Microsoft Teams App Development Challenge 2021

March 30, 2021 · 1 min read

Ryan Arnaudin

Product Design Lead
Austin // TX

Earlier this month, along with the engineering lead I’ve been working with, I submitted Brightidea’s new Microsoft Teams integration to Microsoft’s Teams App Development Challenge 2021. I designed the integration, which lets people turn any Teams message into an idea in Brightidea so it doesn’t get lost in the chat.

Brightidea for Microsoft Teams on Devpost — Our Brightidea for Microsoft Teams submission on Devpost

We were just wrapping up our first complete build of the integration when Microsoft’s review team let us know this hackathon was accepting submissions on Devpost. Creating the submission didn’t take much additional work, and we thought this might help get us some exposure (especially if we placed) since the integration launch would also coincide with a new Idea Box free trial.

You can check out our submission on Devpost.

The first version of our app allows ideas to be captured directly from messages in Teams so that they don’t get lost or forgotten. Brightidea lets you capture, manage, and track ideas across your organization so that the best ideas can win. With an always-on digital suggestion box for collecting ideas, teams are empowered to submit ideas when and where it is convenient for them, at their desks or on the go. Brightidea gives you everything you need to collect, manage, and track the success of your innovation process

Capture ideas in Teams — Capture ideas to Brightidea directly from a Teams message

Add idea details before submitting — Idea details are automatically captured including any attached images & files, and users can make adjustments as needed before submitting

Link team members between Teams and Brightidea — Users can be automatically or manually linked between Teams and Brightidea at the time of submission

Rich link previews in Teams — Brightidea links sent in Teams chats will automatically populate rich previews

We didn’t win, but it was still a good experience. Putting the app through a public submission made it better, because it forced us to polish our thinking, materials, and messaging before our internal and external launches. The integration shipped alongside a new Idea Box free trial.

Using the Devpost platform as a hackathon participant was also an interesting exercise, considering we offer similar tools in our Brightidea Hack app. The main difference is that our platform is built primarily for running challenges within a company, whereas Devpost is public.