Office 365 gets quick access to third-party applications

Hammad Saleem

Office 365 gets quick access to third-party applications

Last year, Microsoft introduced App Launcher and My Apps for Office 365 where users can organize apps accessible on the service. Now, the company is making further improvements to the feature, by deploying an Office 365 Store which grants access to third-party services as well. 

Office 365 Store is rolling out to customers enrolled in the First Release program in the last week of June, followed by the remaining customers by the end of July. At the moment, the Office 365 Store houses free apps only, while introducing paid apps is still under consideration by the folks at Microsoft. As for the availability of apps, web services which are registered with Azure Active directory can be published in the Office 365 Store. 

Microsoft said in a blog post,

“You can add these third-party solutions to your My Apps page with three clicks, which includes granting the app access to specified Office 365 data. Once loaded into My Apps, solutions can then be “promoted” to the app launcher simply by clicking the ellipsis next to the target app tile and “pinning” the app to the launcher. From there, you can launch any of these apps with no further sign in—existing Office 365 credentials do the job! You can also unpin or even remove apps you no longer need.”

This should definitely be helpful for Office 365 users looking to integrate third-party web services and apps in their Office 365 account.