Hi everyone!
I will be on holiday mode during July and I will also let this blog be on vacation during that time. TeamsTuesday’s, tips and news will return in August!
Kaizala – Teams Integration update
Yesterday Microsoft published an update on Kaizala-Teams integration. This update specifically mentioned Kaizala Pro and that it will be fully replaced by Microsoft Teams at the end of the roadmap (12-18 months). This will make Teams as the ultimate tool used for communication and collaboration in Office 365. This covers both internal and external users.
What does that mean? I hope it means that external users will be getting Teams access way easier than now. Perhaps externals can be added to Teams as easily as you could create Kaizala groups today – this remains to be seen.
In Microsoft’s blog it is stated “ultimately replacing the Microsoft Kaizala service “, which I hope to cover also the Kaizala scenarios for large consumer audience (say a county/city). Teams UserVoice about consumer Skype integration was recently updated for Planned, which also is a sign that Teams can be used for consumer/wider audience communication scenarios.
Kaizala Actions will be apps in Teams, and the first set of these apps will be available by the end of year. Later, during 2020, more Kaizala capabilities like the custom actions will added to Teams. Flexible group types (so, the big audience groups) also go to 2020. And by 2021 we should enjoy open directory capabilities for identity and authentication in Teams as well.
What about if you are using Kaizala already? Or thinking about using it?
I would not worry about it at the moment. The Kaizala service is there and it is supported as before ( according to the blog). The customer transition from Kaizala -> Teams can start after year 2020 roadmap items are fulfilled. Basically it will be at least 1 – 1,5 years before you can answer to those Kaizala scenarios in Teams.
However, it is good to start thinking & preplanning how to use Teams instead of Kaizala – and when. If you need flexible group types then you know it is a 18 month wait for those capabilities to be available in Teams.
You should also think about best of the both worlds (yeah, a mandatory borg-reference): using Teams internally and building a minimum integration (via Flow, for example) into Kaizala to connect to larger audience without licenses. I would not place in heavy projects with Kaizala right now knowing this about the 18 month roadmap. If you are going to be using Kaizala because of actions like Quiz or Checklist then I’d start the work already with Teams.
It is also good to remember that Kaizala Pro stores information along with your tenant in Office 365 data centers – as compared to wild shadow IT tools (WhatsApp etc) who keep the data outside beyond your control and compliance. Even when you know that you will transition to Teams after 1-2 years.. it is better than the alternative tools.
When in doubt: go for Teams! It is – afterall – the Hub for teamwork. In the future even including external and flexible teams. Teams is also the platform you can extend to meet your organization’s needs via (for example) apps, bots, extensions and flows.
Read Microsoft’s blog update: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Microsoft-Kaizala-Blog/Update-on-Microsoft-Kaizala-becoming-part-of-Microsoft-Teams/ba-p/693806
There is a lots of things happening with Teams during July and Inspire is going to make some announcements as well. So no promises that I can keep my fingers off this blog the whole time. 🙂
Vesa Nopanen - My Metaverse Day 
So if I’m not reading it wrong, in summary, Kaizala will become obsolete in 2020? Aside from being lighter than Teams, I don’t think it has any advantage by then.
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I have a understanding that the consumer version would not be obsolete. Will Kaizala Pro be obsolete at the end of 2020 or during 2021.. that seems to be a probable scenario. It went to GA so it will be supported for some time, but it may not have much advantages if enough of it capabilities is merged into Teams.
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We tried to use Teams and failed to get adoption. Once Kaizala came out, we tried to drive adoption of Kaizala and within the last 3 months the adoption has shot up tremendously. The reason for this success was that Kaizala is so similar to WhatsApp that nobody needed any additional training to use it. If Kaizala is merged with Teams, we may have to look for an alternative to Kaizala – Teams will probably not work for us.
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To my understanding consumer Kaizala is not going anywhere and it is good to wait for the roadmap updates to see how Kaizala Pro changes and what is it’s lifecycle.
Let’s hope some of those great Kaizala capabilities are merged into Teams and it might actually suit your needs better than it does now.
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