Microsoft Teams has become more than just a chat tool and has emerged to be one of the best productivity tools in the market today. The adoption rate of Microsoft Teams doubled in the last two years, growing to 145 million users in the second quarter of 2021. It has remarkably revolutionized the landscape of virtual collaboration and distributed work, setting a new benchmark for the future of collaboration.  

However, it is also necessary to make sure that your collaboration is secure. Read on to find out more about the best practices to implement before getting on the Teams platform for your organization. 

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Questions to Ask to Optimize Microsoft Teams for Your Organization: 

Microsoft Teams is a collaboration tool to connect with your colleagues and people outside your organization. You might be just starting out with Microsoft Teams or are already using Teams and some of the modern workplace apps. Below are five questions you can ask yourself to get a better sense of where you are in your Teams journey:

• ✅ Are you interested in moving your data to Microsoft  Cloud from another source, such as a file server or a different Cloud provider?
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• ✅ Is there a need to increase collaboration and efficiency for your staff?
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• ✅ Do you currently have a conferencing solution in place today that integrates with your productivity apps?

✅ Do you have a need to collaborate with vendors or customers outside of your organization?

✅ Are you protecting your data and intellectual property appropriately, while still being able to collaborate internally and externally?

Best Practices for Microsoft Teams Governance, Security and Compliance 

Introducing Microsoft Teams in your organization is not at all straightforward and implementing it the wrong way can leave you overwhelmed in the long run. Yes, Microsoft Teams offer a lot of collaboration features, but you also need to follow best practices for Microsoft Teams and learn ways to access and use this application safely and effectively. 

Microsoft Teams governance is essential for data security in your organization and for your end clients/customers. Having a governance policy in place can help to ensure that everyone is on the same page in your organization by following a set of work rules which not only helps in staying organized but also in staying ahead of security threats. 

 

Focusing on end-user adoption: 

If you are using OneDrive, Microsoft Teams, and SharePoint in your organization to a certain extent and given their access to all your employees, there is the possibility that not all of them are tech savvy to be using these platforms to their full potential. They might need help in understanding how the platform works and you can implement certain training sessions and guidance for your end-users. 

Microsoft also provides instructions to help you get through and help your users adopt the technology which you can leverage. It is important to focus on the adoption from the end user side as that is what really makes the whole adoption aspect successful. 

Creating Teams/Channels and Granting Access:

Creating teams or channels enables significant collaboration for your employees and you can either allow all the users in your organization to create different types of groups or teams or have only a certain group of users or team (e.g., IT) do that. 

Moreover, the problem with allowing everyone to create teams/channels is that it can result in duplicates as well as confusion. So, it is better to map out policies around team creation for the users in your organization and avoid things like Shadow IT and redundancy. 

Microsoft Teams allows external guests to join and access the chat, files, team, and apps. You can either turn it on/off based on if you want them to have access to the company assets in Teams Admin Center. 

There are certain features and security measures that should be taken, especially if you are going to collaborate outside of your organization. You should enable external access, guest access, and be able to lock down features so that you are protecting your intellectual property outside. 

Naming conventions and Third-party apps: 

Having a proper naming convention policy in place and communicating it clearly to your team can be quite helpful (reduces confusion and increases productivity) especially when your team eventually grows. 

When it comes to third-party apps, they can either be external apps that you are using with Teams or apps available within Teams. Such apps can add to an employee’s productivity; however, it is also necessary to manage their access as there can be some apps you don’t want your employees using or adding to your overall tech stack. You can manage such app permissions in the Teams Admin Center. 

Secure File sharing:  

With Microsoft Teams you can set up secure file sharing and collaboration for your end-users. Depending on the sensitivity of a particular project or data, you can configure the right level of security around it with Teams. It is also essential to figure out what kind of information people should have access to as different organizations would have varying degrees of data sensitivity and business impact. 

Ready to implement Best Practices for Microsoft Teams Governance, Security and Compliance for your Organization?

Microsoft Teams can offer a wide range of collaboration benefits for an organization when set up correctly from the beginning and establishing how you as a business want to collaborate with your users, your vendors, and your customers in a safe and secure manner. Also, when you integrate Microsoft Teams with the rest of the Microsoft 365 cloud productivity apps and tools, you can fully leverage the benefits that Teams has to offer.  

If you are already using SharePoint and thinking about adopting Teams for your organization, you might need a partner who can work with you as a consultant to understand your working scenario and to help you set up this application. Our Modern Workplace Discovery & Assessment can help you no matter where you are in your journey. We can work with you for a couple of days and provide some consultation around these applications. Book a call with us today and explore the collaboration opportunities that Microsoft Teams and SharePoint can bring for your organization. 

Content from: Microsoft Teams Webinar Series - Dive into this Communication & Collaboration Tool by Tony Caporaletti

Edited by: Nikita Gill and Betty Quon