May 28, 2020 Merging Microsoft Teams using TeamsHub by Cyclotron In this article, we will show how we merge different Microsoft Teams which till now is not possible. You got to know it first from us! So if you have been using Microsoft Team or have been an administrator of Microsoft Teams, it is pretty much well known that two different Teams cannot be merged. There have been various discussions, technical resource articles, and Microsoft Community questions. However, the answer is consistently the same- it is not possible as of today and we need to wait for Microsoft to provide a solution in the near future. Well folks, the wait is over. Our flagship product – TeamsHub by Cyclotron now makes the impossible possible. It is as easy as selecting the Team you want to migrate aka the “source” and moving it to the intended Team aka the destination. We also provide two flavors to merge – you can merge it this very instant or you can schedule a time for this merge to happen – say over the weekend. All the data, channels and artifacts such as permissions, guest members are carried over to the merged Team. In addition to this awesome feature, check out TeamsHub by Cyclotron for more which is a unified platform providing ease of administration and governance, employee engagement and adoption and training using expert video instructions and help center for Microsoft 365 workloads such as SharePoint, OneDrive and Outlook in addition to Teams For more information or to schedule a demo please reach out to sales@cyclotrongroup.com
April 29, 2020 Automate Site Provisioning with Dynamic Forms using TeamsHub by Cyclotron Introduction Dynamic request forms offer a robust team creation process that enhances governance and accountability for Microsoft Teams using TeamsHub by Cyclotron. In dynamic forms, the number of columns is not fixed but changes during runtime. By offering flexibility to vary columns, dynamic forms streamline data gathering, and storing. In this article we will see how to automate dynamic forms using TeamsHub by Cyclotron. Automate dynamic forms in TeamsHub by Cyclotron, to allow capture team profile data as they come in. Before a team starts to function, the user submits a form so that administrator gets all vital details for verification. Also, users can submit team requests in various situations. For example – launching a new project, updating a project, commencing a new task, adding a new work scope, etc. In TeamsHub by Cyclotron, administrators can create completely customizable dynamic forms without writing a line of code. Isn’t that great! They can modify the form template whenever they want as per organizational needs. Let’s explore the benefits and technicalities of dynamic forms offered by TeamsHub by Cyclotron in the next few sections. How Dynamic Forms Help Firstly, dynamic forms help in process and workflow management.Secondly, a dynamic request form clarifies the purpose of a team to an administrator.Thirdly, it can trigger additional information and follow-up questions considering the requester’s input.Lastly, it can help assign additional members or owners to a request considering the project for which the team is created. Creating Dynamic Forms To create a dynamic request form in TeamsHub by Cyclotron, click ‘Site Provision Settings’ in Settings. Then, click the link ‘Click here to update the form’. A pop-up form appears where custom columns can be added. Now, click ‘Add Field’ icon to add a column, choose its type, and enter a value. You can also provide a tool tip for reference. Besides, you can mark the column as mandatory by ticking the ‘Required’ checkbox at the end. Accessing Request Form Now, to access dynamic form, click ‘Create a Team’ button. Thereafter, the team creation process will lead you through a few steps before you finally get team request form. The following columns are currently available in the form by default: Name – It specifies team name Description – It specifies a description of the team Alias Name – It specifies group email id Member – It specifies member(s) of the team Owner – It specifies the owner(s) of the team Classification – It specifies organizational classification to which team belongs Besides, once you add dynamic columns, the team request form will look like this: Finally, the new request created by the user awaits the administrator’s approval. Summary Automating team request form is must-have functionality of modern collaboration tools. With TeamsHub by Cyclotron, administrators can automate workflows simply using a visual wizard. Creating and customizing powerful dynamic forms has never been easier. For more information on TeamsHub by Cyclotron please visit our blog or our main site at https://teamshub.io
