Microsoft Teams Integration

With the Microsoft Teams audio/video call integration:

1. We allow meeting organisers to create a Microsoft Teams call link directly in Sherpany. 
2. Creating the Microsoft Teams call will trigger a calendar invitation via email to all the participants, which they can add to their personal calendars of choice (incl. Outlook, Google Calendar, etc.).

To use this feature, Meeting Organisers need to connect their Sherpany account with their individual Microsoft Teams account, enabling the Sherpany application to create Microsoft Teams meetings on their behalf. 

Meeting Participants can join the call without a Microsoft Teams account by simply entering their names.

• Open your personal settings in Sherpany
• In the "integration" section, click “Connect account” to initiate the technical handshake (consent) between Sherpany and Microsoft Teams.
• You will be redirected to Microsoft: enter the email address of your Microsoft account. Do not enter your Sherpany login details here. 

• Enter the password address of your Microsoft account. Do not enter your Sherpany login details here.
• Choose your preference. If in doubt, please choose "Yes". Your choice does not have an influence on the Sherpany functionality.

• Microsoft informs you what permissions the Sherpany application is requesting. Please click "Accept".

• Congratulations, you have completed the initial consent! Please click "Return to Sherpany" (or wait for the window to close automatically).

• Your accounts are now connected!

Once the initial consent has been provided, you can set up a Microsoft Teams call directly in Sherpany with the following simple steps.

1. Create a new meeting (or open an existing one).
2. From the “Conference call” dropdown, select “Microsoft Teams”.
3. Click “Create” (or “Update”).
4. Once the link is available here, the meeting has been set up successfully!

Once a Microsoft Teams call has been set up, the participants of the meetings will have the possibility to connect to the meeting by : 

• Joining a meeting in Sherpany : the meeting participants can join the Microsoft Teams call directly from Sherpany, he can find the link directly there. 
• Joining a meeting from a personal Calendar : by replying to the calendar invitation in the email, the meeting participants will add the meeting to their personal calendars. 
• Joining a meeting from Microsoft Teams Calendar : the meeting will also appear on the Microsoft Teams Calendar.
• Microsoft Teams - Joining a Meeting via email : the meeting participants will receive a calendar invitation via email.

Please note that :

• Rescheduling the meetings will reschedule the meeting in the individual calendars of all the Meeting Participants.
• Deleting the meeting will delete the meeting in the individual calendars of all the Meeting Participants.
• Adding or removing people from a meeting will trigger invitations/deletions in the individual calendars of the respective Meeting Participants.
• Removing the Microsoft Teams conference call from the meeting in Sherpany will send a meeting cancellation to the personal calendars of the Meeting Participants. (The Meeting Organiser is informed about that, before saving that change.)
• Please note that the calendar invitation does NOT take into account agenda item exclusions. I.e. it will always be from start to end time of the meeting - regardless of which agenda items the person has access to. This will probably change at a later stage - latest with the introduction of the Guest feature.

• Sign in and read the Meeting Organiser's Microsoft profile.
• Read and write to the personal and shared calendar on Microsoft’s side.
• Read and create online meetings on Microsoft’s side.

These permissions are required in order to create the Microsoft Teams call and send the calendar invitations. We have limited the permissions to the least possible ones in order to provide the functionality.

The authentication is based on Microsoft’s policies and OAuth - an industry-standard commonly used as a way for internet users to grant websites or applications access to their information on other websites, but without giving them the passwords. This mechanism is used, for example, by companies such as Amazon, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Twitter to permit users to share information about their accounts with third-party applications or websites.

What information is shared with the customer's Microsoft Teams instance in order to create the calendar invitation and send it via email on behalf of the Meeting Organiser?

To generate the calendar invitation and send it on behalf of the Meeting Organiser, the following information is shared with the customer's Microsoft Teams instance (within the meeting organiser's organisation, not with Sherpany):

• Email addresses of all the meeting participants of the respective meeting.
• Meeting title.
• Meeting start and end date.
• Meeting location.
• Meeting timezone.
• Direct link to the meeting in Sherpany (when opening the link, all users still need to log in to Sherpany in order to see any meeting details).

Where is the Microsoft Teams tenant of Sherpany located?

Our Microsoft Azure servers, where the Sherpany app is hosted on, are located in the European Union — not in the US. Additionally, our data location is in EU Model Clause compliant data centres, specifically in Portugal.

Does this Sherpany’s add-on/integration connect only with Microsoft Teams, or does it extend to other Microsoft Office products?

Sherpany's integration is focused solely on Microsoft Teams. Please keep in mind that while Microsoft Teams does integrate with other Microsoft products, our responsibility is limited to our direct integration with Microsoft Teams. Any additional integrations between Microsoft Teams and other Microsoft products are managed independently by Microsoft and are not part of our service offering.

Data storage: Does Sherpany store data from Microsoft Office?

No, data from Microsoft Office is stored in this integration.

What is the full list of data that Sherpany stores on its application servers, and not on the Microsoft Teams tenant?

Sherpany securely stores essential data on its application servers, separate from the Microsoft Teams tenant. This includes authentication tokens for secure access, event IDs for event management, user email addresses for personalised communication, and call links for easy meeting access.

