Future-proof your Microsoft 365 & Teams provisioning strategy

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Future-proof your Microsoft
365 & Teams
provisioning strategy
Richard Harbridge
2toLead Chief Technology Officer
& Microsoft MVP
Tue., Sep. 20, 2022. / 10:00 AM (EST)

My Twitter is @RHarbridge, I’m super friendly & proud to work at @2toLead.
Richard Harbridge
2toLead Chief
Technology Officer &
Microsoft MVP
Speaker & Author
Super Friendly

Managing sprawl
matters
S E C T I O N 1
4
FUTURE-PROOF YOUR MICROSOFT 365 & TEAMS PROVISIONING STRATEGY

The modern digital workplace and Intranet has a
continually increasing number of digital spaces or
‘sites’ where content is stored and shared.
Content grows over time
Problem
5
MANAGING SPRAWL MATTERS

Most organizations don’t know who created
a digital space (SP site, team, Yammer
community, etc.). What was its purpose,
department, product, client, project, etc.?
Problem
6
As an end user,
this makes
navigating these
spaces extremely
challenging.
Think it’s better as
an administrator or
digital workplace
/intranet leader?
It’s not.

Problem
7
As an end user,
this makes
navigating these
spaces extremely
challenging.
an administrator or
digital workplace
/intranet leader?
It’s not.

Growth isn’t one dimensional
Problem
15
The interconnected nature of M365 means that growth is also in
related services. It’s more than just the number of sites or teams
that grow in volume, velocity, and variety over time.
Provisioning is the process where we set up the infrastructure for
our collaboration, communication or application needs.
Microsoft
365
group
Exchange
inbox and
calendar
Stream
Power BI
workspace
Planner
SharePo-
int team
site
Teams
Yammer
Project for
the web
Roadmap
OneNote
notebook
Always
Sometimes
Azure
Active
Directory
Microsoft 365 Groups
and related services
Is when we plan, design, template, track, improve
and/or support the creation of these related spaces.
Managed provisioning
Is when we do not plan, design, template, track, improve
and/or support the creation of these related spaces.
Unmanaged provisioning

Common issues that come with unmanaged sprawl of Teams or SharePoint sites.
8
Why do we need to manage sprawl?
Limited permission
review & increased
chances of over
sharing
Limited ability to
proactively
mitigate risks
Limited ability to
determine risk
Limited ability to target
labels for information
protection
Increased costs to
support
Increased
operational load
Inconsistent
workspaces
Decreased user
confidence
Private channels
(don’t require
owner)
Sponsor vs.
Owner challenge
Unmanaged
teams/sites
Orphaned
teams/sites
Reliance on others
to link
Uncertain who
owns a workspace
Hard to find
workspaces
Challenging for
new users to ramp
Technically
challenging
Hesitation to
optimize created
spaces
Inconsistent
design/layout leads
to re-learning
Not tailored or fit
to purpose
No clear escalation
if owner missing or
unresponsive
Limited ability to
target labels for
retention
Unmanaged
integration
Often unmanaged
use of apps (cannot
target)
Difficulty identifying
champions & proactively
targeting champions
Unmanaged
workspaces cannot be
targeted with guidance
No consistency
makes it harder to
train
When to use what
Inappropriate
name usage
Cannot differentia
te at a glance
Unclear official
vs. Unofficial
Unclear purpose
or workspace
focus
Ineffective
naming
Owners
missing
Redundant
teams/sites
Data loss
risks
Loss of
control
Navigation
productivity costs
Training & adoption
challenges
Slower
team/site start

9
Inappropriate
name usage
Cannot differentia
te at a glance
Unclear official
vs. Unofficial
Unclear purpose
or workspace
focus
Ineffective
naming
❑ Unclear purpose or workspace focus
❑ Confusion on what is official vs. unofficial
❑ The inability to differentiate at a glance
❑ Inappropriate name usage
Ineffective naming leads to...

10
Private channels
(don’t require
owner)
Sponsor vs.
Owner challenge
Unmanaged
teams/sites
Orphaned
teams/sites
Owners
missing
❑ More orphaned & abandoned teams/sites
❑ Unmanaged & unsupported teams/sites
❑ Inability to identify sponsor/owner for key decisions
❑ Lack of accountability & inability to manage at scale
Owners & ownership missing leads to...