April 20, 2020 Advanced Search using TeamsHub by Cyclotron Introduction Avoiding Teams sprawl and finding relevant information is an important consideration for Microsoft Teams governance. In this article we take a look at finding information using Advanced Search using TeamsHub by Cyclotron. Performing an acute search in an organization that has thousands of collaborative teams is often overwhelming for administrators. TeamsHub by Cyclotron introduces smarter ways to find teams. We have integrated filters to streamline your search and render high quality matches in your results. In this blog, we will discuss the following topics: Key PointsHow to Access Search and Create HubsWhat are FiltersWhat is Advanced Search and How to Access itExample Scenarios Key Points In TeamsHub by Cyclotron – Search is performed based on team name, tags, and classification.Advanced search can be used by both administrator and user.Advanced search does not support hub creation. How to Access Search and Create Hubs Sign in to TeamsHub by Cyclotron using appropriate user account and password. To search teams, go to All Teams and enter a search criteria in search input box. Use a search term – team name, tags or classification to search a team. For convenience, TeamsHub by Cyclotron provides tool tip in standard search. Now save the derived results as hub by giving a hub name after clicking Save Hub button. Henceforth, if new teams are added to your Office 365 environment matching any search criteria in existing hubs, they get automatically added to appropriate hubs. Filters Filters are a set of parameters used to customize your search query to eliminate irrelevant content from your results. Filters help in finding exact information that you are looking for. In TeamsHub by Cyclotron, to apply filters, you need to specify: An Attribute to filter onAn Operator to set the filter conditionA Value to filter by There are five types of attributes: Name – it specifies team name.Visibility – it is either public or private.Member/Owner – it specifies team member or owner name.Tags – it specifies tags used for labelling teams based on attributes such as team role, project, skill etc. For example – HR, IT, and Audit. Classification – it specifies classification labels used to categorize teams based on purpose, location or organizational structure. For example – Internal and External. Now, there are three types of operators: Equal – this operator is used to match specified attribute with a specified value.Not Equal –this operator is used when specified attribute must not match a specified value.Contains –this operator is used to match a specified attribute with a specified value in the same sequential or contiguous order. What is Advanced Search and How to Access it Advanced search is a set of filters used to perform complex searches by creating a search query. A search query is formed by combining a field and a query operator as discussed above. To access advanced search in TeamsHub by Cyclotron, go to All Teams and click the Advanced Search icon next to search input box on top of the screen. Example Scenarios Let us consider creating a search query using three different filters: [Filter 1: Attribute=Classification; Operator=Contains; Value=”aud”] Now the results will fetch all teams with classification ‘Audit’. [Filter 2: Attribute=Member/Owner; Operator=Not Equal; Value=”Anton Adamson”] Now, the result returns a list of teams where ‘Anton Adamson’ is not a member. Let us use a combination of two filters now: [Filter 3: {Attribute=Visibility; Operator=Equal; Value=”private”}{Attribute=Tags; Operator=Not Equal; Value=”it”}] Here, the result returns all those teams that are private and do not contain ‘IT’ tag. Similarly, you can refine your searches using two or more than two filters at a time. Summary TeamsHub by Cyclotron ensures that searching is an awesome experience for you. Gain control over your searches and get what you want in no time. If you are looking forward to make your searches straightforward, TeamsHub by Cyclotron is a perfect tool for you. For more information on TeamsHub by Cyclotron please visit our main site at https://teamshub.io or our blog for more articles.
