Collaboration software has been extremely important in the past year or so with companies navigating their way through the pandemic and work-from-home policies. To cater to increasing enterprise requirements, Microsoft has been updating Teams frequently, adding new features to increase productivity. Now, the company is streamlining workflows by directly integrating electronic signature capabilities within the Approvals app on Teams.
By the end of April, Microsoft plans to roll out a new capability to the Approvals app where users will be able to select third-party providers such as Adobe Sign and DocuSign to create electronic signatures within for approval requests as a formal attestation. Once a request is submitted, internal approvers will receive a notification and email within Teams to approve the request, while external approvers will receive an email. Audit trails for all these activities will be generated and stored natively in Teams.
To further streamline workflows, Microsoft will also be releasing templates for common approval documents such as overtime and expense reports. Admins and team owners will be able to create, customize, and deploy new templates. This feature will be rolling out this month.
New features that are available right now include the ability to add file attachments, support for markdown, and inline buttons to accept or reject requests from within the channel or notifications without having to view the details of the request.
You can find out more about the enhancements coming to the Approvals app by heading to Microsoft"s dedicated blog post.