Category: Channel Management

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compliance Channel Management UC Solutions

Archiving Channels in Microsoft Teams using Channel Management 

Microsoft Teams has revolutionized workplace collaboration, bringing teams together in a centralized hub for communication, file sharing, and project management. However, the dynamic nature of projects and organizational structures often leaves Teams cluttered with inactive or outdated channels. Simply deleting these channels feels risky, potentially leading to irretrievable data loss. Leaving them active, however, adds unnecessary noise and confusion, hindering productivity and user experience. 

→ Ready to streamline your Microsoft Teams environment? Book a demo with our team. 

The optimal solution lies in archiving. Archiving allows you to remove channels from daily view while preserving their complete history – chats, files, tabs, and metadata – for future reference, audits, or compliance purposes. This approach offers a balance between decluttering your Teams environment and safeguarding valuable information. 

“Deleting feels risky. Leaving them active clutters your workspace. Archiving is the smart middle ground.” 

The Challenges of Native Archiving 

Unfortunately, Microsoft Teams’ native archiving capabilities are limited. Not only can the process be cumbersome, lacking the intuitive interface and robust features needed for efficient and comprehensive channel archiving. It also requires an admin to archive and unarchive a channel if needed. 

Limitations with native offered capabilities 

• Data Loss Concerns: The risk of accidentally deleting important information during manual archiving remains a significant concern. 
• Time-Consuming Process: Manually archiving numerous channels can be a tedious and time-intensive task, pulling resources away from more strategic initiatives. 
• Inconsistent Application: Without a standardized archiving process, inconsistencies can arise, leading to a fragmented and disorganized Teams environment. 
• Compliance Risks: Incomplete or improper archiving can create compliance vulnerabilities, particularly for organizations subject to stringent data retention policies. 

Introducing a Streamlined Archiving Solution 

To address these challenges, we at AGAT developed the Channel Management solution. One of its features is Archiving specific channels. 

Key advantages of Channel Management 

• Intuitive Interface: A user-friendly interface makes archiving channels quick and easy, requiring minimal training. 
• Complete Data Preservation: Ensures that all channel data – chats, files and tabs – are preserved during the archiving process. 
• Efficient Organization: All archived channels are put into a team that can still be accessible if the user has the permission to. Meaning you can go in and fetch data with unarchiving. 
• Swap between archived and unarchived: It is as easy to unarchive a channel and restore it to its original location as archiving it. 
• Compliance Support: Helps organizations meet compliance requirements by maintaining a complete and auditable record of archived channel data. 

→ See how our Channel Management tool works in a live session. Book your personalized walkthrough. 

Benefits of Efficient Channel Archiving 

Implementing a robust archiving strategy offers numerous benefits: 
• Improved Organization: Reduces clutter and improves the overall organization of your Teams environment. 
• Enhanced Productivity: Reduces distractions and allows users to focus on active projects and communications. 
• Reduced Risk of Data Loss: Minimizes the risk of accidentally deleting important information. 
• Compliance Adherence: Helps organizations meet compliance requirements by maintaining a complete and auditable record of archived data. 

→ Want to declutter your digital workspace without losing valuable data? Explore AGAT’s solution. 

Final thoughts: 

Archiving channels is a crucial aspect of maintaining a clean, efficient, and compliant Microsoft Teams environment. Our channel management solution provides the tools and features necessary to achieve these requirements, enabling organizations to declutter their workspace, preserve valuable data, and improve overall productivity. Embrace efficient channel archiving and give your team the focused workspace they deserve. 

→ Let’s make your Teams environment smarter and cleaner. Book a free meeting now. 

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blog Channel Management UC Solutions

Channel Management – Helping you handle Microsoft Teams and Channels effectively throughout your project lifecycle

Have you ever experienced the frustration of dealing with the mess that Microsoft Teams can become? Too many Teams, duplicate channels, an abundance of clutter, wrong permissions… and the list goes on. 

In this article, we explore how AGAT’s Channel Management tool for MS Teams puts you back in the driving seat. Companies all over the world are using the Channel Management tool to keep their work environment organized and aligned to their needs.

