About Kaizala
Microsoft Kaizala is similar to Whatsapp (but with some clever additional features). It’s a mobile-first (iOS and Android and now a web app) group chat app, where anyone can join any group and identity is tied to phone numbers. Kaizala is focused on mobile first/only workers, more common in developing countries that may not have lots of PC’s and fixed internet connections, but do have mobiles and mobile coverage.
There is a free version available worldwide as well as a Pro version in Office 365 in 28 countries and is now rolling out to Office 365 commercial customers worldwide.
Kaizala Pro gives you the ability to create and manage organizational groups, gather rich analytics, build custom integrations and workflows, and offers enterprise-grade security and compliance.
FYI, should you wish, you can disable Kaizala Pro on your tenant at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/Office365/Kaizala/enable-disable-kaizala
Bringing together Kaizala and Microsoft Teams
Microsoft announced in a blog that “Kaizala will become part of Microsoft Teams”. The blog was very light on detail
We also believe that every organization should have the ability to own and manage their company data. Based on this vision, and on feedback from customers, we will be bringing Kaizala capabilities into Microsoft Teams as an integrated offering. We expect the integration to happen in phases over the next 12-18 months, and we will provide more details about the Kaizala and Teams integration roadmap later this quarter.
The blog mentions, “bringing Kaizala capabilities” into Teams, which could mean the same feature appearing in Teams, the word “integration” is also used. It’s unclear if this is a “replacement”, “interop” or “joint management”. Integration is expected to happen in phases over the 12 – 18 months and more information will be shared in the June timeframe on the integration roadmap. Hopefully, we’ll get more clarity when the roadmap appears.
Interop between Kaizala and Microsoft Teams
Thanks to Philip Worrell for pointing out this link
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/kaizala/teams-interop
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I hope Microsoft continues to refine and consolidate its portfolio – its certainly needed.
For example we have two types of calendar scheduling capabilities now: FindTime and calendar.help
I have tried calendar.help; however, it doesn’t recognise online meetings when I ask for one. Furthermore, I can’t enter in my own Teams URL details as it won’t save. Despite calendar.help being a project in the making for the last 4 years, it doesn’t seem as well integrated as FindTime for me.
[…] company was quoted in April saying “we will be bringing Kaizala capabilities into Microsoft Teams as an integrated offering. We expect the integration to happen in phases over the next 12-18 […]