April 19, 2020 Administration Management using TeamsHub by Cyclotron In this article, we dive into managing administration using TeamsHub by Cyclotron. Introduction IT Administrators are an important part of any company especially as organizations grow. Similarly, a global administrator in Office 365 also plays an important role. Administration Management using TeamsHub by Cyclotron plays an important role to help ease the burden and streamline governance. A global administrator, using TeamsHub by Cyclotron can automate collaboration settings, assign owners, manage licenses and domains, manage users and teams, customize policies, and perform many other operations. However, a global administrator’s role can be too centralized. Therefore, dividing the administrator role can greatly ease the team workload and set up the organization to scale easily. Also, delegating rights and privileges to specific tasks can help organizations expand administration capabilities for efficient management. Administration Management using TeamsHub by Cyclotron In this regard, TeamsHub by Cyclotron simplifies governance through automation without complex Powershell commands and by using a unified interface to streamline governance. Additionally, TeamsHub by Cyclotron puts a structure around administration by providing three administrator roles. Global AdministratorTeams Service Administrator and Reports Reader. Let’s explore each role one by one in the following sections Global Administrator In TeamsHub by Cyclotron, a global administrator can perform the following tasks: Firstly, manage Teams’ creation using automated workflows. Besides this administrators can manage guests, naming policies based on standard blocked words and custom blocked words and assign organization-specific classification. Secondly, global administrators can set up expiration policies for each team via a set of rules. This sends notifications to team owners on certain actions that need to be taken and provides alerts during the period of inactivity before Teams can be disposed of or archived. Thirdly, automate Microsoft Teams governance for site creation and management. To achieve this, an administrator can utilize dynamic forms and external workflows and define naming policies based on custom attributes and by using templates. Additionally, create and manage teams and configure access rights by applying Information Rights Management (IRM) to prevent content misuse. Also, create tags for quick discovery of information and updating multiple teams in one go.Perform an advanced search using filters and create hubs to save the results for organizational needs.Gain real-time insights into teams through a powerful dashboard to measure teams’ performance and make informed business decisions.Track popular, inactive teams or archived teams in your organization based on teams’ activity threshold. Administrators can also see the latest teams that have been added.Track and manage externally shared files or documents and even revoke access for security reasons.Get actionable reports based on various criteria such as metadata usage, team or device usage, etc. You can also share reports with third party contractors.Finally, a global administrator can optimize voice solutions. From a user-friendly interface, create, test and troubleshoot Direct Routing Configuration. Teams Service Administrator In TeamsHub by Cyclotron, Teams Service Administrator has similar responsibilities like the global administrators to manage entire Microsoft Teams environment. As a Teams Service Administrator, you can utilize all tools and features except: Voice routing or telephony settingsManaging teams creation processSetting up naming conventions for teamsClassification of teamsManaging external access Report Reader A Report Reader helps in creating better visibility of reporting and making reports more accessible. They have a very limited access to administrator portal in TeamsHub by Cyclotron. This role is read-only and can be assigned to any Office 365 user across the organization. As report reader, you can only view dashboard and access all the reports through Analytics. Summary We understand that administration management for Microsoft Teams and organizational needs can be tedious and time consuming. Hence, TeamsHub by Cyclotron provides more flexible ways to administer ensuring availability, reliability, security and integrity of your cloud systems and environments. For more information on TeamsHub by Cyclotron please visit our blog or our main site at https://teamshub.io
April 16, 2020 Direct Voice Routing for Microsoft Teams using TeamsHub by Cyclotron In this article, we explore automating Voice Routing features using TeamsHub by Cyclotron Introduction Microsoft Teams is an intelligent communication system that provides a flawless collaboration and immersive engagement experience of hi-def audio and video, calls, chat, screen-share and much more. Workgroup collaboration on projects, sharing ideas via conference meetings and delivering global live events became easier than ever. Thus, in a very short time, Microsoft Teams grew popular. Undoubtedly, Microsoft Teams is the next-gen collaboration suite that smart business leaders of today want to invest in. Microsoft Teams handles voice in two different ways using Microsoft Phone Systems/ Calling Plans Direct Routing Specific countries limit Microsoft Calling Plans. Therefore, configure a user’s existing phone infrastructure using Direct Voice Routing. Direct Voice Routing is one of the most important features in Microsoft Teams. It also incurs lower line costs than Microsoft’s Calling Plans. Direct Voice Routing Overview Direct Voice Routing requires Session Border Controller (SBCs) for Microsoft Teams. This enables connection to a Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). Firstly, you