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Your administrator connects the Microsoft 365 tenant to xpander once. From then on you have your own conversation with Omni, the built-in agent, in Teams, and any channel can be routed to one of your organization’s agents from that agent’s settings.

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How it responds

The app decides who answers based on how a message arrives: Replies from a routed agent are prefixed with the agent’s name in bold, so a channel always shows which agent answered. 1:1 replies keep the app’s own identity. After you @mention the app in a channel, your follow-up replies in that reply chain keep reaching Omni for about five minutes - no need to re-mention it on every message. Everyone always has their own conversation with Omni, with their own context and, where systems allow, their own permissions, even in a shared channel. There is no shared or company-wide Omni conversation.

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Talk to Omni

1

Message the app

Find xpander in your Teams app list and send it a message.
2

Automatic sign-in

If your Microsoft work email matches your xpander account, you’re linked automatically and the answer arrives right away. Otherwise you’ll get a Link account button - one click connects your Teams identity to your xpander profile, and the message you already sent is answered as soon as the link completes.
3

Work as usual

Your Teams chat is a real conversation with Omni: it appears in Xpander Chat’s sidebar, remembers context, uses its skills, and builds dashboards. Replies stream in as the agent works. Send new chat (or new conversation or reset) to start a fresh conversation.
Images and attached files are processed automatically. A few responses arrive in a Teams-specific shape:
  • Questions come as tappable button cards. Tap an answer and the conversation continues.
  • Dashboards and visuals carry a View here button that opens them full-screen in the browser - no sign-in needed.
  • Long answers arrive as a PDF attachment with a short lead paragraph, instead of one long message.
You can also build and update agents right from the chat: Omni asks its setup questions with tappable buttons, sends authorization links for the accounts your agent needs, and creates the agent when you approve.
Your xpander profile must belong to the organization the tenant is connected to. If your profile lives in a different organization, you’ll be asked to link again - by design.

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Route a team channel to an agent

Untagged channel messages can be handled by one of your organization’s agents. The tenant-wide permission was granted when your administrator connected the tenant; what is left is per team.
1

Add the app to the team (team owner)

A team owner opens Team → ••• → Manage team → Apps → Add and adds the xpander Teams app.This must be a team install. Pinning the app as a tab in a channel, or using it personally, does not enable routing. The correct install shows a consent prompt mentioning receiving channel messages - accept it. That consent is what lets an agent see untagged messages in the team.
2

Pick a team, a channel, and an agent

In Xpander Chat, open your agent’s settings and find Microsoft Teams channels, or use the channel selector under the composer. Pick the team, then the channel, then click Add.
3

Write engagement rules

Expand the channel row’s settings. Each rule is a plain-language description of when the agent should step in - the agent engages when a message matches any rule. Rules apply within about a minute; there is no publish step.
Write rules as specific intent descriptions, not keyword lists:
  • Specific: “When someone reports a bug, error, or outage”
  • Specific: “When a question about pricing or plans goes unanswered”
  • Too broad: “bug, error, pricing” (triggers on most messages)
When a channel is routed to an agent, that agent answers in the thread under each message. The answer is attributed to the person who wrote the message and, where systems allow, the agent acts with that person’s permissions. Only messages without an @mention are routed; an @mention still goes to Omni in the author’s own conversation. Once the agent has answered in a thread, it keeps following that thread for a few minutes without re-checking the rules on every message. Routing looks at top-level channel messages. Untagged replies inside a reply chain don’t engage the agent unless you turn on engage in thread replies on the channel row - an @mention always works.
Without the team install and its receive channel messages consent, the app still answers @mentions in that team but never sees untagged messages. Channel routing degrades to mention-only, silently. If routing isn’t firing, check this first.

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Where conversations live

  • 1:1 conversations appear in your xpander sidebar like any other conversation with Omni.
  • Channel conversations (mentions and routed replies) stay out of the personal sidebar but are visible in the organization’s Task Manager, which lists every task for an agent.

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Differences from Slack

If you already run the xpander Slack app, these are the behaviors that differ:

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Troubleshooting

Check that Microsoft Teams is enabled for your organization under Settings → Channels in Xpander Chat. If it’s on and the app is still silent, confirm the app is Allowed in the Teams admin center and permitted by your setup policy.
The most common cause is that the app was added personally or as a channel tab instead of to the team. Re-add it via Team → ••• → Manage team → Apps and accept the receive channel messages consent. Then check that the channel row’s auto-engage toggle is on and that a rule actually matches your message. Untagged replies inside a reply chain only engage when engage in thread replies is on. Rule edits take up to a minute to apply.
The Teams section appears in an agent’s settings only after an administrator has connected your tenant. Organization admins see a connect prompt instead; other members see nothing.
The picker only lists teams the app has actually been added to, so add the app to the team (the first step under Route a team channel) and reopen the picker. If it is still empty, your tenant may have been connected before the permission became part of connecting: an admin can click Reconnect on the Channels tab to grant it.
Teams occasionally refuses a stream, and the reply falls back to a single message updated in place. Nothing is lost - this is expected, not a failure. Channel replies never stream; Teams supports streaming in 1:1 chats only.
Runs stop with a billing notice when your organization’s credits run out. An organization admin can top up under Settings in Xpander Chat - then send your message again.
Tighten the rules: broad conditions like “when someone asks a question” match most messages. After an engagement, follow-ups in the same channel may engage without re-checking rules for a few minutes.

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Next Steps

Agents in Slack

The same in your Slack workspace

Microsoft Teams tenant

For administrators: uploading the app and connecting the tenant

Channels

Every way work reaches an agent, and what is recorded