Recommendations To Use Teams In A Better Way - Part Two

Introduction

 

In my previous article, we have learned the best practices while creating a new team. In this article, we will explore the Teams Channel. If you are new to Microsoft Teams, please visit my previous articles to get more understanding of Teams- Introduction, Teams Differently, Guest Users in Teams.

 

Understanding of channels in Microsoft Teams

 

Channels are the main part of Teams to separate the content sharing in Teams. The files shared in team conversations are automatically stored in the SharePoint Document Library and the permissions and file security options are automatically reflected in Teams.

 

Primarily, to share files in Teams, you need to have SharePoint Online enabled in your tenant. OneDrive for Business is also tied with SharePoint license to share private files in chats or conversations.

 

Figure 1: Team & Channels

 

In this article, let’s understand what things we need to consider most while creating channels in Microsoft Teams.

• “General” channel is available by default to the newly created team and shows in the first position for everyone. “General“ Channel should be restricted to a specific purpose, such as Announcements or News or general information sharing for the specific team
• Maximum limit restricted to 200 channels only (Including deleted channels).
• By default, Channels are sorted alpha-numerically.
• You can prefix channels with a number to enforce sorting - for e.g.
  
  
  • 1- Important / Urgent
  • 2- Customers
  • 3- Vendors
  • 4- Suppliers
    
    
• Create channels based on the purpose of the channel such as,
  
  
  1. A new Team is for “HelpDesk” application – create new channels considering each product from the helpdesk.
  2. A new Team is for the “Sales” department – create channels considering each customer engagements.

• For example, below table shows teams & channels,

Teams	Channels
Sales	Annual Sales Meeting Quarterly Business Review Monthly Sales Pipeline Review Sales Playbook
Event Planning	Marketing Logistics and Scheduling Venue Budget

• Team owners can turn on moderation for a channel to control who can start new posts and reply to posts in that channel. When you set up moderation, you can choose one or more team members to be moderators. (Team owners are moderators by default.)

Channel moderators can,

• Start new posts in that channel ( Channel Moderation settings in ON).
• Add team members ( team owners by default moderators).
• Reply can be Controlled for channel messages, bots and connectors can submit channel messages.

Figure 2: Channel Moderation Settings

• Organization level Teams & Channels: Organization-wide teams and channels can be created to use it as information distribution for all departments or employees for e.g. New Joiners Information, Events, files, policies, or News sharing, etc.

Figure 3: Org-wise teams & Channel structure

 

Conclusion

 

Creating a Channel needs more brainstorming sessions. Use of Organization-wide teams and channels will require careful consideration if we compare the limits provided by Microsoft for teams & channels.

 

For more information on best practices, please refer to Microsoft sites.