No matter what anyone has told you, deploying #Office365 #MicrosoftTeams is not just about flipping a switch. Yes, it is the best thing you’ll EVER roll out in your company. No, you can’t just do it without some groundwork and training.

In this blog I’ll cover:

  1. Adoption and Teams Provisioning Processes
  2. Administration
    1. Members and Owners Permissions
    2. Teams Administration Roles
  3. Settings
    1. Microsoft Teams UI
    2. Microsoft 365 Admin Center
  4. Important settings to take note of – Docs.Microsoft.Com
  5. Documenting your Governance
    1. Business Governance
    2. IT Governance

Adoption

Comparing apples to apples:

You cannot compare this to other apps you’ve used before. You can’t say it’s not as intuitive or easy to use as product X, BECAUSE IT’S NOT THE SAME THING. This is a completely new way of working.

Think of it this way, most people in your company has had free bicycles for years. They get the idea behind it and they seldom have accidents. Now you need to replace those with motorcycles. Yes, both are used for transport – but it really is not the same. Without some road signs, traffic rules and driving lessons you’re going to have a problem.

With great power comes great responsibility

Oh boy, I’m going to have some aggressive feedback on this again, but I don’t care. Bring it on cupcakes.

When you start on this journey, it’s not a good idea to let everyone create Teams. With good reason you didn’t allow everyone in the company to create SharePoint Site Collections or Security Groups before, so why do it now? Of course I want everyone to create their own Teams eventually, but some training and awareness campaigns need to happen first. The maturity of your company and users need to evolve first. You have NO idea how many people create Teams, thinking it’s just like a folder where they’ll store content. And it’s not their fault, they don’t know better. So with all the resources that’s deployed when creating a Team, it’s not fair to expect someone who has no idea what that means to administer it BEFORE they’ve had the training they deserve.

Also, having thousands of Teams created in your company means you have consumption, it’s not a measure of successful adoption. Measure the right things. (Microsoft 365: Is there a difference between consumption and adoption?)

Related Resources:

Administration

Members & Owners:

A Team normally has 2 or 3 owners (or more) and multiple members. Below you’ll see the main differences, but these can be adjusted via the specific Team’s settings (see this article for more information):

Admin Center Administrator Roles:

Global admin – Assign the Global admin role to users who need global access to most management features and data across Microsoft online services.

Below you’ll see the individual Teams Administration Roles that can be assigned (see this article for more information):

Related Resources:

Settings

Teams UI:

In the Teams App (UI) there are various settings which can be changed by the Owners of the Team.

Under the Team Settings you can Archive / Restore & Delete a Team:

The owner can also change settings with regards to guest & member permissions, fun stuff etc:

Here you can also apply more settings on specific channels:

Keep in mind that some settings can also be applied on the SharePoint Document Library & Site behind the Team. Here you’ll find the recycle bin (deleted documents can be restored within 93 days), sync the library down to your explorer (remember that edits will update the site content), see the version history of files and setup an alert (I always suggest setting up an alert for deleted items):

The Site also has settings (I suggest you don’t mess with permissions here, use the add and remove members in the Teams UI to manage these):

Admin Center:

Microsoft is in the process of moving across to the new Teams Admin Center. Currently you’ll still find two locations. Work through all of these settings with your support team to ensure that all relevant settings are applied. In Office.com you’ll see the Admin Center Icon.

Old Admin Center:

Microsoft 365 Admin Center > Settings > Services & Add-Ins > Microsoft Teams (Old)

New Admin Center:

Microsoft 365 Admin Center > Admin Centers > Teams (New)

Take note of the following important Docs.Microsoft.Com resources:

Please scan through these articles to make sure that you’ve addressed the serious stuff first:

Some more light reading matter 🙂

Remember to keep on learning. Keep your eye on the Microsoft 365 Roadmap and revisit the settings applied on a regular basis. Take your team through this regularly as well, they might not have access to the Admin Centers, but it’s important that they know what is possible.

Documenting your governance

Business Governance:

It’s important to supply information in the company on the purpose of the product, how it’s used, training, support etc. I create a SharePoint Portal with pages for all the products used. In these videos you’ll see a glimpse of them:

IT Governance:

We all know those 100 page governance documents that no one ever reads. However, they are important when it comes to covering your ass(ets). I’m really SO OVER creating documents which has no purpose, but I do understand the importance.

For example:  You’re the Teams Admin (used to be SharePoint Guru), you’re still figuring things out, but the company has launched Teams with a big BANG! You chat to Manager X about external sharing / guest access for Teams, OneDrive / SharePoint. He says it’s all good, you can allow it. Sorted. Or is it? 6 Months later there’s a company ISO audit, and a big non-conformance on the risk side on sharing content. Now Manager X has no recollection of confirming the setting you applied.

It will be difficult to document all of these settings for #Office365 in a Word document though. I suggest the following:

  1. Create a SharePoint Custom List used to address items and get approval on settings (that could be career limiting) – see image below. You could then also use this list to alert your Teams Administrators etc. if a change takes place on major settings.
  2. Every couple of months I would take a walk through the Admin Centers and video record the settings that has been applied. Load those videos on Stream and make it available to managers / business users who don’t have access to the Admin Center, but need to know what’s going on.

I really hope this helps you, I know it can be overwhelming and there’s so many things to worry about. BUT – it’s all worth it 🙂

Moving to the Cloud or stuck somewhere without adoption? Contact me for a FREE 60 minute, Microsoft 365 Immersion Experience.

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. And yes, I change my mind all the time as well, because “The only thing that is constant, is change”.
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