need to configure SBC as recommended by a certified SBC vendor. Secondly, connect it with Microsoft Phone System and enable direct routing and configure voice routing. Finally, translate numbers into an alternate format. Voice routing policy is a container that holds all routing elements such as PSTN Gateways, PSTN Usages, Dial Plans and Voice Routes in it. The ordering of PSTN Usages and Voice Routes is critical for sending calls in order to specific PSTN Gateways. In summary, Voice Routing Policy determines how a call is routed for that user. Using TeamsHub by Cyclotron Setting up voice features for Microsoft Teams requires in-depth knowledge of complex PowerShell commands along with rigorous experience in Skype. A user-friendly interface for creating, testing and troubleshooting Direct Routing configuration reduces the utility gap, making it simple and efficient. Let us look at some of the features that make the administrator’s job simple and easy. 1. PSTN Gateway PSTN gateway enables phone and media connection between two different types of networks. Configure all protocol related settings here including information to be sent to physically deployed SBCs in the PSTN gateway. This is to add SBC as a PSTN gateway and includes the following parameters shown below Additionally, set values as shown below 2. PSTN Usage PSTN usage has multiple voice associated routes to send calls to various regions. Assign PSTN usage, different voice routing policies. PSTN usage finds a matching rule related to call permissions when user dials a number to a particular site. The field Usage Name is a text pertaining to a geographical location, for example – US, US and Canada, International, etc. 3. Dial Plans Call authorization and call routing need dial plans, a set of normalization rules to translate dialed numbers to an alternate format. Different dial plans interpret the same string of numbers differently. Based on this interpretation, numbers are translated and routed. The dial plan follows a descriptive naming convention to identify assigned users. Create and manage a new dial plan simply by filling in the values in the given parameters using TeamsHub by Cyclotron. Dial Plan Name: Global/NR2 4. Voice Routes In TeamsHub by Cyclotron, creating a voice route can be followed with simple steps. A descriptive route name can be given to the Name field. Then, Number Pattern is a regular expression to match. Once matched, it sends the call to the defined SBC(s). You can then select FQDN, the domain name for your SBC and PSTN Usage. For example, the values for these parameters can be set as: Name: Route1 Number Pattern: [0-9]{10} FQDN: sbc.contoso.com PSTN Usage: US & Canada 5. Voice Routing Policy Using PSTN Usage(s) and their defined Voice Route(s), you can easily create Voice Routing Policy with TeamsHub by Cyclotron. For example, the values in the given parameters can be set as: Name: Policy1 PSTN Usage: US and Canada 6. Assign Voice Routing Policy Assigning a Voice Routing Policy is once again pretty straight forward. In TeamsHub by Cyclotron, simply select a Voice Routing Policy and username from Select People. So, when a user makes a call, based the Voice Routing Policy, a list of PSTN Usage(s) is returned. The Voice Routes linked with the PSTN Usages are verified to check if the number matches. If so, then the call is sent to the SBC(s) in the route with the highest priority. However, if call cannot be routed through the SBC for whatever reasons, the remaining matching routes are used. Thankfully, TeamsHub by Cyclotron makes voice configuration hassle-free for administrators. Summary When teams grow in large organizations, trying to work collaboratively in a fusion of several communication tools is neither practicable nor productive. It’s time to renounce old communication platforms and welcome a sleek, modern and efficient collaboration suite like TeamsHub by Cyclotron to provide you scalability and happier workforce. Suggested Reading Plan for Direct Voice Routing for Microsoft TeamsMicrosoft Article on Configuring Direct Voice Routing for Microsoft Teams If you liked this article, please feel free to peruse our blog section for more interesting content
April 08, 2020 Security, Document Tracking and Sharing with AIP The world is witnessing a huge upswing in remote work amid the COVID-19 outbreak. One of the most important aspects in such a scenario is airtight security across an organization’s environment. TeamsHub by Cyclotron secures confidential data and prevents potential data breaches through enhanced governance using Information Rights Management (IRM), document tracking through Azure Information Protection (AIP) and external file sharing. Introduction TeamsHub by Cyclotron is an automated governance platform for Microsoft Teams. It saves IT departments overheads and provides secure operation continuity by integrating the best in class features from Azure and Office365. In this article, we explore the various aspects of security, document tracking, and sharing using AIP, IRM, and others. Microsoft has published an article intended for IT professionals yesterday. It provides important privacy and security aspects for Microsoft Teams. The full article is listed here. One particular section of interest in governance is preventing cybersecurity threats using various tools. Sensitivity labeling, cloud app security, data loss prevention, and advanced threat protection are some of them. Additionally, protecting identity and account access is another section of note in the article. As a matter of fact, TeamsHub by Cyclotron allows many ways to automate governance and protect data using AIP and IRM for security, document tracking, and sharing. This helps with security and compliance for Microsoft Teams. As a result, heavily regulated industries such as