Installing Albert on Microsoft Teams lets your employees take their courses, receive their reminders and chat with Albert without leaving Teams.
💡 Prerequisite: your employees must be synced from Microsoft. See Sync my employees.
☝️ Microsoft's app installation process is changing. Microsoft is gradually migrating its customers to App centric management (ACM), which replaces the older App setup policies for preinstalling apps. Once your tenant has migrated, the Setup policies page becomes read-only for installations. Both procedures are covered below.
👉 Which procedure applies to you? Open the Teams admin center, Teams apps > Manage apps, and look at the app's row:
if you see an Edit installs action, or an Installs tab on the app's details page, your tenant is already on App centric management — follow sections 2️⃣ and 3️⃣;
if you only see Setup policies to install apps, you are still on the older procedure — follow section 4️⃣.
1️⃣ Understanding the three stages of the installation
To send a message to an employee on Teams, Riot needs the ID of the conversation between Albert and that employee. Hence three stages:
You make Albert available and install it from the Teams admin center, for the audience you want.
Microsoft installs Albert for your employees, and Riot receives each conversation ID.
You confirm the installation from your Riot platform.
⚠️ Important: an employee can only be marked as reachable on Teams after the Albert conversation has actually appeared in their Teams. This is the key to understanding most of the situations described below.
2️⃣ Making Albert available
👉 Step 1: Go to the Microsoft Teams admin center.
👉 Step 2: Go to Teams apps > Manage apps, then search for Albert.
👉 Step 3: Open the Availability tab and make Albert available to a group or to everyone.
3️⃣ Installing Albert
👉 Step 1: Still on Albert's page, open the Installs tab.
👉 Step 2: Set the installation for a group or for everyone.
👍 Good to know: making Albert available does not install it. Availability authorises the app; installing it actually pushes it out to your employees. Both tabs need configuring.
In the side panel, choose who Albert should be installed for:
Everyone: all licensed users in your tenant.
Specific users or groups: select the users, security groups or Microsoft 365 groups concerned.
Then click Apply.
👍 If Albert doesn't appear in the list: check that the app is allowed at organisation level, under Teams apps > Manage apps > Org-wide app settings, and that no permission policy is blocking it.
4️⃣ If your tenant still uses Setup policies
This section applies if you don't see an Installs tab on Albert's page. You can keep adding new entries until your tenant is migrated to App centric management.
👉 First, allow Albert
In the Users and groups tab of Albert's page, click Edit availability, choose Everyone or Specific users or groups, then Apply.
👉 Then preinstall Albert for everyone
Step 1: Go to Teams apps > Setup policies and open the Global (Org-wide default) policy.
Step 2: Under Installed apps, click Add apps, search for Albert, select it and click Add.
Step 3: (optional) Also add Albert under Pinned apps so that it appears directly in the Teams sidebar.
Step 4: Click Save.
👉 Or preinstall Albert for one group only
Step 1: On the Setup policies page, click + Add and give your policy a clear name, for example "Albert auto-install".
Step 2: Under Installed apps, add Albert, then Save.
Step 3: Open the Group policy assignment tab, click + Add, select the target group, choose the policy you have just created, set a priority, then Apply. Repeat for each group concerned.
💡 Prerequisite: group policy assignment requires a security group or a Microsoft 365 group. To target individual users, use the Users page of the Teams admin center instead.
5️⃣ Waiting, then confirming in Riot
⚠️ Important: whichever procedure you follow, rolling out the automatic installation can take several hours. Microsoft orchestrates it, not Riot.
👉 Step 1: Wait for the Albert conversation to appear in the Teams of at least one employee.
👉 Step 2: On your Riot platform, go to Settings > Notifications.
👉 Step 3: Click Connect Teams, then Confirm install.
👉 Step 4: Your employees progressively appear as reachable on Teams.
💡 To check straight away that the integration works: install Albert manually on your own account from the Teams store, then click Confirm install in Riot. You will show up as the only Teams user on the platform — that is expected. As Microsoft rolls the installation out to the rest of your tenant, your other employees will switch over automatically.
👍 Good to know: once Teams is connected, you can choose which employees are notified on that channel and which stay on another one. See Set Up and Modify the Notification Channel.
6️⃣ My employees don't appear on Teams
👉 Albert doesn't appear in "Manage apps"
Check that third-party apps are allowed, under Teams apps > Manage apps > Org-wide app settings.
👉 Your employees see "Your admin has not enabled this app"
Albert is blocked by an App permission policy. Edit the policy assigned to those users — or the global policy — to allow Albert.
👉 The installation is configured, but employees still don't see Albert
Microsoft caches policy and installation assignments. Wait a few hours, or ask the employee to sign out of Teams and sign back in.
👉 Setup policy changes are read-only
Your tenant has migrated to App centric management: follow sections 2️⃣ and 3️⃣ rather than section 4️⃣.
👉 Check the configuration
Double-check the Availability and Installs tabs in the Teams admin center. An employee only appears on Teams in Riot if the Albert conversation has appeared for them.
👉 The installation is taking a long time
Microsoft schedules and orchestrates automatic installations across all of its customers: your rollout is handled in batches, interleaved with other tenants. Two options:
Be patient. If the configuration is correct, your employees will get Albert.
Or have employees install Albert themselves. Anyone can search for Albert in Teams and click install. Since this is a user action rather than an automatic orchestration, the installation happens immediately on Microsoft's side.
💡 The right reflex: if you need to launch a programme on a specific date, configure things several days in advance. And if the delay becomes a blocker, an internal announcement inviting your employees to install Albert themselves unblocks the situation immediately.
👉 Albert is blocked in Teams
This is a Microsoft permission policy issue rather than an installation problem. The steps to follow are described in How to handle Albert on Teams?.
👉 Notifications aren't arriving even though Albert is installed
Key takeaways
Two procedures exist depending on your tenant: App centric management (Availability and Installs tabs) or the older Setup policies. The test: whether Albert's page has an Installs tab.
Making Albert available does not install it: both settings are needed.
Expect several hours before Albert appears: Microsoft orchestrates the rollout.
Confirm in Riot via Settings > Notifications > Connect Teams > Confirm install, once at least one employee sees Albert.
To test immediately, install Albert on your own account: showing up alone is expected.
👍 Did you install Albert with the older method? If you deployed Albert through Graph API permissions, you need to migrate to setup policies. See Update Albert on Teams.