Guru App for Microsoft Teams: Keeping You Connected, Engaged, and Aligned

Add Guru's Microsoft Team's integration to search and share your company’s collective knowledge all without ever leaving Teams. Start with Guru for free!
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If you squint hard enough at the original whiteboard, you can still see it: “Not another destination.” These words were written in 2014 by Guru’s founding team in a modest two-story loft in Old City, Philadelphia. Fast forward 6 years and this concept remains so ingrained into the principles of our product strategy at Guru that — much like those words on that whiteboard — you couldn’t erase it if you tried.

Why is this Guru’s foundation? Well, when you think about it, it's hard to do our best work when we’re fumbling between SaaS applications all day. And even though context switching kills productivity, we still continue to introduce more SaaS applications into our workflows. At Guru, we have always strived to augment these other workflows, not become one. The question was simple, yet powerful: what if the knowledge you needed to do your job found you?

It’s why we get jazzed talking about the rise of communication platforms in the workplace, and how they can start to simplify some of our otherwise chaotic workflows.  It’s why we take lessons from our foray into a fully distributed work environment and slowly return to work more collaborative and productive than ever.

Today, we’re thrilled to announce that Guru has integrated with Microsoft to bring one of the industry’s leading knowledge management solutions into Microsoft Teams, allowing you to search and share your company’s collective knowledge all without having to leave Teams.

Discover how Guru integrates with Microsoft

Enable Guru for Teams

Staying connected, engaged, and aligned

With Guru’s new app for Teams, users are now able to search for and share Guru Cards, verify knowledge, receive announcements, and reply directly to comments in Guru — all without leaving the Teams chat interface. We know how many questions tend to pop up in conversations, so we want to keep you in Teams without having to shoulder-tap an expert or dig through that outdated wiki no one uses. With Guru, you can bring context to your Teams conversations and stay aligned and engaged.

"Our company is now shifting entirely to Microsoft Teams and having the integration with Guru is a game changer for us! There's unlimited potential for the end users being able to communicate Guru knowledge within their chat—especially now that people are speaking to each other across the globe. It's also going to really help with knowledge sharing across the company and best practices."                    
  – Brantley Merritt, Global Learning & Development @ ServiceSource

Embedding Guru knowledge into Teams

Upon installing Guru’s app for Teams, users can search and share Guru Cards within conversations in Teams. No context switching required; Guru is right there where you need it while chatting with your coworkers:

Manage knowledge within existing Teams workflows

The Guru bot will deliver select notifications and allow users to take action on them directly in Teams. Notifications will include announcements, Verification requests, and Card comments for users to act on.

MSTeamsMartketplace-05.png

Learn more and install Guru’s app for Teams.

Future-proofing your tech stack with Guru for Teams

As businesses adjust to the new normal and people return back to work, it’s hard to ignore the forced acceleration of digital transformation we witnessed over the last few months. When companies scrambled to remain productive while fully remote, a giant spotlight shined on collaboration and communication. From video communication to real-time communication to knowledge management, gaps or weaknesses in a company's internal tech stacks suddenly became obvious.

But let’s cool it with the buzzwords for a minute and use a real example. I’ll start by introducing you to Anna. You know Anna, even if you don’t know it. Anna’s been at the company for years; she’s held multiple positions and has seen almost every iteration of the product. She’s the go-to person for every one of your questions. We all know an Anna. Some of us have even been an Anna.

The thing about Anna is you’re not the only one asking her questions. In fact, she’s the go-to person for almost everyone when they can’t find the information they need. And while these virtual shoulder taps might seem innocuous enough, the truth is, they add up. Like, a lot. And they burn Anna out and prevent her from doing the work she’s actually paid to do.

While you’re in the office, Anna is inundated with tap-taps. When your team went fully distributed, they became DMs. Seemingly overnight, Anna was overwhelmed with repeated questions from anyone and everyone, regardless of timezone. And now it’s entirely possible that her company will remain distributed, creating a long-term productivity problem for Anna.

