Has your business recently felt the need for Microsoft Teams consultancy services as a result of some of the challenges posed by Microsoft Teams?
Work has become a lot more streamlined thanks to Microsoft Teams, which also empowers businesses globally to be more efficient, collaborate effectively, and maintain constant communication with our teammates.
Organizations are completely on board with remote work becoming the new norm. Especially nowadays, when it’s difficult to collaborate and stay constantly connected while working remotely, Microsoft Teams is a must-have software solution.
However, using any digital tool for collaboration has its drawbacks.
Microsoft Teams has been a widely used online collaboration tool over the past couple of years, but supporting remote work environments comes with its own set of challenges.
Businesses leveraged the platform to adjust to novel situations without considering how this software solution would turn out for their company in the long run.
So, how are companies supposed to handle the common pitfalls of Microsoft Teams when the application has been adopted and implemented in multiple ways?
In this article, we’ll discuss some of the most common Microsoft Teams challenges along with their possible solutions.
Let’s dive in!
6 Pitfalls of Using the Microsoft Teams Software Solution and Their Possible Resolutions
Here are 6 common challenges that users face while using the Microsoft Teams platform and their possible resolutions:
1. Microsoft Teams Lifecycle Management
The working stages of your teams are the same as those of development projects. These teams 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 that are no longer in use. It will restrict users from accessing sensitive or obsolete data.
However, teams are actually deleted via a ‘soft delete,’ which means that IT can undo the deletion for a period of 21 days.
Keeping track of all the inactive teams can be tricky if you work in a big organization where several new teams are created every day or every week.
So, how do you handle such a situation?
How can you completely automate the process and archive after a set amount of time?
Resolution
(A) Azure AD (Azure Active Directory) P1
Azure AD P1 can be employed 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 span.
- The admin of the group will be alerted when it 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 group gets deleted due to inactivity.
To configure the expiration policies of a group, open the Azure AD admin center, select the Group, and then click on Expiration.
On the Expiration page, you can establish the existing duration of the group in days so that it will be subjected to that specific expiration policy and specify 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 team. And documents shared in channels or uploaded to the Files section by team members instantly show up in the Document library of your SharePoint Online site.
If your staff uses any cloud service platforms at work, such as Google Drive, ShareFile, Dropbox, etc., there is a possibility to integrate those services with Microsoft Teams. This will allow you to store all of your documents in one place or in multiple clouds that are structurally organized.
Resolution
(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
You’ll be taken to the login page for the storage application you chose. Additionally, in Microsoft Teams, you can add a directory to a particular team or channel, and the Files section will display the cloud service as a folder.
3. Unauthorized Guest Access
The capability to invite guests to teams is one of the best features of online collaboration platforms such as Microsoft Teams. Together you and the guest can collaborate on documents, schedule meetings, exchange information, and 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 here.
Resolution
(A) Admin Center
You can set up 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, we do not recommend completely disabling this functionality. You can give them a certain amount of accessibility, just enough to allow them to collaborate on resolving tasks of mutual concerns.
For instance, you might decide to turn off the screen-sharing feature if you’re worried about accidental data leaks during online meetings.
(B) Sensitivity Labels
You can create a sensitivity label for the team at the time of team creation. In this way, you can set the sensitivity label to “confidential” if you are certain that this team will include highly-sensitive data.
This will restrict team members from inviting external users. The team will only be accessible to those individuals who work for the company.
4. External Sharing
Your users will probably need to exchange documents with someone outside the company at some time. Therefore, enabling external sharing in Microsoft Teams and keeping an eye on sharing activities makes perfect sense in order to keep this operation under control.
Resolution
(A) SharePoint Admin Center
- 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 will be implemented at the organizational level. Additionally, you can 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. You can ensure that only guests who have been invited to collaborate will be able to access the system by enabling this capability.
- Domain-specific sharing restriction is another complex option. This can be employed in a situation, for instance, if 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.
- You can allow 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.
- You can allow guests to share documents or files they don’t own. Guest users can only share those files or documents they have created by default. By enabling this feature, you will allow guest users to share files for whom they have no authorization.
5. Teams Sprawl
Any user within the company has the ability to create teams by default. As a result, if there is no monitoring and administration in place for team creation, you could possibly end up with hundreds of teams.
Teams sprawl occurs when these teams won’t serve further collaborative needs and instead cluster your storage space. Thankfully, there are a few strategies that you can adopt to minimize teams sprawl.
Resolution
(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. New users are often left to figure things out on their own as a result of the implementation team’s poor communication regarding the teams’ usability, lack of best practices sharing, and insufficient training.
Therefore, it is crucial to explain to the entire staff the differences between channel conversations and chat messages, teams and channels, and common use cases in order to reduce teams sprawl.
By doing so, companies can decrease teams sprawl and make sure they completely understand how to use Microsoft Teams.
(B) Outlining an Implementation Strategy
Developing an implementation strategy will be the best course of action if you intend to implement Microsoft Teams and are searching for a way to ensure proper governance in advance.
It entails setting up governance, creating use cases, developing your vision and gaining executive backing, arranging communication and training programs, establishing KPIs, and appointing Champions.
6. File Management
Managing 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 to tackle this challenge?
Resolution
(A) Upload Files to Folders
Create all relevant folders in the Files tab of the appropriate channels, then immediately upload documents there. 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, you can prevent file loss and duplication and maintain the organization of your document library.
(B) Employ Metadata
Creating folders to manage files typically work well. However, occasionally the same document can fit into more than one category.
Therefore, you can organize all your documents based on multiple parameters and access them with convenience by using metadata.
To accomplish that, add a Website tab to the appropriate channel and paste the URL to your SharePoint Library. You will have easy accessibility 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 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, creating another Document library that would act as a knowledge base for all the teams that want the same data would be a wise decision.
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 to them by pinning it as a tab.
This will simplify the process of locating and sharing documents and allow you to manage all your project management files in one place.
Hire Integrative Systems for Microsoft Teams Consulting Services
As you begin to integrate Microsoft Teams into your business, it will take some time for your entire organization to completely understand it.
So, if you put the effort to learn how to use Microsoft Teams effectively, its various capabilities can be beneficial to everyone in your organization. Additionally, it can be advantageous to your business partners and other valuable stakeholders.
Coming so far, it is clear that employing Microsoft Teams comes with its own set of challenges and addressing them can be a tricky business.
However, if you hire Microsoft Teams consultancy services, you can easily train your employees on Microsoft Teams implementation the right way.
Integrative Systems is one of the best Microsoft Teams consulting companies in Chicago, with years of industry experience and expertise.
We offer superior Microsoft Teams consulting services, and our Microsoft Teams consulting team is completely armed to help you handle all your troubles immediately.
Contact us at contact@integrativesystems.com to discuss your Microsoft solutions needs!
