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. Once reactivated, you should get all the great Teams features the next time you re-start Outlook.