Six months after the general release of its enterprise chat tool, Microsoft Corp. announced Monday that Teams has attracted 125,000 organizations. In addition to the user traction enjoyed by Teams, Microsoft has also updated the app to include guest access and support for more developer tools.

The Microsoft Teams update comes just a few days after Atlassian Corp. Plc announced its unified team communications service called Stride, a combination of text chat rooms, voice and video meetings and collaboration tools. The guest access announcement also comes just a day before rival Slack Technologies Inc. kicks off its two-day Frontiers conference. Atlassian also has its user conference this week.

Last week Microsoft and Adobe Systems Inc. announced an expansion of their partnership, which includes a way to easily manage files via Microsoft Teams with the inclusion of an Adobe Sign app.

Here’s a look at the new guest access feature and the developer tools that Microsoft announced for Teams:

Guest access for Microsoft Teams

With the addition of the new feature to Microsoft Teams, anyone with an Azure Active Directory can be added as a guest to the workplace chat tool. This will provide access to the 870 million Active Directory user accounts across its own commercial services and third-party Azure Active Directory apps, according to the company.

At a later stage, Microsoft plans to extend guest access to anyone with a Microsoft Account. If they don’t have an existing account they will be directed to create a free version.   

Administrators will have the necessary controls to easily add, view or revoke guest access, as well as enterprise-grade security through Azure AD B2B Collaboration.

How to add and manage guests

Team owners or Office 365 administrators can add and manage guests via the web or desktop.

To add guests, from the teams list, click the More icon (three horizontal dots) next to the relevant team name > click “Add members” > enter the person’s email address. As the team owner or administrator you will need to set the name for the guest by clicking the pencil icon > type in the guest’s name.

Note: If you don’t add a guest’s name at this stage you will need to contact an administrator to do it for you later. An administrator will also be required if you want to add a title or phone number for a guest.

Invited guests will receive a welcome email. After accepting the invitation they will be able to participate in teams and channels, receive and respond to channel messages, access files in channels and participate in chat.

Other team members will be alerted that a guest has been added, by the message that will automatically be added to the channel thread, as well as the “Guest” tag that is added next to the person’s name. Alternatively, go to the “Members” tab to see everyone’s roles.

How to leave a team or remove access

Just like ordinary team members, guests can leave a team by clicking the More icon next to the team name > select “Leave the team.”

While team owners or administrators can remove a guest’s access to a team, by clicking the More icon next to the team name > View Team > click the Members tab. In the team members list, click the X to the far right of the relevant person’s name that you want to remove.

New developer tools for Microsoft Teams

This past weekend, Microsoft also announced support for Botkit, one of the most popular bot-building toolkits. The company also announced new integrations with Atlassian’s JIRA Service Desk, Core and Software, as well as Bitbucket Cloud.

Image: Microsoft