How to Replace Salesforce Chatter with Microsoft Teams
Many Salesforce customers have already standardized on Microsoft Teams as their primary collaboration platform. Sales, service, operations, and leadership are already using Teams chats and channels to discuss customers, opportunities, and support issues.
Then Salesforce asks those same users to collaborate in Chatter.
The result is another place to check, another conversation silo, and another collaboration tool employees need to remember to use.
For organizations that have invested heavily in Microsoft Teams, a better approach is to bring record-based Salesforce collaboration directly into Teams.
Centro allows Salesforce customers to replace many common Chatter workflows with Microsoft Teams while keeping Salesforce as the system of record.
Create Microsoft Teams Chats Directly from Salesforce
Consider a Salesforce Opportunity where several employees need to collaborate on a deal.
Instead of starting a Chatter conversation, a Salesforce user can create a Microsoft Teams chat directly from the Opportunity record.
The appropriate users are added to the chat, and the Teams conversation is linked back to the Salesforce record.
From Salesforce, users can view the conversation, post messages, and @mention participants without leaving the Opportunity.
Meanwhile, employees working in Microsoft Teams see the same conversation in the platform where they already spend their day.
The conversation happens in Teams, but the context remains connected to Salesforce.
Update Salesforce Records from Microsoft Teams
Collaboration around a Salesforce record often leads to changes in the record itself.
A deal moves forward. The amount changes. A case needs additional information.
Unlike a standard Chatter conversation, Centro allows authorized users to interact with Salesforce records directly from Microsoft Teams.
For example, a sales rep can update the Amount or Stage of an Opportunity from Teams. Centro honors the user's existing Salesforce permissions when those changes are made.
Salesforce remains the source of truth without requiring every participant to continually switch between Salesforce and Microsoft Teams.
Keep Teams Conversations Updated as Salesforce Records Change
Chatter is often used to notify employees when something important changes on a Salesforce record.
The same model can be applied to Microsoft Teams.
When important Salesforce fields are updated, Centro can automatically post those changes into the linked Teams conversation.
For example:
- The Opportunity Amount changed from $200,000 to $250,000.
- The Stage moved from Qualification to Proposal/Price Quote.
- A Case status changed or was escalated.
Everyone collaborating in the Teams chat can immediately see that the Salesforce record changed.
This helps reduce duplicate work and keeps the conversation aligned with the current state of the record.
Bring in the Right Teams at the Right Time
Not every employee needs to participate in every Salesforce conversation.
As a deal or case progresses, different teams may need to become involved.
For example, when an Opportunity reaches the Proposal/Price Quote stage, Salesforce automation can post the Opportunity into a Microsoft Teams Deal Desk channel.
Deal Desk can collaborate in a thread dedicated to that Opportunity without needing to be added to the original sales chat.
The Salesforce Opportunity can then display both conversations:
The Teams chat used by the core deal team and the Deal Desk thread created when additional support was needed.
Instead of one long Chatter feed, employees can collaborate in the appropriate Teams conversations while Salesforce maintains the relationship between the conversations and the record.
Replace Chatter on Salesforce Cases with Teams Threads
The same approach works for Salesforce Cases.
A Microsoft Teams channel thread can be linked directly to a Case. Service teams can discuss the issue in Teams while Salesforce users view and participate in the conversation directly from the Case record.
Users can post messages and @mention participants from Salesforce, while employees working in Teams continue collaborating normally.
This is particularly useful for case swarming and escalations where employees across several departments need to participate.
Rather than asking everyone to monitor Chatter, the conversation happens in Microsoft Teams.
Capture Teams Conversations as Case Comments or a Living Transcript
Some organizations need more than visibility into a Teams conversation.
They also want collaboration history stored on the Salesforce record.
Centro can replicate threaded Teams conversations as Salesforce Case Comments. Teams messages can also be captured as a living transcript stored on the Case.
This gives organizations flexibility in how they maintain the history of a customer issue.
Employees can collaborate naturally in Microsoft Teams while Salesforce retains the conversation context needed for service operations, reporting, or future review.
Roll Salesforce Conversations Up to the Account
Salesforce records rarely exist in isolation.
An Account may have multiple Opportunities, Cases, and other related records, each with its own Microsoft Teams conversations.
Centro can roll linked conversations up to the Salesforce Account.
From the Account, a Salesforce user can see the conversations happening across related records.
That might include a service thread connected to a Case, a sales chat connected to an Opportunity, and a Deal Desk thread created during the sales process.
Instead of losing collaboration inside disconnected Teams chats, Salesforce maintains a view of the conversations associated with the customer.
Salesforce as the System of Record. Microsoft Teams as the Collaboration Layer.
Replacing Chatter does not mean moving Salesforce data into Microsoft Teams.
Salesforce remains the system of record.
The difference is that employees can collaborate in Microsoft Teams while their conversations remain connected to Salesforce Opportunities, Cases, Accounts, and other records.
Users working in Salesforce can participate in Teams conversations. Teams users can work with Salesforce information without constantly changing applications. Important record changes can automatically appear in the appropriate conversation.
For organizations that have already standardized on Microsoft Teams, this removes the need to introduce Chatter as a third collaboration workspace.
Microsoft Teams is where your people collaborate. Salesforce is where your customer data lives. Centro connects the two.
