How can the COVID-19 crisis be mastered organizationally at the corporate level? A Microsoft special task force has been dealing with this question in the last few days. The result is an app for a professional and smooth crisis communication with employees and other teams. We’ve been using it ourselves for a week now – and we are thrilled. Thank you, Microsoft!

In times when more and more people are working in the home office, collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams play an important role. The current COVID-19 crisis, however, requires even more – namely tools enabeling us to distribute all kinds of information to our teams particularly quickly and fed from a wide variety of information sources.

For this reason, Microsoft has now released a special app for crisis communication. The solution combines functions of MS Power Apps, Power Automate, Teams and Sharepoint. It can be used via internet, mobile devices or in MicrosoftTeams. It is already used in hundreds of companies worldwide.

How to set up the Microsoft Crisis Communication App?

1. Set up a Microsoft SharePoint page – it serves as the basis and primary data source and is structured like a dashboard on which all employees are displayed with their current work status (office / home office / absent).
2. Create your team within MicrosoftTeams (free of charge until the end of the year)
3. Install the Microsoft app for crisis communication

With the help of the app, you can quickly send internal company news to your team, answer frequently asked questions, and give your employees access to important information such as links and emergency contacts.

Most important functions at a glance:

• Employees can report their work status and make inquiries
• Admins can push news, updates and information
• You may integrate RSS feeds with current information from reputable sources such as the WHO or a local authority
• You may integrate a chat bot into any website supporting people searching for information by quickly displaying the desired information on a chat interface

Especially useful is the dashboard (the template of which you may adapt to company specifics): First of all, it shows a column with your action schedule including individual jobs or action steps for crisis management. In addition, two further columns are provided – one for measures showing the impact on your business and one showing individual steps of a risk analysis.

How do you use the Microsoft Crisis Communication App?

You need a license for Microsoft Power Apps and for Microsoft SharePoint. The use of Microsoft Teams is currently free of charge. Furthermore, no premium license is required to use the Power Apps push notification function for the duration of the COVID-19 crisis. This enables you to send any information directly to the connected team members.

>> Get implementation instructions here!

Tip: xalution will gladly support you in setting up effective crisis communication based on Microsoft tools quickly and cleanly. Contact us today for a non-binding preliminary talk!