How to add Microsoft Teams to Global Shop Solutions
Short answer
Connect Teams to Global Shop Solutions with a bot or Power Automate flow that reads the ERP through ODBC or a supported interface and posts adaptive cards for approvals and alerts. Sign users in with Entra ID, map them to ERP users, and keep write-back behind explicit approval.
Many Global Shop shops run Microsoft 365 for email and files while the ERP stays on a Windows server in the plant. Engineers, buyers, quality and the front office already live in Teams, but ERP exceptions still arrive as phone calls or someone walking over with a printout.
Teams is a good fit for the human-in-the-loop moments: approve a purchase order, acknowledge a late job, sign off a quality hold, answer 'is the material in?'. It is a poor fit for heavy data entry, which belongs in the ERP or a mobile data collection screen.
The integration usually has two halves: an on-prem reader that understands Global Shop data, and a cloud-side Teams bot or flow that handles identity and the user experience.
What teams use it for
Purchase order approval cards
Post an adaptive card to the approver with vendor, total, requisitioner and job reference, with Approve and Reject buttons that call a controlled endpoint.
Late job channel alerts
Push a card to the production channel when a job passes its scheduled date, showing the operation, work center and next action.
Quality hold notifications
When inspection rejects a lot, notify quality and the planner in a thread with the part, lot and disposition options.
Ask the ERP in chat
A bot answers questions such as on-hand quantity for a part or the status of a PO, using the user's own ERP permissions.
Daily shipping and backlog digest
A scheduled message summarises orders due this week, open holds and ship-today lines for the customer service team.
Global Shop Solutions integration surface
- ODBC read access to the ERP database is the simplest data source for alerts and lookups. Confirm the engine and version used by your installation.
- Any supported API or web service in your Global Shop release can serve as the action path. Ask the vendor which interface your licence covers.
- Scheduled reports and exports can feed a digest without any direct database connection.
- ERP user and role tables define who may see what; mirror these in the bot rather than inventing a parallel permission model.
- Email notifications from the ERP can be routed to a Teams channel email address as a quick first step, though without actions.
How it works
- 1
Pick the pattern
Use Power Automate or Workflows for simple alerts and approvals. Use a Bot Framework app when you need conversations, lookups and richer cards.
- 2
Register an Entra ID app
Create the app registration, grant the minimum Graph and bot permissions, and have a tenant admin consent. Use single sign-on so the bot knows who is asking.
- 3
Map Entra users to ERP users
Maintain a mapping table by email or employee number. Unmapped users get a polite refusal rather than default access.
- 4
Deploy an on-prem reader
A service inside the plant network queries Global Shop and talks outbound to Azure or Microsoft 365, so no inbound ports are opened to the ERP.
- 5
Design adaptive cards
Keep cards short, show the key fields to decide, and include a link to open the transaction in the ERP for the full record.
- 6
Route actions through a gate
Button presses create an approval record that the ERP-side process applies through a supported path, with the Teams user, time and card ID logged.
Example flows
PO over threshold approval
Trigger: A purchase order above the approval limit is entered.
- Reader finds new POs above the limit and not yet approved.
- Bot posts a card to the mapped approver.
- Approver taps Approve or Reject with a comment.
- Reader applies the decision via the supported path and updates the card to show the outcome.
Result: Approvals happen from a phone in minutes with a record of who decided.
Missing material question
Trigger: A planner asks the bot whether material for a job is on hand.
- Bot resolves the job and its material requirements.
- It reads on-hand and open PO quantities for those items.
- It replies with a short table and the expected receipt dates.
Result: The planner gets an answer without opening three ERP screens.
Keeping data on-prem
Teams itself is a cloud service, so the on-prem question is about the data path. Keep the ERP database inside the plant and run a reader service that only makes outbound HTTPS calls to the bot endpoint. If cards would expose sensitive fields, send identifiers and a deep link, and let the user open the ERP for details. A locally hosted open-weight model can interpret free-text questions and generate the SQL or API call on-prem, with only the final short answer posted to Teams. For GCC High or sovereign tenants, confirm bot hosting and Graph endpoints for that cloud, because they differ from commercial Microsoft 365.
Security checklist
- Require SSO and a verified mapping to an ERP user before answering anything.
- Use a read-only ERP account for lookups and a separate gated path for approvals.
- Do not post controlled technical data or customer pricing to wide channels; prefer direct messages and private channels.
- Validate the Bot Framework token on every incoming request and log the Teams tenant ID.
- Keep an immutable approval log tied to card ID and ERP document.
Ways to get it done
Power Automate or Workflows with a scheduled ODBC or file trigger
Effort: Days, within licence limits for premium connectors.
Simple alerts and single-step approvals.
Custom Teams bot built by your developers
Effort: Several weeks plus Entra and Teams admin approvals.
You need lookups, conversation and several approval types.
Partner build with Netray
Effort: Scoped pilot, read-only first, then approvals.
You want a bot grounded in Global Shop data with local model options and role-aware answers.
Pitfalls
- !Posting everything to a general channel until nobody reads it; route by role and severity.
- !Letting a shared service account answer for everyone, which defeats ERP permissions.
- !Approval buttons that act on stale data; re-read the record at click time.
- !Underestimating tenant admin delays for app consent.
- !Cards with too many fields; approvers stop reading them.
Frequently asked questions
Is there an official Global Shop Solutions Teams app?
We are not aware of one that covers approvals and lookups in the way described here. Check with your Global Shop account team for your release. Otherwise the common route is a custom bot or Power Automate flow reading the ERP.
Can Teams connect to an on-premises Global Shop server?
Yes through an outbound-only reader service inside your network, or through the on-premises data gateway for supported Power Automate connectors. You do not need to publish the ERP database to the internet.
How do approvals get back into the ERP?
Preferably through a supported interface or import that your ERP admin controls. The button press creates an approval record, and a process applies it, rather than a bot writing directly to tables.
Does the bot honour ERP security roles?
It should. Map each Teams user to an ERP user and apply the same role restrictions in the queries the bot is allowed to run. Unmapped users should receive nothing.
Can we use AI to answer questions in Teams?
Yes. A model can translate a question into a vetted read-only query. For regulated data, host the model on-prem or in a private cloud and return only the minimal answer to Teams.
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