11
Increased costs to
support
Increased
operational load
Inconsistent
workspaces
Decreased user
confidence
Redundant
teams/sites
❑ Decreased user confidence & more confusion
❑ More inconsistent workspaces & abandoned
workspaces
❑ Increased operational load & lower user
productivity
❑ Increased costs to support
Redundant teams/sites leads to…

12
Limited permission
review & increased
chances of over
sharing
Limited ability to
proactively
mitigate risks
Limited ability to
determine risk
Limited ability to target
labels for information
protection
Data loss
risks
❑ Limited targeting for information
protection/retention
❑ Increased likelihood of access
mistakes/over sharing
❑ Less proactive mitigation with
permission reviews
❑ Managing security/reporting being
more reliant on IT
Data loss risks arise due to...

You will love the way we work. Together. ™
M365Sprawl.com
Understand how to
solve common sprawl
issues, and how they
impact end-users and
IT, in our eBook.
Download: M365Sprawl.com

It’s about efficiency, not
just risk
SECTION 2
16

Governance and provisioning isn’t JUST risk mitigation, it’s also about
efficiency and driving better digital excellence (adoption). Responsibilities,
playbooks, structure all help us succeed.
Planning for successful
provisioning & governance
17
IT’S ABOUT EFFICIENCY, NOT JUST RISK

Planning for successful
provisioning & governance
18
In other words, it’s not just policies but playbooks. The playbooks and execution pattern work is
arguably more important as the policies naturally are a by-product from better coordination/focus.
IT’S ABOUT EFFICIENCY, NOT JUST RISK
Policies & Governance Assets
Planning
Analyzing
Coordinating

Approaches &
processes
S E C T I O N 3
19

While OOTB can work great for
many smaller orgs (less than 100
users), most need more structure
to support governance, lifecycle
management, and better
search/navigation experiences.
OOTB creation
experiences?
Solution
20
APPROACHES & PROCESSES
What business
unit, department,
product, customer,
partner etc. does
this site relate to?

21
Post creation
application of a
template directed by
users or supported
as an extra step.
What if context
and metadata could
inform and apply the
right template from
the start?

Feature 1
Supports many "actions" Power Automate enables more
Feature 2
22
❑ Creating a new list or library (or modifying the default
one created with the site)
❑ Creating site columns, content types, and configuring other
list settings
❑ Set site branding properties like navigation layout, header
layout and header background
❑ Applying a theme
❑ Setting a site logo
❑ Adding links to quick launch or hub navigation
❑ Triggering a Power Automate flow
❑ Installing a deployed solution from the app catalog
❑ Setting regional settings for the site
❑ Adding principals (users and groups) to SharePoint roles
❑ Setting external sharing capability for the site
Instantiate with URL details
1
2
3
4
Instantiate
Apply
configurations
Add
message
with
site
URL
Microsoft Flow
Azure Function
Storage
Queue
SharePoint
Online
OOTB creation
experiences?
Solution:
The reality is that site
templates (and site scripts) are
powerful and should be used
when viable. The site template
experience can’t be disabled
and is always available.

Why is asking a few extra
questions on provisioning so
important? What value does
this extra metadata provide
once we have it for
reference?
Metadata
during creation
Solution
23
Custom
Sites
It enables default
metadata
It enables
differentiated
templates
It enables more
effective
management
That empowers
effective & more
targeted labelling
Improving
content
protection
Improving
retention
management
Which
improve
productivity
Which
improve
consistency &
experience
Which enable
faster adoption
With targeted &
improved lifecycle
management
With empowered
discovery & redu-
ced redundancy
With targeted
support
Sample metadata questions:
❑ What is the purpose or business
reason for this workspace?
❑ What division does this relate to?
❑ What department does this relate to?
❑ What product does this relate to?
❑ What customer does this relate to?
❑ What project does this relate to?
❑ Will this workspace contain highly
confidential information?
❑ Who is the business sponsor for this
workspace?
❑ What should the visibility of this
workspace be? Should it be shown
in the directory?