Banking, Finance, Insurance, Healthcare, and Lifesciences will find this especially useful. Let us take a look at some of them. Security: Sensitivity Labeling and Guest Access Automated governance features in TeamsHub by Cyclotron particularly provides a rich set of flexible features. Firstly, create a Team as either Private or Public. Information is now accessible to either a select or large section of users because of this setting. Private access allows for team members to collaborate without sharing information. Also, you can mark the Team as confidential or restricted. A public Team’s information is available to everyone. . Furthermore, in addition to Team visibility, guest access can also be configured. Security and Document Sharing: Information Rights Management (IRM) Our governance feature set provides IRM which systematically safeguards sensitive corporate data from possible leaks. Prevent unintended users from seeing, editing, downloading. sharing and printing documents. This depends on the setting of that document and auto-expires access after a specified time. Apply IRM settings directly using TeamsHub by Cyclotron. This is through a team-level tile view. Not to mention that this is a convenient method instead of navigating to a SharePoint Document Library or through the SharePoint Admin Center. Security and Document Tracking: Azure Information Protection (AIP) In any organization, collaboration involves internal and external users such as vendors, contractors, and agencies. Files or documents need to be shared only with the intended audience. Protect sensitive information outside the organization. Using AIP, administrators can automate tasks. Document tracking, setting expiry dates for access or revoking access based on unexpected or unusual behaviors can all be configured. Moreover, protected document access sends a notification using AIP. TeamsHub by Cyclotron allows users to actively monitor document access. Of course, this can be leveraged through a usage report which shows any failed access attempts. Security, Document Sharing and Tracking: External File Sharing Is external file sharing different than adding a guest to the Team? Yes – share selective content with people outside the organization. Moreover, these users are not members of any team. In such scenarios, administrators need to be vigilant of users’ activities. Moreover, administrators must monitor permissions granted on shared content and time limit before expiry. TeamsHub by Cyclotron provides a unified interface to bring up all externally shared files. This is one of the key governance aspects for administrators TeamsHub by Cyclotron provides two types of interfaces. First of all, a unified view of all externally shared files across the tenant. Furthermore, a team-level interface that shows externally shared files by that team. Provide access via a link to the document or to the document itself as below Can Edit – shared for collaboration with read-write access.Can View – read-only access to the document Stop sharing – mistakenly shared documents or suspicious activities detected. Finally, it is imperative more than ever to upgrade to virtual collaboration across geographical boundaries. This helps the organization to operate without any slowdown or worse shut down during emergency situations or crises. Consequently, automating governance and streamlining administration can help in creating a remote workforce very rapidly. TeamsHub by Cyclotron understands these needs and has inbuilt security for collaboration and compliance. This along with simplified governance enables your organization’s productivity to remain unscathed and uncompromised. Other Reading Governance Best Practices for Microsoft TeamsAutomate Top 5 Governance Features in Microsoft Teams
April 07, 2020 Microsoft Teams for US Government and DoD Microsoft announces rapid enablement of Teams for US government entities As you may have noted, Microsoft recently announced the rapid deployment and enablement of Microsoft Teams for the US government and DoD. This was in response to the COVID-19 pandemic which has resulted in both a health and economic crisis. You can find the full article here. Microsoft has released a Teams Guide for Rapid Enablement in GCC, GCCH & DoD. You can also access this via the link – https://aka.ms/TeamsGovFastPath You can find a webinar released by Microsoft on Youtube via the link – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CI4s3LE9lEY If you are a government entity and would like to leverage Microsoft Teams Cyclotron has offerings to meet your needs. We also cater to regulated industries such as Financial Services and Banking as well as Healthcare and Lifescience organizations. Additionally, we automate Microsoft Teams’ governance and engage users with our flagship product – TeamsHub by Cyclotron. TeamsHub by Cyclotron is a unified platform that simplifies, automates and streamlines governance. Also, with employee engagement features we provide a rich set of features along with governance. Furthermore, you can find more information in our blog articles. Finally, to know more about TeamsHub by Cyclotron please contact – sales@cyclotrongroup.com. We are totally committed to keeping our country safe and working 24X7. #MAGA. We look forward to hearing from you. About Cyclotron Cyclotron was proudly founded in San Francisco in 2014 with the sole intent of accelerating the success of our clients. We solve mission-critical business and technology challenges, through a proven network of industry-specific frameworks. We’re a trusted strategic partner to many innovative organizations in the financial, health and life sciences, public, retail, and technology sectors. Our solutions combined with your investment with us boost productivity, enhances collaboration, and integrates intelligence across your entire enterprise.
