Over 280 million people rely on Teams every month to stay productive and connected with their associates.
Over one million organizations use Microsoft Teams as their default messaging platform.
It is also reported that 91 of the Fortune 100 are currently using Microsoft Teams, confirms Microsoft.
Collaboration and teamwork have become a lot more streamlined thanks to Microsoft Teams.
Undoubtedly, it is the most popular business communication service in the world.
Business leaders like you are satisfied with remote work, making Microsoft Teams an irreplaceable element of modern workplaces and remote workforces.
However, some of your fellow leaders have leveraged this popular collaboration platform to adjust to novel situations without considering how this software solution would turn out for their company in the long run.
Yet, each coin has two sides, so does this renowned tool.
Bad News – Despite the attractiveness of Microsoft Teams and seamless support to remote work environments, it comes with its own baggage of challenges.
Good News – With a reliable Microsoft Teams consulting services partner, you can easily navigate these challenges.
More than a service, it is a strategic move that addresses your pain around effective collaboration without interrupting your business workflows.
Today, let’s unearth the most common Microsoft Teams challenges, and how Microsoft Teams Consultants help you overcome them. Let the exploration begin!
6 Pitfalls where Microsoft Teams Experts Guard your Collaboration Game
Here are 6 common challenges that users, such as you, face while using the Microsoft Teams platform and their possible resolutions by Microsoft Teams consulting services provider:
1. Microsoft Teams Lifecycle Management
The working stages of your teams are as same as those of development projects.
All Teams accounts are created with a specific objective in mind and are synchronized with an ongoing goal or development project.
So, when a goal or a project is executed, it is critical to acknowledge it and deactivate any Teams accounts that are no longer in use.
The purpose behind this measure is to restrict the ‘no-longer authorized users’ from accessing sensitive or obsolete data.
However, Microsoft Teams accounts are deleted via a ‘soft delete’ feature, which means that your IT team can undo the deletion within 21 days.
Keeping track of all the inactive teams can be impractical given you work in a big organization where several new teams are created and dissolved every day or every week.
So, how do MS teams consulting partners help you in such a situation?
How do they completely automate the process and archive the accounts after a set amount of time?
The resolution offered by MS Teams consultants:
(A) Azure AD (Azure Active Directory) P1
The Teams consulting services provider enables you to employ Azure AD P1 to configure expiration criteria for Microsoft 365 groups. Once a group’s expiration date has been set:
- It will be renewed automatically in case of ongoing or periodic user activity.
- It will be deleted if not renewed within 30 days of the time span.
- The admin of the group will be alerted when an account is about to expire so they can renew it if necessary.
- The admin of the group can restore the deletion within 30 days if the Teams gets deleted due to inactivity.
To configure the expiration policies of a group, the Microsoft Teams Experts help you open the Azure AD admin center, select the Group, and then click on Expiration.
On the Expiration page, the Microsoft Teams consultant allow you establish the existing duration of the group in days so that it will be subjected to that specific expiration policy and specifies an email address for groups without an admin.
2. Integrating Microsoft Teams with Cloud Storage
A SharePoint Online site and a few other services are launched each time you create a Teams Account.
Documents shared in channels or uploaded to the Files section by team members instantly show up in the Document library of their SharePoint Online site.
If your staff uses any cloud service platforms at work, such as Google Drive, ShareFile, Dropbox, etc., there is a possibility that can integrate solutions with Microsoft Teams.
This will allow you to store all your documents in one place or in multiple clouds that are structurally organized.
The Resolution Provided by Your Microsoft Teams Consultancy Services Partner:
(A) Cloud Storage Incorporation
- Under Org-wide settings in the Microsoft Teams admin center, click on Files
- Select the cloud storage and file-sharing services that will be accessible to your users
- After that, navigate to a Teams channel and select the Files tab
- Next, integrate cloud storage
- Finally, decide which cloud storage service you want to employ
This action takes the Microsoft Teams consulting services provider to the login page for the storage application they chose.
Additionally, with the help of MS Teams consultants, you can add a directory to a particular team or channel, and the Files section displays the cloud service as a folder.
