With Microsoft Teams, remote team members can work seamlessly together and boost productivity.
However, a team leader must oversee the usage of this platform to prevent any unexpected circumstances such as data leaks and unauthorized access. Find out how to manage Microsoft Teams for remote teams.
1. Team Creation and Naming Strategy
All the major stakeholders should be able to create a new team in Microsoft Teams. But, this feature should not be accessible to everyone. Restrict the team creation permission to the admins, managers, or people who need the access.
Unless you know the purpose or function of a team, it becomes difficult to manage them. Hence, have an effective naming convention in your Azure Active Directory.
The naming convention refers to a consistent style or structure of naming that every team will follow. This naming style will help you know the team description, function, geographic region, creator’s name, etc.
2. Define a Lifecycle for Data and Messages
Having a tailor-made data retention policy is essential for every team. Thus, you can save the messages for a fixed time range, and the texts will automatically disappear after that time when you don't need them. Analyze your projects and set the time for message retention accordingly.
You should apply the same process to your team data by defining the life cycle. As per Microsoft, the cycle starts when you create a team and set up a channel. The middle of the cycle is when the team actively collaborates. The end of the cycle means a team has reached its end of life after completing its intended tasks.
3. Regulate External Access
The default setting of Microsoft Teams allows teams members of other organizations to access communication data. It also lets you set up meetings with external parties who use Teams or Zoom.
Use this setting carefully to control who can access your organizational data. You can put a specific domain in the blocklist or unblock some domains to control access.
While external access is for other members of your organization, guest access refers to allowing people outside your company to access team data. If your work involves working closely with clients or third-party partners, you may enable this feature to a limited extent.
4. Come Up With a Meeting and Texting Policy
Microsoft Teams is a platform for professional communication, and the less personal it gets, the better. Create policies for messaging and meeting in line with organizational standards.
Control or prohibit the use of stickers, GIFs, and memes that aren't professional. You can also allow a content rating system to locate any annoying content.
You may also permit users to edit or delete any sent message, but keep in mind that you may need to retrace the original message. The recording and transcription of Teams meetings are also possible.
However, consider these features under the company policy, and if you decide to perform these actions, clearly inform all attendees. You should also provide direct access to the meetings only to the team members, and guests should join after approval.
5. Regulate Third-Party App Integrations
As the team leader, you should be happy about the seamless third-party integration feature of Microsoft Teams. But, the fact that any member can integrate a supported app can become a matter of concern for you. You must keep the Microsoft Teams channels clean and secure.
For that, you should allow only a specific list of third-party apps for integration. You can visit the Manage apps page of the Microsoft Teams admin center to manage the Teams apps you want to allow for your colleagues. There, you can also modify the third-party app experience for individual users.
6. Audit Calls and Messages
Microsoft Teams admins can check and audit the call history of any member for the last 30 days. You can use the call history data of the individual, traffic, headset, network quality, etc., to resolve communication problems they face.
You may also access call quality trends data of the last 90 days in the Skype for Business legacy portal to get an overview of the network performance.
7. Set a Rule for Data Classification
Data categorizing is the method that provides you with crucial information on the data sensitivity level. With this classification, you can know the location of sensitive data, its risk factors, and how team members are using the data. To know this information easily through categorization, set a data classification scheme.
This set of rules will clearly explain the available options to the end-users. Hence, set the rules in easy-to-understand language. Apply the classification rules for all the teams of Microsoft.
After you have the classification scheme in place, you can also create and implement data loss prevention (DLP), retention labels, etc.
8. Custom Security and Link Sharing Rules
Your team members need the freedom to include new resources, but this should not risk data security at any cost. You can offer a viable solution to this problem by customizing the security settings of Microsoft Teams according to project confidentiality levels.
Depending on the purpose of the data, you can even add more restrictions, like disabling link sharing. Since Teams is a unified platform that's integrated with other Microsoft 365 apps, you need to go through various authorization levels for performing configurations in multiple admin centers.
While managing the settings, consider the criticality of each team to come up with the appropriate settings.
9. Train Your Team on MS Teams Policies
It’s unlikely that one team member alone will find out the best way to make the most of Microsoft Teams. Therefore, you need to collaborate to explore and grow using this platform. Whether your team is about to use Teams for the first time, or it has been some time, a regular training session will be helpful.
There, people can share their experiences on Microsoft Teams with others. They can also talk about any previous issues with Teams and how they handle those issues effectively. You can also note down their suggestions and implement the feasible ones.
Effortless Team Collaboration
The appropriate utilization of tools is the key to the success of any team or project. Therefore, it's the team leader's responsibility to enforce a set of rules that organize the way members communicate and collaborate.
The above tips will help you to ensure that your team uses the Teams app for productive team communication.