What API permissions do we need to grant to Sherpany for the integration?

For an App to access data in Microsoft Graph, the User or Admin must grant it the permissions. The required API permissions for this integration include: calendars.readwrite, email, openid, onlinemeetings.readwrite, profile, and user.read

What are the data protocols and types used for this integration?

The integration uses the HTTPS protocol and relies on the official Microsoft GRAPH API. In terms of data types, we handle Users (R), Calendars (RW), and Events(online) (RW).

What is the authentication method that is used for this integration?

We employ the Microsoft identity platform with OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect standard-compliant authentication services.

What information is shared with the Microsoft Teams tenant of Sherpany?

Sherpany uses an Azure integration app, hosted on its own Microsoft Tenant, to establish a trusted relationship with the Microsoft identity platform. The information shared with the Azure app is confined to public Sherpany entity data, such as billing address, contact details, and app URIs. No customer data is stored in this environment; it functions as a secure bridge or gateway between the Sherpany app and Microsoft. We save the customer's SSO domain URIs to ensure trust between Teams and the Sherpany platform.

Q: When do the attendees receive the email containing the Microsoft Teams link?

Attendees receive the Microsoft Teams link email immediately upon saving the meeting details, regardless of the agenda or its publication, and this step is essential for the meeting to appear in the Attendee View.

Q: Can the consent be revoked?

Yes, the consent can be revoked in the personal setting of the Meeting Organiser.

Go to the “avatar” menu on top right of the header in Sherpany, select “Settings”, choose the tab “Integrations” and use the “Remove” button for the Microsoft Teams application.

Q: How can another Meeting Organiser update an existing meeting?

If another Meeting Organiser wants to update an existing meeting, they can either:

• Provide the initial consent for their individual account and then update the meeting. However, the meeting host in Microsoft Teams will still be the original creator of the conference call of the respective meeting.
• Alternatively, they can remove the Microsoft Teams conference call details and then update the meeting (without doing any consent.)
• Should the conference call be set again to Microsoft Teams later (for the same meeting) by any user, the same conference call link will be valid again, and the host will be the original creator again.

Q: What settings for the consent are possible on the Microsoft Teams environment of the customer?

The clients have multiple options to define in their Microsoft environments, if/how the Meeting Organisers can initiate the consent between Sherpany and their Microsoft Teams accounts:

1. All users can consent for any app [Sherpany] to access the organisation’s [customer] data [on Microsoft].
2. All users can consent for permissions classified as “low impact” - i.e. for apps from verified publishers [incl. Sherpany]. ← This is the setting recommended by Microsoft
3. Do not allow user consent

a. Users CAN request admin consent to apps they are unable to consent to.

b. Users can NOT request admin consent to apps they are unable to consent to.

To check the setup, the IT Admin of the customer can:

1. Sign in to the Azure portal as a Global Administrator.
2. Select Azure Active Directory > Enterprise applications > Consent and permissions > User consent settings.

For further information, please refer to these two articles on Microsoft Learn:

Configure how users consent to applications - Microsoft Entra

Configure the admin consent workflow - Microsoft Entra

Q: If consent can be submitted to the IT Admin, where can the IT Admin approve the request?

In case the consent setup is as per 3.a. above (“Users can request admin consent to apps they are unable to consent to”), the IT Admin of the customer should find the consent requests of the Meeting Organisers in their Microsoft Azure portal.

Please refer to this article on Microsoft Learn: Review and take action on admin consent requests - Microsoft Entra

Q: Where can the IT Admin globally for the whole customer organisation - approve the consent between Sherpany and Microsoft Teams?

Please refer to this article on Microsoft Learn: Grant tenant-wide admin consent to an application - Microsoft Entra 

Q: What is the average time required to set up Microsoft Teams Integration (without having IT assistance to be involved)?

It depends on the setup of the Microsoft environment of the client. See question above.

• If all users can consent for any app, providing the consent takes about 30 seconds.
• If the users can not (or not without IT Admin approval) provide consent, it depends on the customer’s reaction time of the IT Admin to approve the consent.

Q: Who is the ‘’host’’ of a meeting?

The host of the meeting (and the sender of the automated calendar invitation emails) will be the person, who has initially set up the Microsoft Teams conference call of that respective meeting.

If another Meeting Organiser wants to update an existing meeting they are prompted with a warning message to provide their initial consent for their individual account. However, they can also update the meeting without providing their own consent. In that case, the meeting host in Microsoft Teams will still be the original creator of the conference call of the respective meeting.

Q: At which point do the attendees receive the email with the Microsoft Teams link? As soon as I create the meeting? Or when I publish the agenda?

Attendees receive the Microsoft Teams link email immediately upon saving the meeting details, regardless of the agenda or its publication, and this step is essential for the meeting to appear in the “ Attendee View “.

Q: Can the Microsoft Teams link be added after creating the meeting? If so, when does it send out the calendar invitations?

Yes, it is possible to add the Microsoft Teams link after creating the meeting. The calendar invitations will be sent out once the Meeting Organizer clicks the "Update" button on the “Details Tab”.