24
By centralizing and governing
the creation of ‘spaces’ (groups,
teams, sites, etc.), we can
improve content organization and
apply things like default metadata
and pre-configured templates.
Power Apps form(s)!
FREE TEMPLATE
Solution
Watch out for premium connector
costs with Power Automate on
the provisioning!
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/microsoftteams/platform/samp
les/app-templates#request-a-
team

25
By centralizing and governing
the creation of ‘spaces’ (groups,
teams, sites, etc.), we can improve
content organization and apply
things like default metadata and
pre-configured templates.
Request form(s)!
Solution
Here we have simple
field additions and a
style that displays
based on an option in
the global navigation.
You can always
create your own
forms and embed
them into your digital
workplace hub /
Intranet.

Each of these capabilities can be
leveraged in a solution to meet the
needs of an effective request and
provisioning engine for Teams,
SharePoint, Yammer, and more.
Many options!
Solution
26
SPFx
Solutions
Custom Sites
Azure
Functions
Logic Apps WebJobs
PnP Provisioning
Engine
SharePoint Site
Designs
Teams
Templates
Power Apps
Power
Automate
Microsoft
Lists
SharePoint
Lists
Third-party
solutions

ShareGate's provisioning feature
guides people to use the right tools,
the right way, from the get-go.
The main benefits: increase
productivity, save time and regain
control
ShareGate's
provisioning feature
27
SUSTAIN & MAINTAIN WITH DIRECTORY EXPERIENCES

By messaging and following up with a user
once they have created a space, we can also
get more insight. This way, we don’t block the
creation but have a process to manage after.
Post-creation ask?
Solution
28
Note this is how Microsoft
works "OOTB" with its apply
site template functionality.
Upon creation of a new site,
it prompts if a template might
be applicable (post creation).

Microsoft continues to update and improve capabilities
here so be sure to review if there are better ways to
tackle this over time. A few recent examples…
OOTB creation experiences?
29
Solution

It's important to have a process for new site and team creation and to automate it so you can provide
tailored, or templated experiences for users and better management/navigation.
30
Solution: Request process
No
Yes
Start
Accept
usage
policy?
Users
Request
Site Form
Request added
to Site Register
Is
standard
Request?
Provision Site
Process
Define Information
Classification
Define Information
Management Policy
Exciting IM
Policy?
Accept
usage
policy?
Update Site
Register
End
No
No
Yes
No Yes
Yes
Intranet
Govemance
Board
Opperations
and Support
Example of a High-
level Site Provisioning
process description

Below is a simple mockup of a filtered OOTB site directory experience. You can create many
pages with different views/visuals and relevant links to resources (Team, Site, Yammer, etc.)
31
Solution: Directory experiences
OOTB Lists and web parts
can give you directory
experiences
if you simply store the
data from the request
process (approved or
already created spaces).
Our communities can be filtered or explored by hierarchies (site explorer), by focus area (topic map), by the ones you recently visited
or have favorited (your sites, your teams, your communities) or by filtering the columns below (just click the column header).
*Public by default scales
and works better in the
long run
*Out of the box

31
Lifecycle & governance
opportunities
SECTION 4

Enable more
effective tracking
Automate
adoption guidance
Proactive provide
training material &
adoption guidance
By centralizing and governing the creation of ‘spaces’ (groups, teams, sites, etc.), we can improve how we manage the lifecycle
of these spaces.
33
Solution: Improve management
LIFECYCLE & GOVERNANCE OPPORTUNITIES
Recommend
improvement
ideas
Highlight useful
features
Proactive optimization
guidance for teams,
sites or communities
In post-
provisioning
In provisioning
Duplication
detection &
reduction
Compliance &
sensitivity review
Permission review
& security
attestations
External sharing
review
Owner gap
escalation
Reduce risks
Multi-staged
Not only at the
collection level
Targeted
Expiration &
archiving policies
Suggest related
sites & digital
spaces
Surfacing in key
navigation tools
Associating teams
& sites to
SharePoint hubs
Expiration &
archiving policies
Recommend
contextualized
mentors, champions
& examples
Improve targeting
of contextualized
training materials
Improve site /
team owner
onboarding

By centralizing and governing the
creation of ‘spaces’ (groups, teams,
sites, etc.), we can improve how we
manage the lifecycle of these spaces.
Improve management
Solution
34
Can we reduce
redundant spaces?
Can we improve
how they are
managed?
On the more custom side, you
might see prompts based on
finding similar existing spaces
(reducing redundant spaces), or
automatic lifecycle and gove-
rnance, that occurs based on re-
engaging users/owners etc.

