Microsoft Teams and Slack integration using Matrix

Element Matrix Services lets you pick up the Slack between Teams...

Element Matrix Services now offers fully managed bridges for both Microsoft Teams and Slack, so Element (or any other Matrix-based app) can integrate with either service. Connect Element to both, and you can integrate Slack and Microsoft Teams via Matrix.

Including Matrix’s 32 million user community, that’s around 150 million daily active users going about their day-to-day business that are now - thanks to Element Matrix Services - able to interoperate.

So at last, enterprises have a way of reliably connecting employees who are siloed in Slack or Microsoft Teams.

How enterprises are using Element Matrix Services (EMS) bridging services

These are early days, but we’re already seeing some clear patterns in how organisations are adopting our bridging services.

1. Connecting security teams

Delivering decentralised data sovereignty and end-to-end encryption, Element and Matrix already has a large installed base within cybersecurity teams. EMS bridging services are a quick and easy way for cyber security teams to continue using Element when communicating with the wider organisation that uses Slack and Microsoft Teams (neither of which offer end-to-end encryption or data sovereignty).

2. Connecting a fractured workforce

Teams within organisations often operate with relative autonomy, presenting communications challenges when working with the broader company. Enterprises use Matrix, with fully managed bridging from EMS, to connect development teams using systems such as IRC, XMPP or Slack to broader parts of the business using Microsoft Teams as part of an Office 365 subscription.

3. Seamless out-of-band communications

Centralised collaboration tools, such as Microsoft Teams and Slack, suffer from unplanned outages. We’re seeing many organisations, particularly mission critical departments within enterprises, introducing bridging services from EMS as a way to ensure continuous real time messaging. Interoperable with Microsoft Teams and Slack, out-of-band communication is up-to-date at the time of an outage, and instantly resynchronises when Microsoft Teams or Slack comes back online.

4. Connecting mobile workers to the office

Customers are using EMS bridging services to address shadow IT issues caused by frontline workers opting for consumer-grade messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Signal or Telegram. Element’s messenger-style app has a similar look and feel, so it’s an easy switch to Element.

EMS bridging services are then used to provide interoperability, and therefore seamless communications, between Element-based frontline teams and office-based workers using Microsoft Teams or Slack.

Bridging to an interoperable world

Companies that already use Element, often for the explicit benefit of easy connections with others on the open Matrix network, are now using bridging from Element Matrix Services to connect with parts of their external ecosystem that use Microsoft Teams or Slack. Customer feedback is that they may have finally found their email killer.

The real intention of Matrix - as an open protocol - is to be the open standard for communication. Like HTTP for the web, or SMTP for email, Matrix is the backbone for interoperable real time communication.

But until everyone has made the jump to natively use Matrix, bridging services provide a way for enterprises to connect those traditional proprietary products to the Matrix universe. Their workforces, in turn, can then freely connect and communicate with each other regardless of which app people happen to use.

Matrix is the future of real time communication; bridging services from Element Matrix Services are the shortcut to that future.