3. Unauthorized Guest Access
The capability to invite guests to Microsoft Teams is one of the best features of this online collaboration platform.
Together you and the guest can collaborate on documents, schedule meetings, exchange information, and even make critical business decisions.
However, giving someone access to your company’s internal documents can be risky at the same time.
Ensuring you can still engage with your prospective and existing clients, business partners, and other key stakeholders via Microsoft Teams without incurring the danger of oversharing is, essentially, a challenge solved by your Microsoft Teams consulting partner.
Resolution Provided by Your Microsoft Teams Experts:
(A) Admin Center
The MS Teams consultants are equipped with a thorough knowledge of the tool.
They help you set up exclusive Guest Access policies in the Microsoft Teams Admin Center to prevent the potential leak of sensitive data.
If your company and business operations need to collaborate with guest users, they help you unlock a certain amount of accessibility, just enough to allow them to collaborate on resolving tasks of mutual concerns, instead of completely disabling this functionality.
For instance, the Microsoft Teams consulting partner can turn off your Team’s screen-sharing feature if you’re worried about accidental data leaks during online meetings.
(B) Sensitivity Labels
The consultants help you create a sensitivity label for the Team at the time of Teams creation.
This way you can set the sensitivity label to “confidential” if you are certain that this Teams will include highly sensitive data.
This smart move by the Microsoft Teams consultant also helps you prevent your team members from inviting external users and the team will only be accessible to those individuals who work for your organization.
4. External Sharing
Your employees may need to exchange documents with someone outside the company at some point.
To unlock this feature, MS Teams consulting empower you to enable ‘External Sharing’ in Microsoft Teams while keeping an eye on the sharing activities to keep this operation under control.
Resolution Offered by Microsoft Teams Consultancy Services
(A) SharePoint Admin Center
- The consultants go to the SharePoint Admin Center to activate advanced external sharing settings
- Select Sharing from the Policies Menu
- Finally, configure external sharing options by choosing the level of permissions
These configurations are immediately implemented at the organizational level.
Additionally, they help you manage external sharing permissions for each site separately.
The following are more complex External sharing options:
- Guest must use the very same account to sign in from which the sharing invitations are sent. Your Microsoft Teams consulting service provider helps you ensure that only guests who have been invited to collaborate are able to access the system by enabling this capability.
- Domain-specific sharing restriction is another complex option. Your partner employs it in a situation, for instance, when you don’t want your staff to share information with users from other partner companies or specific accounts.
- After a certain number of days, users using verification codes must re-authenticate. Basically, after a predetermined time, this functionality will require your external users to log in if they want to view shared files.
- The Microsoft Teams consultant allows you external sharing only for users who belong to particular security groups. With this option, your organization will only allow a limited number of individuals to exchange information with outside users.
- Additionally, the Teams consulting helps you restrict the guests from sharing documents or files they don’t own. Guest users can only share those files or documents they have created by default. With this feature, you can restrict guest users from sharing files for which they hold no authorization.
5. Teams Sprawl
Any user within the company can create teams by default. As a result, if there is no monitoring and administration in place for team creation, you could end up with hundreds of unnecessary teams.
Microsoft Teams sprawl occurs when these teams won’t serve further collaborative needs and instead cluster your storage space. Thankfully, there are a few strategies applied by Microsoft Teams consulting service partners that help you minimize team sprawl.
Resolution Provided by Microsoft Teams Consultancy Services
(A) Define the Usability Criteria of Teams and Communicate Them to Your Employees
Adopting Microsoft Teams hastily is typically the primary cause of Teams sprawl.
In the absence of MS Teams consultants and improper training, new users are often left to figure things out on their own which leads to improper implementation of Teams’ usability, lack of best practices, and insufficient training.
Therefore, the MS Teams consulting provider helps you enlighten new users with the differences between channel conversations and chat messages, Teams and channels, and common use cases to reduce the Teams sprawl.
By doing so, your team witnesses a significant decrease in Teams sprawl, and you get a sense of relief that the new members possess a comprehensive understanding of how to effectively utilize the Microsoft Teams platform.
