Use Skillsail in Microsoft Teams

You can talk to your Skillsail assistant directly in Microsoft Teams — the same assistant that builds and edits your training modules in the web app. Once your Teams account is connected, send the Skillsail bot a personal message or mention it in a team channel: ask it to create a module, rewrite a slide, add a quiz question, or check on your content between meetings.

This is useful when you want to:

• Turn a discussion in a team channel into training while it is still fresh.
• Make quick edits — "shorten slide 3", "translate the safety module into Spanish" — without opening the web app.
• Keep course work in the tool your organization already lives in.

Before you connect

Your Microsoft 365 administrator must add the Skillsail bot app to your Teams organization first. If the bot is not available in your Teams client yet, ask your administrator about it.

Connect your Microsoft Teams account

When you install Skillsail in a personal Teams chat, the welcome card checks whether that Teams identity is already connected:

• If it is connected, the card says Skillsail is ready and offers Help and Get support.
• If it is not connected, select Sign in & connect. The button opens Skillsail in your browser. Sign in or create an account, then confirm the Microsoft work account you use in Teams.

You can also connect from the Skillsail web app:

1. In Skillsail, open Settings → Integrations → Microsoft Teams.
2. Click Connect. You are taken to Microsoft to sign in.
3. Sign in with the Microsoft work account you use in Teams and confirm.
4. You return to Skillsail with the connection confirmed. You're ready to chat.

If you are a guest in the Teams organization

If the Skillsail bot lives in an organization you are a guest in rather than your own (for example you are a consultant working in a client's Teams), use the connect link below instead of Microsoft sign-in. Microsoft treats you as a separate account in each organization, and signing in connects the account in your own organization, not the one you use the bot in.

If Microsoft sign-in is not available

Some organizations restrict Microsoft sign-in for third-party apps. In that case, use a connect link instead:

1. In Settings → Integrations → Microsoft Teams, click Can't sign in with Microsoft? Use a connect link.
2. Open the link. Teams opens a personal chat with the Skillsail bot with a prefilled connect message — press Send.
3. The bot confirms the connection.

Connect links are personal, work only once, and expire after 15 minutes. If a link has expired, generate a new one from the same place in Settings.

What you can ask

Anything you would ask in the Skillsail web chat works in Teams too. For example:

• Create something new — "Build a 5-slide onboarding module for new warehouse staff with a short quiz."
• Edit existing content — "Rewrite the intro slide of the fire safety module to be more concise."
• Translate — "Translate the customer service module into German and Spanish."

The assistant only works with content in your own Skillsail organization — the one your Teams account is connected to. In a personal chat, you can attach an image or PDF for the assistant to read when Teams provides it from an approved Microsoft or SharePoint host. An attachment read in Teams is not automatically stored as a reusable Skillsail resource, so use the web app when you need to keep a file, place it into a module, import an Office document, or when Teams cannot provide the attachment.

Using the bot in team channels

You can use the Skillsail bot in a team channel or group chat, for example where training ideas come up. There, the bot stays quiet unless you @mention it by name. It replies in a thread on your message, so the conversation stays in one place.

New threads in verified internal standard channels and internal group chats are shared with every active editor in the initiating author's Skillsail organization, including the full transcript, including for editors outside that channel or group. Each contributor connects their own account, replies to the original message, and @mentions Skillsail. Eve announces the audience before its first shared turn. Channel readers can still see all replies posted in Teams.

Personal chats, private channels, group chats or channels with guests or external members, and existing private threads stay private to their creator in Skillsail. If channel visibility cannot be verified, new sessions stay private and existing shared sessions pause. A private thread never becomes shared automatically.

Install or update the Skillsail Teams app and accept its settings and membership permissions for the installed team or group chat. This lets Skillsail verify the conversation type and audience; it does not grant access to channel message history. The sharing rule is the same for every organization, with no separate Skillsail admin toggle. Start a new thread after updating: existing private threads keep their original audience.

In a personal chat with the bot, every message you send reaches the assistant.

File attachments are currently limited to personal chats. Teams stores ordinary uploaded files on an organization-specific SharePoint host; an administrator must add that exact host to the Skillsail deployment before the bot can retrieve those files. Team-channel and group-chat files still need to be pasted as text or uploaded through the Skillsail web app.

While the assistant works

When the assistant starts working on your message, it adds a 👀 reaction to it. When it is done, the reaction changes to ✅, or to ❌ if an error stopped the work. If the request is cancelled, the 👀 is removed. Teams only shows the typing dots for a few seconds at a time and never in team channels, so the reaction is the reliable sign that your message is being handled. If you send several messages while the assistant is still busy, it handles them together and reacts to the last one.

For longer tasks, such as researching a topic or building slides, the assistant also posts one short status line, for example "Building slides…", and edits that same message as the work moves on. In a team channel that line is the "Working on your request…" reply you already see. When the assistant asks you a question, the line changes to "Waiting for your answer…". At the end it reads "Done.", "Stopped.", or "Cancelled.".

Get help

Send help in a personal chat, or @mention Skillsail with help in a team channel or group chat. The bot replies with scope-specific usage and connection guidance without starting an AI authoring turn. In a personal chat, the help card also includes Connect account and Get support buttons.

Teams keeps one personal conversation between you and the Skillsail bot. To start a clean chat for a different module, use the Skillsail web app. In a channel or group chat, start a separate thread or conversation for a different course or topic.

Authoring memory

When memory is available, your linked Microsoft Teams account uses the same personal preferences as Skillsail web chat in this workspace. Memory is on by default unless you have turned it off. In shared conversations, preferences can influence replies others can read. Turn memory off, review saved preferences, or delete them in Settings → General → Authoring memory in Skillsail. You can also review or delete preferences in a private Skillsail web chat while memory is on. See Modules and components for how to manage memory.

Disconnect or switch accounts

• Disconnect: open Settings → Integrations → Microsoft Teams and remove the Teams connection. The bot stops responding to your messages until you connect again.
• Switch to a different Skillsail account: a Teams account can only be connected to one Skillsail account at a time. Disconnect it from the current account first, then connect again from the other account.

Troubleshooting

• Microsoft sign-in fails or says approval is required — your organization requires admin consent for third-party sign-ins. Use the connect link instead (see above), or ask your Microsoft 365 administrator to approve Skillsail.
• Settings shows Teams as connected, but the bot still asks me to connect — you are probably a guest in the organization where the bot is installed, so Microsoft sign-in connected a different account. Disconnect the Teams connection in Settings → Integrations → Microsoft Teams, then connect again using the connect link.
• The bot says the link is invalid or expired — links are single-use and valid for 15 minutes. Generate a fresh one in Settings → Integrations → Microsoft Teams.
• The bot says my Teams account is connected to a different Skillsail account — disconnect it in that account's Settings first, then connect from the other account.
• The bot doesn't answer in a channel — make sure you @mention it. Plain channel messages are ignored on purpose.
• The connect link doesn't open a chat with the bot — the Skillsail bot app may not be installed in your Teams organization yet. Ask your Microsoft 365 administrator to add it.
• The bot is still working on the previous module — wait for the current turn to finish. For a clean chat, use the Skillsail web app; start a new thread in the channel or group chat for a different course.

What's next

You can also use the assistant in Slack and Telegram — see Use Skillsail in Slack and Use Skillsail in Telegram.