Testing Teams apps made easier with the new developer portal
Published: 2021-11-12 13:06:48

One of my most read blogposts is[the one about sideloading apps in Microsoft Teams](https://elischei.com/enable-sideloading-of-apps-in-microsoft-teams/), so when I heard about the developer portal and how it makes it easier to test Teams apps I thought I should write about that too. The developer portal was made general available for all Teams developers in october this year (2021). I really like that you get both resources and tools presented in the same place. And of course that they have made it very easy too test Teams apps.

>Note! Since I have allready been testing Teams apps before, I have [enabled both sideloading](https://elischei.com/enable-sideloading-of-apps-in-microsoft-teams/) and the [‘allow interaction with cusom apps’ setting](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/teams-custom-app-policies-and-settings#org-wide-custom-app-setting) on my dev-tenant. I have not tried to test an app from the developer portal without these settings – so its possible you still have to enable them to use the developer portal for testing.

## How to test teams apps through the developer portal
Start by navigating to the developer portal, you can find it here: https://dev.teams.microsoft.com/home . If you are not allready logged in – do so.

![Devportal frontpage](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/vj0g6shpdt0qvbrbyv2u.png)
In the navigation on the left side, select Apps. This will show you the apps that you have allready added. There are also shortcuts to create a new app (I havn’t tested this yet) or import an existing app. In this blogpost I will assume you allready have an app you want to test, so either import it, or select it from the list.
![Devportal all apps page](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/crpb99o450cc83vje1n1.png)

When you select an app you will get a landing page for that specific app. Here you can find a lot of usefull information about the app, and you can also change some configurations from here.

In the upper right corner you will see a button that sais “Preview in Teams”.

![Devportal app overview page with the "preview in teams" button hightlightet](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/8lavv22nqg34p94ftffj.png)
When clickling the button you will first get promted to open Teams, and inside Teams you’ll get a dialog to add the app to a teams tab. Click the “Add to a team” button and select the team where you would like the app to be installed.
![The add app to teams dialog](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/76lg9jm86clv2m8ven06.png)
And thats it, now you can test your app inside teams. 🙂

## Pro tip: Add the developer portal as an app in Teams
The developer portal is actually available as a Teams app itself. Install it and you can manage and test your Teams applications directly from teams.
![Devportal added as an app inside teams](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/zshdcjmabp3vgw0mxw8g.png)

## Resources 
* [Manage your Microsoft Teams apps with the Developer Portal – Microsoft 365 Developer Blog](https://devblogs.microsoft.com/microsoft365dev/manage-your-microsoft-teams-apps-with-the-developer-portal/)
* [Manage your apps with the Developer Portal – Teams | Microsoft Docs](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/platform/concepts/build-and-test/teams-developer-portal)
***
Did you find this article usefull? [Follow me on twitter](https://twitter.com/acupof_dev) to be notified when I publish something new!

Also, if you have any feedback or questions, please let me know in the comments below. 🙂

Thank you for reading, and happy coding!

/Eli