooltip of the precise status in case the color alone isn’t enough.
Launch Chats and Audio Calls
You may also know that hovering over the contact’s picture or avatar provides a pop-up with their information, such as title or email addStarting an audio call or text chat with your contacts from the pop-up when you hover over their avatars.
Add Teams Rooms to Outlook Meetings
Finally, you can quickly add a dedicated Teams space to any meeting you create in Outlook by clicking the Teams Meeting button that appears in the Ribbon toolbar for new Meetings (as shown below).
It will provide your invitees with a link to join the meeting on their Teams device, as well as a dial-in number if the Microsoft account through which you receive teams subscribes to voice service.
Checking the Outlook Teams Add-in
If for some reason you’re not seeing the features described in the last section, there may be an issue with your Add-in. Fortunately, checking on it is straightforward.
First, click the File tab on the Ribbon toolbar to go to the Backstage area. Next, select Options towards the bottom of the menu on the left. Now select Add-ins from the left side of the dialog. You’ll see the screen shown below. Make sure the Microsoft Teams Meeting Add-in for Microsoft Office is not listed in the Disabled Application Add-ins section of the list. If it is, select Disabled Add-ins from the Manage dropdown and click Go. Find Microsoft Teams Meeting Add-in for Microsoft Office in the list that appears, select it, click Enable, then click Close. Once reactivated, you should get all the great Teams features the next time you re-start Outlook.
Once reactivated, you should get all the great Teams features the next time you re-start Outlook.
