With great power comes great responsibility" Here's a quote we've all heard in other contexts, but which nevertheless applies perfectly to managing Microsoft Teams with Microsoft Consulting firm. This solution has the power to connect users from all over the world, regardless of the organization they belong to or the device they use. However, this power can have harmful consequences if it is not implemented with the appropriate degree of governance.
When we talk about “governance” here, we mean it at two levels:
container - level governance , which concerns all the constituent elements and aspects of a Team and
Content -level governance , which relates to documents, folders, and chats themselves.
By considering these two facets of governance, we have the complete picture that allows us to build a successful Microsoft Teams management strategy. Discover in this article six useful tips for defining your own personalized strategy.
Container level governance
Set up naming conventions
When provisioning a Teams team, the administrator must first think about naming rules. These can be more or less restrictive, for example by recommending the addition of prefixes or suffixes, or by imposing on users lists of approved and prohibited denominations.
Depending on the level of granularity you want to have within this framework, the standard features of Microsoft Teams may not be sufficient to meet your needs. Fortunately, various third- party solutions are available in the market.
Anticipate the lifespan of Teams teams (life cycle)
The next step is to determine the desired lifespan of a Teams team based on its content. Is it a department-type team that will exist indefinitely, or is it a project team that will only survive for the duration of the project?
When deploying a Teams team, it is always good, if possible, to have an idea of its foreseeable lifespan. That doesn't mean it has to be phased out once the project is complete, but it's useful to take the temperature by saying, for example, “We think these types of teams should be phased out in 12 months. Let's contact the owners of this team to let them know. » If necessary, you will always have the possibility of extending the time allocated until the moment when the persons concerned tell you that they no longer need the team.
Setting this limit before allowing a team to be provisioned allows you to combat the "Teams team graveyard effect", i.e. the presence of a multitude of inactive teams that clutter the space . Unused teams only slow down searches and indexes in an environment due to the volumes of stale data to wade through.
Ask the question of the types of authorized content
This is a question you need to ask yourself if you are dealing with data of any level of sensitivity. If you have a certain type of teams handling particular data, it may be desirable to label these teams using a given sequence of characters. It might also be a good idea to make an admin-side superuser one of the owners of these types of Teams teams so they can get as accurate a picture of them as possible. Another solution is to apply by default specific metadata labels to all the elements of the Teams concerned.
When this information is made available from the start, even before the provisioning of the space concerned, it is easier to implement the applicable rules. It also avoids the negative consequences of provisioning after the fact.
Manage permissions
As for the Teams teams that I administer at AvePoint, I have made it a rule to regularly take note (once a quarter or so) of the users who are part of it. I do this because once a team is set up, users can be added to it for all sorts of reasons. When the list of owners is relatively large, it can happen that users are added all the time. All it takes is a week's absence, and users may have been added without realizing it!
Due to the way Microsoft Teams works, which allows teams to have file storage, OneNote, Planner storage, etc., it is extremely easy for members of a team share items externally, grant permissions, and add people to the team without being aware of what they are doing.
This is why I recommend that you regularly review your list of members and ensure that everyone has a place in the team. Then, depending on your company culture, you can take whatever action you deem necessary to get rid of the intruders.
Content-level governance
Be aware of how chats are handled (moderation)
When it comes to the governance of conversations in Microsoft Teams, moderation of the language used should be a priority. The Microsoft Teams admin center lets you set up alerts for keywords of your choice, whether you want to monitor the flow of highly sensitive information or limit the use of foul language. All organizations should take advantage of these logging features with Al Rafay Consulting Chicago USA.
Be able to browse, redact and edit content automatically when needed
You need some mechanism to understand what kind of content users place in your environment. Fortunately, Office 365 makes automatic classification and labeling capabilities available as standard, because Microsoft Teams sits behind SharePoint.
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