Category: Channel Management

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

Post author By Yoav
Post date September 11, 2022
No Comments on 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.

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.

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.

Tags channel management

Microsoft Teams Channel Management FAQs

Post author By Yoav
Post date June 30, 2022
No Comments on 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:

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.

Tags AGAT Software, microsoft teams, Unified Communications

Channel Management guide How To Microsoft Teams

How to merge two channels in MS Teams [guide]

Post author By Yoav
Post date June 16, 2022
No Comments on How to merge two channels in MS Teams [guide]

Microsoft Teams is without a doubt one of the top collaboration platforms out there, especially with more and more companies converting to remote working since 2020. However, a big problem that sometimes sneaks up on companies while using MS Teams is having more than one Channel which addresses the same topic/client/project or even conversations.

In this blog, we will discuss the importance of merging two Channels together, why it is important to have this feature on hand, and the steps needed to accomplish such a move in MS Teams.

Why is it important?

As mentioned above, the merging feature addresses a very common need the Microsoft Teams users realize after using Teams for quite some time. This feature gives its owner the ability to merge two or more Channels together. On the surface, it seems like a feature that is designed to reduce cluttering and occasionally tidy up a Teams tenant.

If we dig a little deeper, we find that this solution offers so much more than just removing clutter. As it also gives you the ability to convert Channels from private to public and vice-versa, this feature is ultimately the most important feature as it allows its user to switch Channels from private to public with ease.

Who would need it?

In our experience, companies that use MS Teams as their main unified communication platform eventually run into the problem of having 2 Channels that are duplicates, as they have more or less the same communication, files, tabs, notes, and even pictures!

Moreover, to best organize a company’s communication, files, information, and even good morning posts, there has to be a clear and efficient way of keeping everything in its respective place, while simultaneously being a few clicks away.

Furthermore, as more and more companies face the same issues highlighted above, the merging feature within our Channel Management solution provides an elegant, concise, and efficient solution. Therefore, every company that uses MS Teams would need this feature!

Is Microsoft solving this issue?

From the Microsoft Feedback Portal, we can see more and more people asking Microsoft to add the merging feature. Nevertheless, with more than 4k votes on all requests, the Microsoft team has put the request to enable users to merge/consolidate Channels under review. This ultimately means that there is no specific timeframe for when this issue will be addressed.

How To merge Channels using Channel Management

This action is just a few clicks away. Here are the steps needed to merge two Channels together:

Log into your dedicated SphereShield portal
Select MS Teams Management from the menu
Click ‘Manage’ next to the Team that houses the Channel you want to merge
Select the Team that you’d like to merge into
Select the specific Channel you’d like to merge with
Press ‘OK’
Grab a cup of coffee while the magic happens 😉

Screenshots from portal

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Tags AGAT Software, microsoft teams, Unified Communications

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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

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?