April 07, 2020 Automated Lifecycle Management for Teams This article explores how Teams lifecycle governance can be automated and managed using TeamsHub from Cyclotron Introduction Firstly, organizations and administrators should focus on three main aspects of the automated lifecycle management of Microsoft Teams to streamline governance. Provisioning: Teams request, approval, and creation Operations: Managing information access and containers Information Lifecycle: Retain, expire and disposal of Teams With this intention in mind, TeamsHub by Cyclotron provides automated lifecycle management. This eliminates tons of manual provisioning issues. Secondly, any administrator surely wants streamlined governance which includes Avoiding teams or sites sprawl and duplication.Avoiding Teams without owners or orphaned TeamsDeploying a consistent architecture for the tenant environmentDefine naming policies for Teams based on custom attributesAssigning correct roles and responsibilities to each Team memberOrganize frequently used Teams together as “Hubs”Providing an automated workflow for team site creation and approvalImplementing enhanced security controls Now let us look at some of the scenarios below to automate the lifecycle management of Microsoft Teams using TeamsHub by Cyclotron. Automate creating a new team or site The lifecycle starts with creating a Team. So, an administrator can enable Site and Team creation, whereby users can request a Team or SharePoint Site and choose to make it either Public or Private. Users can search Teams marked Public easily and the user is free to join that team. Owners control access to Private Teams. A point to note – build a Team from scratch or by using an existing template. In either case, TeamsHub by Cyclotron grabs essential details popping up a quick request form for the user to fill out. Along with defaults such as Title and Description, the request form also asks some additional metadata which can be specified by the administrator in the site provisioning settings. On submission, the request goes for an administrator’s approval. We take this a step further using governance automation which is described below. Automate site provisioning A key feature of TeamsHub by Cyclotron which allows Self-service provisioning of Teams while managing approvals based on business processes through dynamic forms and external workflows. Creating or restricting the creation of Teams to specific groups. It also makes guest management and policy management easy along with refraining users to use certain keywords while naming their Teams. Automate classifying and tagging Teams Easily create text-based classifications for Teams such as internal, personal, business, important, etc., depending upon their unique identity, strength or structure. A second level categorization of Teams is also available based on role, project or skill. Apply another tagging dimension to Teams to classify them by expertise or departments such as IT, marketing, product, sales, etc. Unified tagging and classification expedite discoverability, as well as easing navigation. Searching Teams TeamsHub by Cyclotron, lets you find Teams by three search parameters viz. name, tags, classification. Additionally, we provide advanced search capabilities using Team name, visibility (Public or Private), members/owner, tag and classification to help administrators narrow down quickly to the desired information. Store this search result further or save it as a Hub based on organizational needs. Manage Team owners and members Add new participants as owners or members to the selected Team in the search. Also, existing owners or members can be deleted from the Team. Moreover, with a user-friendly interface and convenient tile-view, the roles of owners or members can be swapped without hassle or complex scripting. Team Details Automate expiration policy for inactive Teams Teams get inactive after the end of a project or once they have served their purpose. To avoid teams sprawl and have active content as well as usage, TeamsHub by Cyclotron provides the auto archival of Teams by setting an expiration policy. An expiration policy triggers a crawl through the database to uncover Teams that cross the inactivity threshold. This crawler seeks the last activity generated by users of that particular team. This is closely related to the Daily Activity Usage as defined by Microsoft. Some of the criteria include chats, and conversations, emails being sent, and files shared within a Team or group. Expiration Policies A few policies can be set to ensure no Team is deleted by accident Owner Policy: A set of rules that require owners to review and determine the next course of action. TeamsHub by Cyclotron sends periodic notifications ( in days) to Team owners to review the Teams they own. Actions that an owner might take are – deleting a member of the Team or deleting the entire Team if it has already served its purpose. Owners can revoke access for important files or documents that are shared within the Team or externally. Flexibility to modify the review deadline as per their choice. Inactive Team Policy: Notify Team owners by email if no activity is detected in the specified time period. The email contents can be structured and customized as per needs. The owner can then decide based on the response, whether to mark a Team inactive. Archive Team Policy: Send email notifications to