Teams

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Skype for Business Online is retiring – What does it mean? 7 Comments

Skype for Business Online is retiring – What does it mean?

July 31st, 2021, is the day that Skype for Business Online (SfBO) officially retires. What does that mean for you and your users? It means just that, that SfBO will not be available in Microsoft 365 anymore, and Teams Only mode will be the only option for users homed in Microsoft 365. In this article, Stale Hansen explains the different transition options available, shows how to flip your tenant over to Teams Only mode yourself, and offers some best practices based on personal experience.

June 18, 2021
Taming Teams Notifications
Microsoft Teams notifications

Taming Teams Notifications

There are several areas where Microsoft could improve the way Teams handles out-of-office and away-from-work scenarios. Are the default "quiet hours" reasonable? Should there be a global setting for quiet hours or do-not-disturb? While there may be good reasons to leave some of these as a tenant-level settings, you don't want to forget about the extra steps you must take to truly escape from Teams for a bit.

June 4, 2021
Deploying Custom Teams Group Policy Assignments
Microsoft Teams

Deploying Custom Teams Group Policy Assignments

Microsoft Teams uses an array of policies to control the features available to end users. Group policy assignments make it easier to assign packages of policies to groups of users. Microsoft provides a set of policy packages out of the box, and organizations can create custom packages. That is, if they have the Teams Advanced Communications license. Demanding a special license for functionality which helps tenants manage Teams better seems excessive, especially as you could relatively easily recreate policy assignments with PowerShell.

June 3, 2021
The Practical 365 Update: S2, Ep 19 – What’s new from Build 2021, and Accenture IT on Running the Largest Teams Deployment in the World

The Practical 365 Update: S2, Ep 19 – What’s new from Build 2021, and Accenture IT on Running the Largest Teams Deployment in the World

On the show this week, we're talking through the news from Build and going into detail on the most important announcements for IT pros. We're also joined by Jason Warnke and Tony Leraris from Accenture, who give us a glimpse into the fun and games around running the world's largest Microsoft Teams deployment.

May 28, 2021
Talking Teams with Rish Tandon
Microsoft Teams

Talking Teams with Rish Tandon

Tony Redmond sat down (virtually) with Rish Tandon, Corporate VP for Microsoft Teams Development, to discuss how Teams has evolved over the last few years. The conversation was wide-ranging and covered many topics, including the operationalization of Teams to create a service capable of running at massive scale, client performance, compliance, backups, people, the effect of Teams on other Microsoft 365 workloads, and more.

May 24, 2021
How Advanced eDiscovery Finds and Displays Microsoft Teams Conversations

How Advanced eDiscovery Finds and Displays Microsoft Teams Conversations

When it comes to eDiscovery and which solution is right for your organization, “you get what you pay for.” Microsoft 365 services are no different – you’re either willing to pay for them or you aren’t. Some organizations will not need or want to pay for Advanced eDiscovery, while others will find it an essential purchase. Regardless of which camp your organization resides in, Microsoft provides customers with the flexibility to choose between two eDiscovery tools best suited for your needs.

May 18, 2021
Microsoft Updates Viva Insights App with Wellbeing Features

Microsoft Updates Viva Insights App with Wellbeing Features

A new version of the Microsoft Viva Insights app for Teams includes some of the promised wellbeing functionality designed to help stressed users get through the work day more easily. You can praise co-workers, learn to breathe and relax, note your current state of wellness, and take a virtual commute to wrap up the working day. Some people will love the app, others will wonder what the fuss is all about. It's a very personal thing, which I guess is the nature of Viva Insights.

May 14, 2021
Three Ways to Improve Meetings in Teams (Which You Can’t Have) And One Which Might Maybe Help a Little (Which You Can) 2 Comments
Microsoft Teams Rooms

Three Ways to Improve Meetings in Teams (Which You Can’t Have) And One Which Might Maybe Help a Little (Which You Can)

Having Teams meeting fatigue? Could the meeting have been an email instead? In his latest blog Paul Robichaux explores some tongue-in-cheek options for better regulation of Teams meetings, while also proposing a realistic solution to efficiently manage your time, your Teams meetings, and your sanity.

May 10, 2021
How to Monitor Changes to Sensitivity Labels Used for Container Management 10 Comments

How to Monitor Changes to Sensitivity Labels Used for Container Management

Sensitivity labels are an effective way to manage containers like Teams, Microsoft 365 Groups, and SharePoint sites. Microsoft doesn't provide any way to track changes made to labels assigned to containers, which means that a group owner can downgrade the policy assigned through a label. This article explains a method to detect when label changes occur for containers and how to revert those changes if necessary.

May 4, 2021