Q: What won’t be changed?

The Microsoft Teams call integration (and its calendar invitations) are completely independent from the iCalendar Feed. In case a Meeting Participant uses the iCalendar Feed and is invited to an Microsoft Teams call, the meeting will appear 2x in their personal calendar.

Q: I'm using the Microsoft Exchange on-premise - and not on the cloud. Will the integration still work?

No. Microsoft has disabled the support for the on premise solution, due to strategic reasons. More information can be found here.

Q: Does only a meeting organiser need to link his Microsoft Team account to Sherpany’s account or does every Sherpany user need to do this?

Only a meeting organiser needs to connect his Microsoft Team account to Sherpany account. Meeting Participants can join the call without a Microsoft Teams account by simply entering their name as a Guest.

Q: Does every Organiser need to provide the initial consent?

• Meeting Organisers, who want to create a new meeting and use the Microsoft Teams integration need to provide the initial consent. Once the meeting has created, any Meeting Organiser with permission to the meeting can edit all details of the existing meeting. Updates to the meeting are sent in the name (and the Microsoft account) of the initial creator of the meeting. They are the “host” of the meeting.
• IT Administrators of the Microsoft environment (“tenant”) of the organisation, could provide consent for all the organisation, but ticking the relevant box. However, please note that it would mean the involvement of the IT department.
• The initial consent needs to be provided only once per Meeting Organiser and is valid for all rooms of the respective organisation. However, if Microsoft Teams calls can be setup at all or not, can be enabled/disabled per room.

Q: Can every user use the Presenter mode or only users with administrative permissions?

The Sherpany’s Presenter Mode is completely independent from the Microsoft Teams “Share screen” functionality.

• All Participants of the Sherpany meeting can use the Presenter Mode and control what the other Participants, who have Sherpany open at the same time, can see on their Sherpany screen. This has nothing to do with the Microsoft Teams integration.
• The Microsoft Teams integration allows Participants to join the Audio/Video call in Microsoft Teams. Who is allowed to screen share inside the Microsoft Teams call depends on the setup of the call. Usually, all Participants can share their screen.

Q: Are the calendar invitations being sent out automatically when the Microsoft Teams link is added after creating the meeting?

Yes. Calendar invitations are automatically sent to all participants by email with the direct link to the Sherpany meeting, which they can enter in one of their preferred calendars (e.g. Outlook, Google calendar, etc.)

As soon as the Meeting Details are saved (the meeting is created) the calendar invitations are sent. Independent of Agenda / publishing. That’s also how/when the meeting (as a square/tile) will appear on the “ Attendee View “.

Q: Can the Microsoft Teams link be added after creating the meeting, and if so, what are the drawbacks (if any)?

Yes. It will also send out calendar invitations - once the “Update” button on the “ Details Tab “ is clicked by the Meeting Organiser.

Q: Since the ‘’Guest feature’’ has not been released yet, is it possible to manually send a meeting invitation (from my calendar of choice) and send the invitation to an external participant(s)?

The calendar invitations can be forwarded to other people, but if the updates to the original invitation will not be automatically forwarded depends on the calendar application used. It might work, but Sherpany can not provide support for this.

Q:  If I make adjustments to my meeting details such as the title, date, will the participants receive an updated invitation reflecting these changes?

Yes, For example

• Re-scheduling a meeting will send an update to the participants via email, which will update the existing meeting. (It will not create a second meeting in the participants’ calendars.
• Adding or removing a participant from an existing meeting will only send an invitation or cancellation to the respective participant.

Q: Can external people participate? What are exceptions, restrictions, etc.? Can external people be invited automatically from Sherpany? If so what a Sherpany licence is needed (if any)?

Depending on the setup of the Microsoft Team call, external people can dial into that call as guests if they have the link - even without Microsoft account or Sherpany account.

However:

• To access Sherpany, a Sherpany user account is needed.
• To create Microsoft Teams meetings (via Sherpany integration or not), the respective licence from Microsoft is required.

Q: Is it possible to share the agenda with teams using Sherpany, considering that users would need to have two devices or two open tabs - one for Microsoft Teams and another for Sherpany?

Microsoft Teams either runs in a dedicated application - or in a web browser. Sherpany runs in a web browser. The agenda can be shared by using the Screen Sharing functionality of Microsoft Teams, sharing the browser window where Sherpany is opened.

Q: Can participants see document annotations during the presentation i.e. when using the Presenter Mode?

Yes. That’s the advantage of Sherpany’s Presenter Mode vs. sharing the screen via Microsoft Teams. Using the Sherpany’s Presenter Mode:

• Only the presenter can see their personal annotations, and
• Only the followers can see their own personal annotations.

Q: Can I send a PDF document or a text together with the email invitation?

No, that’s currently not possible due to security. The calendar invitation only shares minimal information in order to keep all meeting content in the secure Sherpany environment.

Q: Who can access the Microsoft Teams Integration?

The Microsoft Teams integration is included in the ‘’Extension for Digital Champions’’ bundle, available with both our ‘’Enterprise’’ and ‘’Premium’’ plans. To activate this feature, please contact your Key Account Manager.