What type of Microsoft Teams channels should I use?

Pylon works with Teams standard channels, shared channels, and group chats. Choose the appropriate setup based on your needs:

• Standard channels are the simplest to configure within Teams. However, they require adding external customers as tenant guests, which can create a less seamless experience for your customers and may raise concerns around access management.

• Shared channels provide the best customer experience, similar to Slack Connect channels - customers can participate directly without needing guest access to your tenant. The tradeoff is that shared channels are significantly more complex to set up correctly, particularly around permissions and cross-tenant configuration. Additionally, shared channels require configuring an integration user in Pylon, because Microsoft Teams does not support bot messaging in shared channels. See 📄 How do I set up a Microsoft Teams Shared Channel? for full setup instructions, including the integration user configuration. Enterprise teams and larger organizations that have the bandwidth to establish a solid channel provisioning workflow often prefer this approach.

• Group chats offer the easiest path to getting started. Setup is straightforward and the experience is relatively seamless for both your team and your customers. The main limitation is reduced functionality - group chats don't support threads, which means the issue behavior within Pylon is different and can make managing longer or more complex conversations more difficult.

Our recommendation: If you have the bandwidth to invest in the initial setup, we recommend shared channels for the best long-term customer experience. The upfront configuration effort pays off with a more professional, seamless interaction model for your customers. If shared channels aren't an option (e.g. your customer is on a GCC tenant), standard channels with guest access are the next best alternative.