Anna needs help — and so does everyone that has become reliant on her answers. While some teammates might benefit from being in the same office (or time zone) as Anna, not everyone has that luxury.

Leveling the playing field

With Guru’s new Microsoft Teams integration, all the information your teams need to stay productive is instantly available right within the Teams console. Whether your team is in Berlin, San Francisco, or in an Airbnb in Montana, Guru and Microsoft Teams can keep your teams connected, engaged, and aligned, both in real-time and asynchronously.

98% of surveyed customers who use Guru across their entire organization said that Guru has had a reduction on the time their team spends answering repeat questions, and 99% said that Guru has reduced the time their team spends looking for information.

Building on our Microsoft momentum

Earlier this year, we introduced our add-in for Microsoft Outlook to kickstart a more holistic integration strategy into the Microsoft ecosystem.

For Outlook users, Guru for Outlook brings your team's collective knowledge right to your Outlook inbox. The add-in is ideal for teams who need the ability to quickly access and create knowledge without leaving their inboxes.

Screen%20Shot%202020-02-07%20at%202.49.56%20PM.png

Here’s some of what you can do in our add-in for Outlook:

  • Quickly search knowledge related to emails
  • Copy Cards to paste into emails
  • Create Cards from knowledge shared over email

What’s next: Sync for Microsoft SharePoint

The knowledge you need to do your job should find you — but we recognize that knowledge often comes from a lot of different places. It’s why we’ve invested so heavily in our Sync capabilities, and why we’re doubling down on enabling more knowledge repositories to seamlessly sync with Guru.

We’re thrilled to be a Microsoft partner, and this is only the tip of the iceberg. If you’re a SharePoint user, we’ll be announcing a sync for SharePoint shortly that will allow a user to authenticate with their existing Microsoft Office 365 SharePoint tenant and select entire sites or specific libraries for syncing (as made accessible by their Office Admin).

Add Guru to Teams today

To get started with Guru’s Team integration, log in to your Teams account and add Guru.

Visit our help center for further setup instructions.

If you squint hard enough at the original whiteboard, you can still see it: “Not another destination.” These words were written in 2014 by Guru’s founding team in a modest two-story loft in Old City, Philadelphia. Fast forward 6 years and this concept remains so ingrained into the principles of our product strategy at Guru that — much like those words on that whiteboard — you couldn’t erase it if you tried.

Why is this Guru’s foundation? Well, when you think about it, it's hard to do our best work when we’re fumbling between SaaS applications all day. And even though context switching kills productivity, we still continue to introduce more SaaS applications into our workflows. At Guru, we have always strived to augment these other workflows, not become one. The question was simple, yet powerful: what if the knowledge you needed to do your job found you?

It’s why we get jazzed talking about the rise of communication platforms in the workplace, and how they can start to simplify some of our otherwise chaotic workflows.  It’s why we take lessons from our foray into a fully distributed work environment and slowly return to work more collaborative and productive than ever.

Today, we’re thrilled to announce that Guru has integrated with Microsoft to bring one of the industry’s leading knowledge management solutions into Microsoft Teams, allowing you to search and share your company’s collective knowledge all without having to leave Teams.

Discover how Guru integrates with Microsoft

Enable Guru for Teams

Staying connected, engaged, and aligned

With Guru’s new app for Teams, users are now able to search for and share Guru Cards, verify knowledge, receive announcements, and reply directly to comments in Guru — all without leaving the Teams chat interface. We know how many questions tend to pop up in conversations, so we want to keep you in Teams without having to shoulder-tap an expert or dig through that outdated wiki no one uses. With Guru, you can bring context to your Teams conversations and stay aligned and engaged.

