If you're looking for the current Hack Productivity 2018 challenge, please click here! 

Mastering the art of productivity can take a very long time. That’s why we’re looking for hacks - smart solutions that make productivity feel effortless, using Microsoft Office 365.  Get ready to build or update a great app and compete for a share of in cash and prizes.

Use your coding prowess, combined with powerful tools and resources from the Office 365 Dev Center, to build integrations, add-ins, web apps, mobile apps, or bots that extend and enhance Office 365.  You’ll have a chance to win cash, a Surface Book PC, merchandise, social media exposure, or a meeting with top investors.

It’s up to you and your imagination to create something that is truly outstanding.  We’d love to see people write custom function add-ins for Excel, create unique integrations for Teams, build collaborative spaces in SharePoint or reimagine relationships between people, data and applications with the Microsoft Graph API. But it’s up to you. There are over 100 million active Office 365 users out there.  We’re excited to see what you build that might help them achieve more.

Eligibility

  • Individuals, and teams of individuals, who have reached the age of majority in their jurisdiction of residence at the time of entry
  • Organizations that, at the time of entry, have been duly organized or incorporated and validly exist, and employ 50 or fewer people (Organizations that employ more than 50 people will be eligible for a non-cash recognition prize)
  • The competition will welcome submitters from around the globe. However individuals or organizations may be disqualified if they are based in a nation, state, province, or territory where U.S. or local law prohibits participating in the competition or receiving a prize. This includes individuals, who are residents of, and organizations domiciled in Brazil, Quebec, Cuba, Sudan, Iran, North Korea, Syria and any other country designated by the United States Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control.

Requirements

Build or update functioning software that improves productivity and uses at least one Office 365 product.

Submit the following assets:

  1. Demo video. (hosted on YouTube, Vimeo, or Youku). Your video should include a demo of your working application via a step-by-step visual demo.
  2. Images. Please submit at least one image/screenshot of your application.
  3. Access. A way to access your working application for judging and testing.

Hackathon Sponsors

Prizes

$43,700 in prizes

First Place

• $12,500 cash
• A meeting with Microsoft Ventures
• Team featured on the Office Developer podcast (or equivalent)
• Post on the betterwithoffice site
• Featured in the Office Store (With expectation that the Application is ready for deployment on the store. This can be done up to 6 months after the winners are announced.)
• Microsoft sweatshirts (limit 5 per team)

Second Place

• $7,500 cash
• A meeting with Microsoft Ventures
• Post on the betterwithoffice site
• Featured in the Office Store (With expectation that the Application is ready for deployment on the store. This can be done up to 6 months after the winners are announced.)
• Microsoft sweatshirts (limit 5 per team)

Third Place

• $5,000 cash
• Post on the betterwithoffice site
• Featured in the Office Store (With expectation that the Application is ready for deployment on the store. This can be done up to 6 months after the winners are announced.)
• Microsoft sweatshirts (limit 5 per team)

Popular Choice

• $500 cash
• Microsoft sweatshirts (Valued at $35) (limit 5 per team)

Best Teams Integration

• $2,500 cash
• 1 Surface Book PC
• Featured in the Office Store (With expectation that the Application is ready for deployment on the store. This can be done up to 6 months after the winners are announced.)
• Post on the betterwithoffice site
• Microsoft sweatshirts (limit 5 per team)

Best Use of Microsoft Graph

• $2,500 cash
• 1 Surface Book PC
• Featured in the Office Store (With expectation that the Application is ready for deployment on the store. This can be done up to 6 months after the winners are announced.)
• Post on the betterwithoffice site
• Microsoft sweatshirts (limit 5 per team)

Best Office 365 Add-in

• $2,500 cash
• 1 Surface Book PC
• Featured in the Office Store (With expectation that the Application is ready for deployment on the store. This can be done up to 6 months after the winners are announced.)
• Post on the betterwithoffice site
• Microsoft sweatshirts (limit 5 per team)

Best SharePoint App

• $2,500 cash
• 1 Surface Book PC
• Featured in the Office Store (With expectation that the Application is ready for deployment on the store. This can be done up to 6 months after the winners are announced.)
• Post on the betterwithoffice site
• Microsoft sweatshirts (limit 5 per team)

Devpost Achievements

Submitting to this hackathon could earn you:

How to enter

  1. Register for the hackathon on Devpost.
  2. Review the Resources tab to help get started.
  3. Find a teammate (optional) by reaching out to other developers on the Participants tab.
  4. Sign up for an Office 365 developer account.
  5. Start building if you have an existing tenant environment. If you don’t have a tenant environment yet, send us your account details for a 12 month trial code. (More info here).
  6. Shoot your demo video and take screenshots of your functioning app.
  7. Provide access to your app to Devpost for judging and testing. (If your add-in is not publically available yet, include the manifest XML for sideloading.)
  8. Submit your application on office365hack3.devpost.com for consideration in the hackathon!

Judges

Rob Howard

Rob Howard
Director, Office Ecosystem Marketing, Microsoft

Adam DuVander

Adam DuVander
Zapier Developer Relations

Edwin Salgado

Edwin Salgado
Co-Founder, OfficeNinjas

Yina Arenas

Yina Arenas
Principal Program Manager Lead Office Extensibility Microsoft

Judging Criteria

  • Quality of the Idea
    (Includes the creativity and originality of the idea.)
  • Implementation of the Idea
    (Includes how well the idea was executed by the developer and how the Office 365 products were integrated.)
  • Potential Value to Users
    (Includes the extent to which the solution can help users be more productive.)

Tell your friends

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.