inactive teams. The automatic email notification contains the Team name, description, members list, and last date of an activity. Additionally, it provides a link to archive it with a confirmation. If owner fails to act, Team is archived automatically after sending a few reminders. Team Deletion Policy: Similar to Archive Team Policy, except that if the owner of the Team fails to take any action, TeamsHub by Cyclotron doesn’t delete the Team automatically. Summary So in summary, we can manage Microsoft Teams better and experience easy and convenient lifecycle management. TeamsHub by Cyclotron enables you to work with clean, accurate and relevant information at all times saving you from inadvertent and costly mistakes while ensuring that you share updated content always. We promise you an effortless and happy administration and streamlined governance! Suggested Reading Microsoft Teams Governance Best PracticesAutomate Microsoft Teams Governance using TeamsHub by CyclotronAutomate Top5 governance features in Microsoft Teams About Cyclotron Cyclotron was proudly founded in San Francisco in 2014 with the sole intent of accelerating the success of our clients by solving mission-critical business and technology challenges, through a proven network of industry-specific frameworks. We’re a trusted strategic partner to many innovative organizations in the financial, health and life sciences, public, retail, and technology sectors. Our solutions combined with your investment with us boosts productivity, enhances collaboration, and integrates intelligence across your entire enterprise.
April 06, 2020 Automate Microsoft Teams Governance using TeamsHub by Cyclotron In this article we deep dive into the technical aspects to match theory to practice. Managing a complex environment such as Microsoft Teams can be challenging as well. We will cover some scenarios and provide a few features of TeamsHub that help mitigate it. We will list out a few real-world scenarios to automate Microsoft Teams governance. We will also demonstrate how TeamsHub by Cyclotron helps solve them. For our previous article on Microsoft Teams governance best practices – click here NOTE: The user interfaces have been slightly modified or masked to prevent plagiarism. Scenario 1 Complex Powershell Operations: In Microsoft Teams, an administrator is required to create and manage Teams’ governance through complex Powershell commands. Our solution to this problem is to provide a simplified solution and interface. We empower administrative capabilities for enhanced control. We believe in automating the workload and tasks in the background. No more Powershell commands. Say hello to automated Microsoft Teams governance. A beautifully designed interface collates all Teams together. It also provides other details such as members, owners, tags, public or private, etc. in a single pane of glass. We also provide the total number of teams as a quick reference to the sprawl in the environment. The image below shows the administrative interface available today to streamline manual tasks with various commands. In addition, we provide Site Provisioning. It allows you to automate Microsoft Team governance for site creation and management. This is achieved by Utilizing dynamic forms and external workflows. Defining naming policies based on custom attributes and by using templates. After the above setup, the following screen will show up for an end-user when requesting site creation. Scenario 2 General Governance: Microsoft Teams allows anyone to create a team and its associated SharePoint sites. Eventually, a multitude of Teams causes duplicate naming, inappropriately named teams and frustrated users. Consequently, this may also lead to orphaned teams and owners leading to information loss. We provide a user-friendly interface to automate Microsoft Teams governance, expiration policy, and guest access external users. Using our Governance settings, administrators can manage Teams’ creation and lifecycle using automated workflows. Other settings include managing guests, naming policies abased on standard blocked words and custom blocked words. In addition, we can set up expiration policies for each team via a set of rules and notifications such as Notifications to alert team owners on certain actions that need to be takenAlerts during the period of inactivity before Teams can be disposed or archived, Scenario 3 Teams Classification: Most of the time, finding the right information, content or people is a tedious operation. This is true for both administrators and end-users. Firstly, Administrators have a hard time finding the owner or members of a team. Secondly, if the team can be correctly classified by a label or tag for discoverability. TeamsHub by Cyclotron provides unified tagging and classification. This helps derive quick information and reduce overheads by updating multiple teams in one go. TeamsHub by Cyclotron, enables assigning of organization-specific classification. Administrators can publish organizational tags to appropriate groups whereas users can create and remove personal tags to their own groups. With this in mind, administrators can create Hubs – frequently used sites grouped by certain criteria. This helps in finding the right information quickly for end-users without having to search or find it. Manually adding and editing details per team is a tedious and time-consuming process – ask