Developer community platform Stack Overflow has announced the availability of a new connector for Microsoft Graph that allows software engineering teams to bring content from Stack Overflow for Teams into the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. But not all has been well with this once widely lauded and revered technology, so is it too little too late?
As a developer interaction platform that hosts “questions” for other software engineers to help answer, Stack Overflow has been a favourite among the coding cogniscenti for some time now. But it’s not been without its problems, critics have said that the platform is now dying, perhaps being usurped by the rise of artificial intelligence tools. Despite positively experimenting with AI tools itself, some think that this horse has bolted and we may as well leave the gate open to see what comes back in.
The new connector for Microsoft Graph (Redmond’s API developer platform that connects multiple services or devices and enables teams to access Microsoft Cloud service resources) provides the chance to bring content from Stack Overflow for Teams into the Microsoft 365 services, including Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft Search.
Stack Overflow for Teams is described as a private and secure home for an engineering team’s questions and answers. It offers the chance to “stop digging through stale wikis” and lost emails and connects a developer unit’s Microsoft Teams chat and its internal knowledge repository. It allows users to stay up-to-date with notifications, search for existing answers and start new questions from the Microsoft Teams platform.
Connecting customised configurations
This new connector is now generally available for both Stack Overflow for Teams Enterprise and Stack Overflow for Teams Business tiers. The connector for Microsoft Graph will index content in Stack Overflow for Teams, including questions, answers and top answers by default, with options for more customised configurations.
“We know that developers spend far too much time looking for answers – and once they find them, researching whether those answers are accurate and reliable. This Stack Overflow connector for Microsoft Graph ensures that developers remain in their flow state, not needing to leave and search for knowledge, ultimately increasing productivity and speeding up innovation as they can trust the answers from their trusted Stack Overflow for Teams,” said Prashanth Chandrasekar, CEO Stack Overflow.
This “flow state continuity” element that Chandrasekar talks about is obviously key i.e. developers do appreciate being able to stay in the zone and in the Intergrated Development Environment (IDE) and in the toolset and in the workspace or application (Ed: we get the point, switching environments or form factors in any shape or form is laboursome) of their choice for any given task… and that’s what Stack Overflow is hoping to make easier.
Connectors for Microsoft Graph allow organisations to bring their third-party data and its content into their Microsoft 365 experience and the entire ecosystem by copying it into Microsoft Graph. From there, this content can be surfaced in Microsoft 365 applications using the Microsoft 365 Copilot search feature. This includes both Copilot chat and Copilot Studio, where teams can build a custom Copilot and new agents.
Knowledge-as-a-Service (KaaS)
“This integration is yet another example of Stack Overflow’s Knowledge-as-a-service vision becoming a reality – making trusted knowledge from Stack Overflow and/or Stack Overflow for Teams accessible wherever developers are in their workflow, including in GenAI tools, through an integration with Microsoft 365 Copilot,” said Chandrasekar.
With this Stack Overflow connector, developers will now be able to – directly in Microsoft 365 Copilot – ask their technical questions and receive a summarised response based on question and answer content from Stack Overflow for Teams (their trusted knowledge store). The Stack Overflow connector for Microsoft Graph was first previewed at Microsoft Ignite 2024. This integration follows the release of a new Stack Overflow extension for GitHub Copilot, which was announced at GitHub Universe.