Pin meeting apps in Teams for users

If someone plans a meeting in Teams, Teams apps must be added manually during the meeting. An organizer selects the Apps option in the meeting and searches for the desired app.

Meeting App während einem Meeting ergänzen
Adding a meeting app during a meeting

First mentioned in May 2023, with an App Setup policy, Teams admins should be able to pin meeting apps in the future so that employees do not have to add the app manually during the meeting.
Microsoft announced the rollout in March 2024 and has postponed it several times since then. The option of “Pre-pin meeting apps for users” is now available.

Microsoft Teams is now enhancing app setup policies, allowing admins to pre-pin and pre-install meeting apps for users. Earlier, the pre-pinning and pre-installation were limited to personal apps and message extensions. This update extends the functionality to meeting apps. Admins can set up policies to install and pin meeting apps to provide users quick and easy access to their necessary meeting tools within Microsoft Teams.

A section for meeting extensions has been added to an App Setup policy.

Neue Meeting Extensions in App Setup Policies
New Meeting Extensions in App Setup Policies

Now, to the complicated part.
Microsoft does not list which Teams apps support the meeting extension option. Existing Teams apps cannot be filtered according to this. At the moment, it is a try-and-test. From my own tests, I have only found one supported app so far: Polls

Polls App wird für Meeting Extensions unterstützt
Polls app is supported for Meeting Extensions

In the developer blog, Microsoft describes that developers must adapt their Teams apps to support meeting extensions. The blog also only mentions the Polls app as an example.
The blog also mentions that only two pinned apps are displayed in the meeting bar. Further apps are listed under Apps.

Pinned apps show up at the top of the meeting window. Beyond two apps, other apps are displayed in the “More” menu. Apps will not be pinned for channel meetings or those that are created using templates.

Durch App Setup Policy angepinnte Meeting Apps
Meeting apps pinned by App Setup Policy
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Tobias Asböck

Tobias is a Senior System Engineer with around ten years of professional experience with Microsoft 365 products such as SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, Teams Collaboration, Entra ID, Information Protection, Universal Print, and Microsoft 365 Licensing. He also has 15+ years of experience planning, administering, and operating SharePoint Server environments. Tobias is a PowerShell Scripter with certifications for Microsoft 365 products. In his spare time, Tobias is busy with updates in the Microsoft 365 world or on the road with his road bike and other sports activities. If you have additional questions, please contact me via LinkedIn or [email protected].

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