an administrator. Such updates include members, owners, description, and classification of Teams. So, we provide an easy to use a feature called Bulk Update to address this issue. Bulk Update provides administrators, editing capabilities across multiple teams in a single attempt. No more tedious processing and updating of details one by one. Scenario 4 Advanced Search and Reporting: Better search functionality leads to funnel information. This can be achieved by defining filters to get the desired result. The screen below shows the search functionality. Our Interactive Reporting allows administrators to gain smart insights. Actionable reports on various criteria such as metadata usage, team usage, or device and browser segmentation are available. Reports can also be exported to other formats such as Excel and JSON to integrate with third-party visualization tools. We provide native integration with PowerBI as well. Scenario 5 External Document Sharing, Data Protection, and Security: Collaboration involves external vendors and third-party contractors as well. With this intention, sharing documents with guest users requires some caution and inbuilt checks to prevent data leaks. We have automated robust supervision and document tracking for sharing confidential data with external parties. We provide best in class features of Office365 and Azure – Azure Information Protection, Data Loss Prevention and Information Rights Management. Additionally, we provide administrators a unified view of externally shared content. Our solution called Enhanced Security provides automatic provisioning of Information Rights Management (IRM) policies. Along with integrated Data Loss Prevention (DLP) policies enables administrators to manage, track and revoke access for all externally shared documents in a single place. In summary, TeamsHub by Cyclotron provides a robust set of automated governance tools to help administrators manage Microsoft Teams efficiently. Using governance best practices as features in TeamsHub by Cyclotron, helps address some of the most pertinent issues. These are Teams sprawl, content sprawl, and security, as well as structure and permission models. In addition, we provide advanced Office 365 features such as IRM and DLP along with AIP About Cyclotron Cyclotron was proudly founded in San Francisco in 2014 with the sole intent of accelerating the success of our clients. We solve mission-critical business and technology challenges, through a proven network of industry-specific frameworks. We’re a trusted strategic partner to many innovative organizations in the financial, health and life sciences, public, retail, and technology sectors. Our solutions combined with your investment with us boosts productivity, enhances collaboration, and integrates intelligence across your entire enterprise.
March 24, 2020 People Manager Framework and TeamsHub by Cyclotron: Adopting Microsoft Teams made easy San Francisco based Cyclotron Inc., a fast-growth company recently announced using the People Manager Framework to help Enterprises thinking of deploying or having recently deployed Microsoft Teams adopt it better, faster and easier. Along with its flagship TeamsHub by Cyclotron product, this makes Microsoft Teams experience much better for both administrators and end-users. A common scenario in any IT organization is to roll out a new application or software. This is done by the IT department after the decision by the executive sponsor has been made. However, the rollout and change enablement process most of the time involves very few training or immersion sessions. Champions are involved sporadically and getting buy-in from some business teams is a formality. This is then followed by mass communication and training sessions for everyone. In many cases, the wrong first experience creates end-user frustration. Also, all end users cannot be trained, all end users do not sit in the same office, or there is no one size fit all methodology especially in a multi-generational, distributed workforce. This is true for Microsoft Teams’ adoption as well. People Manager Framework is a simplified path for Hockey Stick adoption of Microsoft Teams by focusing on a starting point for the best end-user experience. By focusing on the persona of the employee and automating tasks such as Team creation, channels linking them to various Yammer and Stream groups, Forms and Flow, leads to manage resistance and increase adoption. This also helps in cutting down training costs and service desk tickets. Using TeamsHub by Cyclotron, provides you an intelligent, automated and intuitive system to manage all the governance, security policies, end-user experience features across the organization through a single interface. Using bots such as HR Assistant and communicator apps drives inclusivity as compared to email or other add-ons. About CyclotronCyclotron was proudly founded in San Francisco in 2014 with the sole intent of accelerating the success of our clients by solving mission-critical business and technology challenges, through a proven network of industry-specific frameworks. We’re a trusted strategic partner to many innovative organizations in the financial, health and life sciences, public, retail, and technology sectors. Our solutions combined with your investment with us boost productivity, enhances collaboration, and integrates intelligence across your entire enterprise.