"Our company is now shifting entirely to Microsoft Teams and having the integration with Guru is a game changer for us! There's unlimited potential for the end users being able to communicate Guru knowledge within their chat—especially now that people are speaking to each other across the globe. It's also going to really help with knowledge sharing across the company and best practices."                    
  – Brantley Merritt, Global Learning & Development @ ServiceSource

Embedding Guru knowledge into Teams

Upon installing Guru’s app for Teams, users can search and share Guru Cards within conversations in Teams. No context switching required; Guru is right there where you need it while chatting with your coworkers:

Manage knowledge within existing Teams workflows

The Guru bot will deliver select notifications and allow users to take action on them directly in Teams. Notifications will include announcements, Verification requests, and Card comments for users to act on.

MSTeamsMartketplace-05.png

Learn more and install Guru’s app for Teams.

Future-proofing your tech stack with Guru for Teams

As businesses adjust to the new normal and people return back to work, it’s hard to ignore the forced acceleration of digital transformation we witnessed over the last few months. When companies scrambled to remain productive while fully remote, a giant spotlight shined on collaboration and communication. From video communication to real-time communication to knowledge management, gaps or weaknesses in a company's internal tech stacks suddenly became obvious.

But let’s cool it with the buzzwords for a minute and use a real example. I’ll start by introducing you to Anna. You know Anna, even if you don’t know it. Anna’s been at the company for years; she’s held multiple positions and has seen almost every iteration of the product. She’s the go-to person for every one of your questions. We all know an Anna. Some of us have even been an Anna.

The thing about Anna is you’re not the only one asking her questions. In fact, she’s the go-to person for almost everyone when they can’t find the information they need. And while these virtual shoulder taps might seem innocuous enough, the truth is, they add up. Like, a lot. And they burn Anna out and prevent her from doing the work she’s actually paid to do.

While you’re in the office, Anna is inundated with tap-taps. When your team went fully distributed, they became DMs. Seemingly overnight, Anna was overwhelmed with repeated questions from anyone and everyone, regardless of timezone. And now it’s entirely possible that her company will remain distributed, creating a long-term productivity problem for Anna.

Anna needs help — and so does everyone that has become reliant on her answers. While some teammates might benefit from being in the same office (or time zone) as Anna, not everyone has that luxury.

Leveling the playing field

With Guru’s new Microsoft Teams integration, all the information your teams need to stay productive is instantly available right within the Teams console. Whether your team is in Berlin, San Francisco, or in an Airbnb in Montana, Guru and Microsoft Teams can keep your teams connected, engaged, and aligned, both in real-time and asynchronously.

98% of surveyed customers who use Guru across their entire organization said that Guru has had a reduction on the time their team spends answering repeat questions, and 99% said that Guru has reduced the time their team spends looking for information.

Building on our Microsoft momentum

Earlier this year, we introduced our add-in for Microsoft Outlook to kickstart a more holistic integration strategy into the Microsoft ecosystem.

For Outlook users, Guru for Outlook brings your team's collective knowledge right to your Outlook inbox. The add-in is ideal for teams who need the ability to quickly access and create knowledge without leaving their inboxes.

Screen%20Shot%202020-02-07%20at%202.49.56%20PM.png

Here’s some of what you can do in our add-in for Outlook:

  • Quickly search knowledge related to emails
  • Copy Cards to paste into emails
  • Create Cards from knowledge shared over email

What’s next: Sync for Microsoft SharePoint

The knowledge you need to do your job should find you — but we recognize that knowledge often comes from a lot of different places. It’s why we’ve invested so heavily in our Sync capabilities, and why we’re doubling down on enabling more knowledge repositories to seamlessly sync with Guru.

We’re thrilled to be a Microsoft partner, and this is only the tip of the iceberg. If you’re a SharePoint user, we’ll be announcing a sync for SharePoint shortly that will allow a user to authenticate with their existing Microsoft Office 365 SharePoint tenant and select entire sites or specific libraries for syncing (as made accessible by their Office Admin).

Add Guru to Teams today

To get started with Guru’s Team integration, log in to your Teams account and add Guru.

Visit our help center for further setup instructions.

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