Table of contents:

Collaborating in MS Teams and its limitations

AGAT’s Solution

1- Move Channels

2- Merge Channels

3- Change the Private or Public status of Channels

4- Archive Channels

5- Export Channels

Collaborating in MS Teams and its limitations

As of 2020, more than 1,000,000 organizations worldwide use Microsoft Teams as their collaboration and teamwork tool, and every organization needs its Teams environment to reflect the dynamic nature of business processes.

It would be very difficult to find a single company that maintains a static structure from the beginning, without the need for optimizations, merges, or any changes arising as they work and their projects evolve.

Despite that, and the fact that users keep asking for a solution, Microsoft does not offer the ability to restructure Teams to accommodate this reality.  Companies can quickly find themselves with a cluttered platform, having added too many Teams and channels they no longer use and should be modified to reflect their current structure.

AGAT’s Solution

AGAT’s SphereShield allows users to keep up with the rhythm of their organization and move things around in just a few clicks.

Let’s take for example an organization that’s working on the development of a new software product. These projects are often fast-paced, and the handling of each one of their features is switched between teams depending on the stage of its lifecycle. 

How could SphereShield’s Channel Management help them along the way?

1- Move Channels

By moving channels between teams, users can avoid having to make new ones and keep old ones for their content. They can move all sections, pages, text, and images.

In our example, this could mean that if the design team has matured one feature and is ready to send it to the Dev Team, they can move the Channel with all the info they’ll need.

move channels with channel management, a screen mockup

2- Merge Channels

As they keep working, the Team finds that they split the development of some new features into multiple channels. Then, they realize they want to manage them as pieces of one, bigger feature. Given this, they could merge those channels and keep all the info in the same place.

3- Change the Private or Public status of Channels

Let’s say the Design Team started a public channel and realized later that they were accumulating lots of sensitive information.

Changing a Channel from Public to private is not a native option in MS Teams.  SphereShield users can achieve this easily. First, create a new empty channel that is private. Then, merge the old public channel into the new private one. That’s it, a  status change in two simple steps.

4- Archive Channels

SphereShield can help you keep Microsoft Teams uncluttered, without inactive channels hanging around, and without losing data. Keeping channels from accumulating is also crucial because there is a 200 channel limit for every Team. Private channels are limited to 30 per Team. 

When the Team finishes their project, they will be able to archive all the channels related to it. This way, users will be able to keep the content and also retrieve it for future projects.

To do this, SphereShield creates a special Team named “Archive” to which the old inactive channels get sent. 

5- Export Channels

Microsoft doesn’t offer a simple way to copy and paste all the content from a channel. 

If the workgroup needs to share information through other channels or store it outside the Teams environment, SphereShield allows them to export all the data from a channel to an unchangeable PDF format.

To get a free trial of SphereShield’s channel contact us today. Our sales team will contact you with all the information you need.

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blog Channel Management UC Solutions

Microsoft Teams Channel Management FAQs

SphereShield offers Channel Management solutions to enhance visibility and control over Microsoft Teams. Hundreds of customers use it daily for adapting their Channels to the evolving environment. As companies change and projects are finished or sidelined, users face a cluttered Teams structure with excess inactive Channels affecting productivity. Let’s take a look at some of the key functionalities provided and how to employ them: 

Table of contents:

  1. How do I convert a public channel into a private channel?
  2. How do I rename Channels in Teams and SharePoint?
  3. How often is a new Channel / Teams detected and updated in the Channel management list?
  4. How do I limit administrative access to teams?
  5. The compliance admin wasn’t added to private channels, what should I do?
  6. How do I add admins to the SphereShield Portal?
  7. Why can’t I see the export option?
  8. Can I Enable/Disable the Compliance admin for periods in which I am not using SphereShield Channel Management?
  9. When I move a channel, what happens to the chat?
  10. Can I move or copy a channel archived in Microsoft Teams Admin center?
  11. What limitations do Private Channels have?
  12. How do you set prices for Channel Management?