There are some lifecycle capabilities in M365 for collections. Example: Teams can be archived.
The conversations and files in the team become read-only once you archive it.
35
Solution: Maximize OOTB capabilities?

Streamline governance policies and workflows. Set up
governance policies based on organizational needs for
your users and, through our policy automation, they
simply choose the option that’s best for their team.
❑ Inactivity detection policy
❑ External sharing review policy
❑ Sensitivity tag policy
❑ Reviews
36
ShareGate: End-to-end automation for Microsoft 365 governance

Sustain & maintain with
directory experiences
S E C T I O N 5
37

The modern digital workplace and Intranet has a
continually increasing number of digital spaces or
‘sites’ where content is stored and shared.
Problem
38
With so many spaces (sites,
teams, yammer communities
and more) how can an Intra-
net (a Digital Hub for your
Digital Workplace) improve
navigation of these spaces?
How can we
help our users
navigate this?

Problem
39
As an end user,
this makes
navigating these
spaces extremely
challenging.
an administrator or
digital workplace
/intranet leader?
It’s not.

Mega menu layout enables you
to better organize and showcase
the related content and sites
based on topic categories and
headings. All with audience
targeting and more…
Leverage OOTB
navigation?
Solution
40
*Out of the box

Navigation doesn’t need to be
limited to top-level links, or
simple UI layouts. Here we
have an example of content in
the nav, and richer/deeper nav.
Design better
navigation
Solution
41
This design only scales
to so many links. There
are other options than a
simple sectional layout.
*Requires customization

42
This design only scales
to so many links. There
are other options than a
simple sectional layout.
*Requires customization

M365’s SharePoint home is now a more modern
site directory experience that is more
personalized and dynamic. From recent sites you
visited to recent activity relevant to you.
It’s a little hidden and most users don’t know
it exists. Even when trained users often forget to
use it, because you have to navigate away from
the places you work to visit it.
What about
SharePoint home?
Solution
43
*Out of the box

44
How do users
get to it?
So… it’s another
place to go?
M365’s SharePoint home is now a more modern
site directory experience that is more
personalized and dynamic. From recent sites you
visited to recent activity relevant to you.
It’s a little hidden and most users don’t know
it exists. Even when trained users often forget to
use it, because you have to navigate away from
the places you work to visit it.
What about
SharePoint home?
Solution
*Out of the box

With improvements coming
to global menu design, can
we leverage that to fill the
hub mega menu gaps?
Leverage OOTB
navigation?
Solution
45
*Out of the box

ADD your own app to this
bar for a DIRECTORY as
these default ones are not
sufficient.
Leverage OOTB
navigation?
Solution
46
*Out of the box

App bar integration
in Viva Connections
47
Analyzing
Use resources to easily navigate to your sites, communities, stream channels,
and more. Providing more ways to get to the places you want to engage.

Below is a simple mockup of a filtered OOTB site directory experience. You can create many
pages with different views/visuals and relevant links to resources (Team, Site, Yammer, etc.)
48
Solution: Directory experiences
OOTB Lists and web parts
can give you directory
experiences
if you simply store the
data from the request
process (approved or
already created spaces).
Our communities can be filtered or explored by hierarchies (site explorer), by focus area (topic map), by the ones you recently visited
or have favorited (your sites, your teams, your communities) or by filtering the columns below (just click the column header).
*Public by default scales
and works better in the
long run
*Out of the box

Design and implement an improved
experience that gives you quick access
to teams, sites, communities, and more
across environments. Complimenting
your Digital Workplace Strategy.
www.M365Sprawl.com
49
Navigating your
digital workplace

50
Get the checklist for free
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Teams provisioning
checklist
➝
SUSTAIN & MAINTAIN WITH DIRECTORY EXPERIENCES FUTURE-PROOF YOUR MICROSOFT 365 & TEAMS PROVISIONING STRATEGY

Let’s connect and find ways to do more and work together.
Message me on LinkedIn or email Richard@2toLead.com
200+ Awesome Presentations at:
Richard Harbridge
2toLead Chief Technology
Officer & Microsoft MVP
Super Friendly
Thank You
Slideshare.Net/RHarbridge
800+ Pages of Whitepapers at: 2toLead.com/Whitepapers
Elsewhere…
M365Resources.com
M365Ideas.com
M365Sprawl.com
M365Intranets.com
M365Metrics.com
SharePointMigrations.com

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52
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