The Importance Of Managing Microsoft Teams
However, with multiple users creating, communicating, and collaborating on projects and workflows through Teams and the rest of the Microsoft 365 suite, the number of groups can rapidly grow – especially when it involves tens, hundreds, or even thousands of people.
The result? Faced with multiple Teams rooms and associated data and users, many organizations, in both the public and private sectors, are struggling to bring order to the chaos with adequate management controls. This leaves them wide open to internal and external data breaches, and slows down workflows as employees spend time searching for the correct documents, or versions of documents. That’s why managing Microsoft Teams effectively is so important for your business.
Preparing against a data breach of any kind
In 2021, there were 75 million active global users of Microsoft Teams, and for many organizations, it’s the go-to collaboration and communication tool. However, with no clear oversight, it quickly becomes difficult to know who’s working on what and where. Lack of visibility also creates uncertainty around access controls, and what external users and collaborators can view or share – especially when their access rights are no longer required.
Both financially and in terms of reputation, a data breach can be costly and hugely damaging to your organization. Without the right governance over communication and collaboration in place, it’s easy to see how this might happen: employees who accidentally find themselves with access to restricted data, or external collaborators able to view and share sensitive information long after they needed access to it.
A survey by the UK Government in 2021 revealed that 40% of businesses suffered a cybersecurity incident in the previous 12 months. The problem is widespread and growing, so it’s important to get a handle on the ever-growing amount of Teams data across your entire enterprise with customizable access controls and a clear overview.
Maintaining effective Teams governance going forward
Whether it’s inactive Teams groups, miscellaneous files, unclear and undefined naming conventions, or duplicate documents, there’s an imperative to clean up the digital mess and set the right precedent going forward. Otherwise, the likelihood is that you’ll be faced with multiple copies of the same documents, and no single source of truth, creating real concerns around accountability and transparency. When effective collaboration and communication governance is in place, oversight is clear and work can be done much more smoothly and efficiently.
With configurable templates, you can decide what new Teams look like, including access levels, and associated apps – putting you in total control of each user’s visibility and functionality. Templates are a simple and effective way to ensure future control, enabling you to define things like structure and titling conventions, whilst empowering you to set the rules on how to name and organize Teams.
Whatever good structure looks like in your organization, ensure that it extends to your past, present, and future Teams.
Getting clear oversight and control of data and users
There are different approaches to cleaning up the digital mess, from paying for external consultants to allocating dedicated IT staff and diverting them away from more meaningful work. Neither of these options is cheap or quick to implement. But there is another solution.
Documaster’s ‘Overview & Control’ is designed to seamlessly integrate with Microsoft Teams, so it fits right in and feels instantly familiar. It gives you a clear and simple-to-use overview with tools to control all of your Teams, plus easily configured templates to standardize governance going forward.
To help you take back control of Microsoft Teams, we’ve put together a free e-book containing advice and strategies for establishing, maintaining, and retaining oversight and control over high volumes of users and data.