Communication channels

Nexthink Communication channels enables IT teams to send notifications and ask questions to employees within workflows using Microsoft Teams. This feature requires a Nexthink Flow license.

Key Benefits

Non-disruptive, asynchronous communication: Employees can respond when it suits them.
User-friendly: Uses Microsoft Teams, a familiar and widely adopted platform.
Single channel: Provides a centralized history for tracking and reference.

This capability complements existing campaign mechanisms:

Collaboration tool messages: Best for non-urgent information or self-help workflow questions.
Campaigns: Ideal for critical communications, surveys or urgent remediations.

Refer to the Message thinklet documentation for more information.

Prerequisites

To enable a communication channel via the Nexthink Microsoft Teams application, ensure you:

Collect User Principal Name (UPN)

Use one of the following methods to gather the UPN for each user:
- Collector Options: Collect the UPN in clear text. Refer to the Configuring Collector level anonymization documentation for more information.
- EntraID Connector: Map the userPrincipalName field from EntraID to the Nexthink ad.name field. Refer to the Connector for Microsoft Entra ID Azure ad documentation for more information.

Get Azure Tenant ID

Obtain your Azure Tenant ID, which is required for configuring the application in Nexthink. Refer to the Microsoft Documentation to learn more about how to find your Microsoft Entra tenant ID.

Verify permissions

Ensure you have the necessary permissions to install custom applications in your Microsoft Teams environment.
Liaise with your Microsoft Teams Administrator to verify the installation process for custom applications in your organization.

Accessing Communication channels

Select the Administration module from the main menu.
Select Communication channels under the Integrations section.

Creating a new communication channel

Before installing the application, you must configure a new communication channel in the Nexthink Administration module.

Failure to do so will result in users not being correctly mapped between Microsoft Teams and your Nexthink tenant.

To configure the communication channel:

Go to Administration > Communication Channels.
Click New channel configuration in the top-right corner of the Communication Channels administration page.

Enter the configuration details in the input fields:
- Name: Assign a unique name to the communication.
- Microsoft Tenant ID: Provide the Azure tenant identifier for this configuration.
- Welcome Message: Write the message users see each time they install the application.
Click Save to create the new communication channel.

A single Microsoft Tenant ID can only be associated with one Nexthink tenant. For multiple tenants—e.g., development and production—separate Microsoft Tenant IDs must be used to configure communication channels successfully.

Installing application

Once you have configured a new communication channel, install the custom application package for your organization's Microsoft Teams application:

Download the custom Nexthink application package provided as a .zip file.
Install the application manually in your organization’s Microsoft Teams environment.