There are many things to consider when implementing Microsoft Teams. One of the easiest ways to stay off Santa’s—and your organization’s—naughty list is to create a governance policy. Whether you’re planning your first Microsoft Teams rollout or if you’ve been working with Teams for a while, it’s not too late to get on the right track no matter where you are in your Microsoft Teams journey.  

Planning and documenting a sound governance strategy is only the tip of the iceberg. The best governance plans require a strong implementation policy for success. There are two main implementation paths: manual configuration and automated/templatization teams creation.  

  

A hands on approach 

Manual configuration requires following the same steps each time to create a new team. Proper execution of manual Teams configuration relies heavily on training, oversight, and usually only involves a few people in the organization to ensure consistency. Each time a new Team is requested, it’s channels, tabs, and settings require configuration. You can see how this option doesn’t scale well for large organizations and can easily create bottlenecks and IT fatigue.  

Templatization  | Consider Microsoft Teams Governance Tools

Custom Teams templates can empower your team in many ways while ensuring they follow your governance policies. However, creating custom Team templates does require development time, either internal or external. For many organizations, a superior option is to implement a Microsoft Teams governance tool. One of our favorites is Orchestry.

Orchestry manages the creation of Microsoft Teams through a single interface, governing Microsoft Teams and SharePoint Online Sites through end-to-end provisioning lifecycle management.   

Here are a few ways Orchestry will help keep your Microsoft Teams implementation running smoothly:  

Create Templates for consistent Microsoft Teams experience throughout the organization  

With Orchestry you can create templates that configure your Teams settings, channels, and tabs, and add documents or additional applications. No longer do you have to modify a new team to add an announcement channel or a tool like Planner. A template can automatically create essential features based on your governance, ensuring consistency across the organization.  

  

Use Templates to help manage team member tools  

Your organization likely uses multiple tools with similar functions. Microsoft Teams templates can promote which application should be utilized and drive adoption to recommended tools. Configuring a new team with a One Note with default pages helps answer your team members’ questions around which tool to use because they’re focused on the highlighted tools.  

  

Use the approval process to approve new Teams  

With the built-in approval workflow, an organization can allow more team members to create new teams. Instead of limiting configuration to a small number of team members, you can empower your team and simply have approvers perform a quick review to ensure that new Teams are set up correctly before creation.   

  

Create naming policies to standardize Microsoft Teams names   

Another benefit to using a governance tool is that it can automatically create prefixes, suffixes, and check to see if similar team names already exist as another method to create consistency and manage sprawl.  

  

For more information on how to avoid Team Sprawl, watch our President’s recent video on 5 practical tips to regaining control of your Microsoft Teams environment. Is your organization looking to implement governance for Teams but could use some assistance? One of our Teams experts would love to chat with you today!  

What features would you like to see to keep your Teams implementation on Santa’s nice list?  Let us know in the comments.