learningCloud (New Features): Integration with Microsoft Teams

The new version of learningCloud 5.24, released in January 2023, includes a new functionality that improves communication with students: integration with the Microsoft Teams messaging application, widely used today in the workplace.

What does integration with Teams involve?

The integration of Microsoft Teams with the learningCloud platform brings a new tool to training administrators. It allows them to create and associate a chat room to a Sprint training. All those enrolled in the training will become part of this room, and will be able to use it to communicate directly with each other and raise their contributions, doubts, suggestions...

As it is associated with the creation or edition of a training, this functionality is only available to users with an Administrator role, both Global Administrator and Group Administrator.

Each training can have only one Teams chat room associated with it.
However, the same Sprint can have several chat rooms, as many as the number of trainings it has.

How do I activate the Teams integration functionality?

From the new version of learningCloud 5.24 this new functionality is available for all instances. It is not necessary to request its activation from any agent. However, it must be previously configured in your Learning Manager portal, as explained in the following section.

Set up integration with Teams

The first step before starting to use the integration with Teams is to activate the option in the platform and enter some necessary data. For this, enter the Learning Manager portal with a user with a global Administrator role. Access the Configuration section by clicking on the cogwheel at the top right of the screen.

This displays a new side menu with all the configuration options of the portal. Go to the General tab, the first one, and look for the Integrations section.

Here you will find the option Active integration with MS Teams, which must be activated by clicking on the flag on the left. Doing so displays three blank fields:

• Tenant ID
• Client Id
• Client Secret

which must be filled correctly with your private data for the integration to work properly. This information is provided exclusively by Microsoft, and can be requested by following the steps indicated in this article of its knowledge base.

Once the flag is activated and the three identifiers have been entered, click on the √ SAVE button at the top right to save the changes and activate the integration.

Enable Teams integration in a Training

Once the integration has been correctly configured, any user with an administrator role can assign a chat room to a new training, or another one already created.

For this, in the Learning section, look for the Sprint and click on it to access the Editor. Go to the second tab, Trainings.

Remember that to start creating trainings for a Sprint, it is necessary to publish it first.

If you want to create a new training, click on the + TRAINING button at the bottom and a new side menu will be displayed to configure it.

Among all the options, look for the Social settings section, and you will find the new MICROSOFT TEAMS functionality. Activate the flag to its left to make it available in the training, and click on the √ SAVE button to save the configuration.

In case you are working with a trainig that has already been created, you have to modify its configuration. Look for it in the list of existing trainings, click on the three dots menu on the right and select the Edit option.

The same side menu is displayed where you will find the option to activate the integration with Teams.

Once you have activated the integration with the training, a new Teams room will be created to which all enrolled students will have access, as well as the administrator who created the training, as the chat room creator. Therefore, the user who creates the training must have his own active Microsoft Teams account with the same email address he uses for learningCloud, otherwise the system will not be able to create the chat room.

IMPORTANT: Microsoft Teams chat rooms have a capacity limit of up to 250 users. For this reason, if you activate the integration in a training, it will have a enrollment limit of up to 249 students, plus the creator of the training. The platform will not allow to enroll more than this number of users, if the administrator tries to do so, the error message will be displayed:
Enrollment has not been made. The limit of enrolled users has been exceeded.
For the same reason, when activating the integration, the option to enroll User Groups will no longer be available, to avoid possible technical problems.

Access the chat room as a student

Once Microsoft Teams is integrated in the training, and the students have been enrolled, they will be able to access the new chat room through the Student Portal.

Look for the Sprint among all the trainings you have assigned, and click to access it. You will enter the main page of the course, where you can see the different blocks and activities. In the upper right corner, next to the profile picture, you will find the course information icon.

Click on it and a new pop-up window appears with the cover image, title and other course information. At the top you will see the OPEN TEAMS CHANNEL button that you must click to access the chat. A link will open in a new tab that will give the option to open Teams in the browser, or through the application if it is installed on your computer.

The system enrolls the student in the chat room with the email address associated with their learningCloud account.
Therefore the student must have an active Microsoft Teams account with that same email and log in with it to access the chat room.