1- How do I convert a public channel into a private channel?

To convert a public channel to a private channel, you can follow these steps:

1- Create a new private channel

2- Merge the desired public channel into this new private channel. 

Your content is now in a private channel.

2- How do I rename Channels in Teams and SharePoint?

Although we do not offer a one click solution for this, it can be achieved as follows:

1- Create a new Channel with the desired  name

2- Merge the old-named Channel into the new one.

Now your files in SharePoint and in Teams will be in a channel/folder with a new name. 

3- How often is a new Channel / Teams detected and updated in the Channel management list?

The teams and channels list is configured to run an update check and refresh every 60 seconds for European based customers and every 10 minutes for  American based customers. How long the process takes depends on how many teams, channels and users are in the tenant and can vary between 3 to 10 minutes. After adding a new channel, refresh the page (from the refresh button of the browser) to see if it has been updated in the portal. 

4- How do I limit administrative access to Teams?

To limit admin access to Teams follow these steps:

1- Under settings go to “Site Security”

2- Change the setting  “Users can only see Teams they have permissions on” to yes.

3- Click the “Add” button to add users as Admins. Please be sure to also add the compliance administrator you configured in the initial configuration of the portal as an “Admin with settings access”.

4- Start typing the names of the users you wish to configure and select them from the drop down menu. You’ll need to configure at least one admin with settings access and one without. This will lock out other users from accessing the portal.

After the configuration is complete, only the compliance admin will have access to all the teams on the tenant. 

As long as you perform actions with the other users configured as admins, they will only have access to their own teams.

5- The compliance admin wasn’t added to private channels, what should I do?

The compliance admin can’t be added automatically to private teams and channels so if you’d like to use it to manage them you’ll have to add it manually to each one. However, you can also manage private channels with their existing owners (if you haven’t restricted their access to the SphereShield portal).

If, for example, you copy a private channel using one of its existing owners then the compliance admin will be added as an owner in the newly copied channel (but still not in the original).

6- How do I add admins to the SphereShield Portal?

On the menu to the left, go to Settings and then Site Security. Scroll down and click the “add” button in order to add users as admins. Please note that you must add at least one user as an admin with settings access and one without, in order for other users to be locked out of the site. The compliance admin you created during the initial configuration of the site must also be added to the list as an admin with settings access.

7- Why can’t I see the export option?

The export option is only available to users who have been configured as “admins with settings access”.

8- Can I Enable/Disable the Compliance admin for periods in which I am not using SphereShield Channel Management?

Yes, you can disable the user. However, you need to know what kind of password policy the company has. It is EXTREMELY important to know whether the policy is set to “never expire”  or if it expires after a certain amount of time, months for example. If it’s set to never expire, then you can disable/enable the admin periods as much as you want. If it’s not, you should consult support, and remember to enable the admin before the expiration happens.

9- When I move a channel, what happens to the chat?

Moving a channel will move the chat inside it to the new destination place. The chat itself will be moved, and it will be sent by the compliance admin with a timestamp stating when it was moved. The original message body will have the original sender name and timestamp. Please note: reactions to chats won’t get moved.

10- Can I move or copy a channel archived in Microsoft Teams Admin center?

Yes, you can. But if the team of the channel that you are trying to move/copy/merge is archived in Microsoft Teams Admin center, you will receive the following pop up error message :

To be able to complete the operation you need to unarchive that team and then try again.

11- What limitations do Private Channels have?

When a private channel is either the source channel or the destination, Wiki and OneNote will not be copied. The original channel will be kept so the content will not get lost. A message about that will be a part of auditing. If there is no wiki in these channels, the behavior is like in public channels.

12- What is the price of Channel Management? 

The price is based on the amount of users per month, plus a fixed charge for server usage.

SphereShield Channel Management functionalities were developed with the needs of the end-user in mind. Our ultimate goal is to help you get the most out of Microsoft Teams, one of the top collaboration platforms out there, and extend some of its features to improve functionality, boost usability and productivity.

Contact us today and one of our sales representatives will soon be in touch with you.

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