Yes, I’m that person saying not everyone should be creating #MicrosoftTeams. And I have good reasoning behind it. If you don’t understand what happens in the background when a Team is built, you shouldn’t just be building them. This blog will give you a checklist of things to follow when you build Teams on behalf of other people (and even give them insights into what should happen)

Let’s first understand what happens when you create a Team:

The Office 365 group (created from Microsoft Teams) gives me a common SharePoint site, OneNote, Power BI workspace, Plan(ner), shared Mailbox & Calendar and a Group in Stream to apply permissions with.

Read more: #Microsoft365 Day 135: Microsoft Teams and Office 365 Groups – in Layman’s Terms

Who should get a Team?

That’s right – there is no correct formula. The only thing I can do is give you some guidelines to consider. At least it’s something to start with and believe me, if you don’t start saying no somewhere, this will not end well. See below blog with some guidelines around when it’s a good idea to create a Team, and when not.

Read more: #Microsoft365 Day 144: So who gets a Microsoft Team, when?

Teams Provisioning Process:

I suggest creating a SharePoint List or Microsoft Form that users can fill in asking for a new Team. I would include the following fields:

  1. Name of Team
  2. Name of 2 Owners
  3. Names of Members
  4. Purpose of Team
  5. Duration (should it expire or be archived at some point?)
  6. Etc.

Not sure how Forms work, read more here.

Add a Flow to this Form, for every new submission it sends an email to Help desk support with the details or creates a Task on Planner. Make sure that the turnaround time from request to creating the Team is quick or the users will get frustrated.

After the Team is created, send an email back to the requester, highlighting some of the rules and an explanation of tabs that’s been added. You can create a little intro video, save it on Stream and share the link with a “Congratulations, you have a Team” email through Flow. Sorted.

Of course the above can be done manually at first, just by them sending an email to help desk with the above detail.

Teams Creation Checklist:

These are the actions I suggest when creating a new Team:

I’ve added links on most to give more information on how to do this if you’re not sure:

  1. Create the Team (use good naming conventions like prefixes in front of Team name for divisions / business units / locations) – take note of the Office 365 Groups Naming Policies available in Azure.
  2. Add the Owners
  3. Add the Members
  4. On the General Channel, add the following:
    1. Remove Wiki (if you’re not using it, rather use OneNote)
    2. Tab to the company Intranet
    3. Tab to Company external Website
    4. Tab to Teams Governance
    5. Tab to your Training Portal or the Office 365 Training Center
    6. Tab to Google
    7. Tab to any other tools and resources that could help them.
  5. Add a Channel for Administration, on this you can add the following tabs:
    1. Remove Wiki (if you’re not using it, rather use OneNote)
    2. Add the existing OneNote for the Team – rename to OneNote
    3. Add the existing Planner for the Team – rename to Planner
    4. See my blog about OneNote and Planner Integration as this could be confusing by accidentally creating extra OneNote and Planner
    5. Add a Tab to the main document library behind the Team (each channel only shows that folder.
    6. Add a Tab to the main SharePoint Site behind the Team
    7. See this blog about the SharePoint site and library to help you in step 5 and 6
  6. Setup an Alert on the Documents Library on SharePoint to notify users when something is deleted that they created or modified (they can always change or remove this later – put it in your Governance notes)
  7. Remove yourself as an owner from the Team
  8. Send email to Team welcoming them to team with notes of governance and support (use Flow)

Voila!

Other Teams Resources:

Purpose of this blog challenge:  I will write 365 blogs in 365 days around Microsoft 365. I did a similar challenge with Office 365, blogs can be found  https://atomic-temporary-35693276.wpcomstaging.com/microsoft-365/ . I won’t just be talking about the new Microsoft 365 subscription model. I will be sharing any news, tips and tricks around Office / Office 365 / Windows / Mobility and Security. And let’s not forget all the great new Apps & services available.  A lot of what I’ll share on Office and SharePoint will also be applicable to none “Office 365” versions.

“You can also find me contributing to REgarding 365. I’m a member of a group of enthusiasts, sharing their stories, thoughts and opinions about Microsoft 365. Catch us at https://regarding365.com | @regarding365 on Twitter and regarding365 on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/regarding365 ”

Disclaimer:  I create content about Office / Microsoft 365. Content is accurate at time of publication, however updates and new additions happen daily which could change the accuracy or relevance. Please keep this in mind when using my blogs as guidelines.