(B) Outlining an Implementation Strategy
The Microsoft Teams experts empower you to develop an implementation strategy to implement Microsoft Teams when you are searching for a way to ensure proper governance well in advance.
It requires –
- Establishing KPIs
- Creating use cases
- Setting up governance
- Appointing champions
- Arranging communication and training programs
- Developing your vision and gaining executive backing
6. File Management
Managing a large stack of scattered files effectively can be challenging with all the data uploaded and exchanged in Microsoft Teams channels and private chats.
When a user uploads a file directly in a chat, the document, instead of going into a specific folder, shows under the General channel’s Files tab.
On the other hand, any document that you upload in a channel conversation will be saved in that channel’s Files section.
Of course, you can relocate the files manually, but it would be an additional step. Furthermore, if you wait too long, your Document library can end up having hundreds of scattered files.
So, how do Microsoft Teams consulting services tackle this challenge?
Resolution Offered by MS Teams Consultants:
(A) Upload Files to Folders
The service providers suggest you create all relevant folders in the Files tab of the appropriate channels, and then immediately upload documents there.
As a result, the URL of the file or document you want to share can then be copied and pasted into a channel conversation or private chat.
By doing so, the Microsoft Teams consultancy services help you prevent potential file loss and duplication. Beyond this protective role, these services help you maintain the organization of your document library.
(B) Employ Metadata
Creating folders to manage files typically works well.
However, occasionally the same document can fit into more than one category.
Therefore, the Microsoft Teams consultant helps you organize all your documents based on multiple parameters and access them with convenience by using metadata.
To accomplish that, they add a website tab to the appropriate channel and paste the URL to your SharePoint Library.
This way, you get easy access to all your documents, which you can categorize in various ways based on their metadata.
(C) Incorporate Another Document Library with Reusable Files
There could be hundreds of project management Teams in your company, and each Team account would have its own SharePoint library.
Documents stored in a team are often exclusively accessible to team members. This means that it can be tricky for your employees to share data among various teams.
Therefore, your MS Teams consulting partner helps you create another Document library that acts as a knowledge base for all the teams that want the same data.
For instance, you can maintain all the documents relevant to past project deliverables in the new library and authorize each project management team to access them by pinning them as a tab.
This simplifies the process of locating and sharing documents and allows you to manage all your project management files in one place.
Overall, by investing in Microsoft Teams consulting, you gain a strategic partnership that promptly addresses and solves most of your Microsoft Teams challenges sparing you the need to delve into the intricacies.
Now with those anecdotes at your disposal, you are empowered to make your decision about partnering with a Microsoft Teams Consultant.
Now, let’s explore the transformative capabilities that Microsoft Teams consulting brings along.
Here’s How Microsoft Teams Consultant Empower Your Business
As you start using Microsoft Teams in your everyday business, your team will need some time to get comfortable with the tool and harness its entire potential.
It will be unwise to leave the configuration of the tool up to your employees as this approach doesn’t sound promising.
The best decision is to leave each worry related to Microsoft Teams to the Microsoft Teams consultant who –
- Addresses each issue in depth
- Guarantees effective resolution
- Creates customized Teams solutions
- And allows you to make the most of Microsoft Teams investment
Coming so far, you will agree that employing Microsoft Teams comes with its own set of challenges, and addressing every challenge independently can be a tricky and time-consuming business.
However, if you hire a Microsoft Teams consulting services partner to empower your employees on the optimal Microsoft Teams implementation and solve emerging challenges, your investment pays off in the long run against a negligible upfront cost.
Hire Integrative Systems for Microsoft Teams Consulting Services Partner
Integrative Systems, a Microsoft Partner, is one of the best Microsoft Teams consulting companies in Chicago, with 20+ years of industry experience and expertise.
We are Microsoft Teams consultants ready 365x24x7 to translate your challenges into solutions.
Want to speak to us?
Our Microsoft Teams experts are just a line away! Drop us your queries at [email protected] and get a FREE consultation.
