This document discusses customizing Microsoft Teams provisioning and governance. It begins by explaining why governance is important as the amount of information in Teams grows. It then covers the out of the box governance options and what they lack, such as an automated way to provision new teams with custom metadata. The document demonstrates how to programmatically provision new teams using APIs to set settings, add channels/tabs, and customize the SharePoint site. It also discusses storing custom team metadata and using automated scripts to manage existing teams.

2. CUSTOMIZING MICROSOFT
TEAMS PROVISIONING AND
GOVERNANCE
OFFICE 365 & SHAREPOINT CONNECT 2019

3. OLLI JÄÄSKELÄINEN
• Lead architect, Collaboration & AI
at Sulava - Finland
• Microsoft MVP, MCM
• Office 365 & SharePoint User
Group Finland organizer
• Twitter: @_opax

4. WHY AND WHEN?
CUSTOMIZING MICROSOFT TEAMS PROVISIONING AND GOVERNANCE

5. WHY?
• The amount of information in conversations and files is growing.
• Finding and utilizing the right information is key to success.
• Without governance the chaos is ensured,
and Microsoft Teams becomes the burial ground of information.
Customizing Microsoft Teams Provisioning and Governance

6. WHEN?
• Smaller organizations can probably get away without strict governance,
but it helps to have good rules and practices when creating and archiving
Teams.
• Bigger the organization, greater the need for governance.
Customizing Microsoft Teams Provisioning and Governance

7. HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
• Before Microsoft Teams we had…
• Email, distribution lists
• Chat (Skype for Business, Slack)
• Document repositories (network file shares, SharePoint sites)
• SharePoint site provisioning and governance model was used in many
organizations

8. OUT OF THE BOX GOVERNANCE
CUSTOMIZING MICROSOFT TEAMS PROVISIONING AND GOVERNANCE

9. OUT OF THE BOX GOVERNANCE OPTIONS
OFFICE 365 GROUP GOVERNANCE
• Manage creation of groups
• Choose domain to create groups
• Naming policy
• Office 365 Group expiration policy
• Manage guest access
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/admin/create-groups/plan-for-groups-
governance?view=o365-worldwide

10. OUT OF THE BOX GOVERNANCE OPTIONS
TEAMS GOVERNANCE
• Teams expiration, retention, and archival
• Teams feature management
• Settings
• Meeting policies
• Messaging policies
• Security and compliance
• Auditing, reporting, compliance content search
• Retention policies
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/plan-teams-governance

11. WHAT’S LACKING FROM THE OUT OF THE BOX?
• Automated, customizable way of provisioning new teams
• Custom metadata describing the individual teams
• Configurable Teams directory
• Automated governance scripts for existing teams

12. CUSTOMIZING PROVISIONING
CUSTOMIZING MICROSOFT TEAMS PROVISIONING AND GOVERNANCE

13. AUTOMATED, CUSTOMIZABLE WAY OF
PROVISIONING NEW TEAMS
• Metadata
• Owners
• Features
Triggering the
team creation
• Creating the
actual team
Creation of the
team • Settings
• Features such as
channels, tabs, …
• Adding users
Provisioning
the team
• Notify owners
• Make the team
discoverable
Start using the
team

14. AUTOMATED, CUSTOMIZABLE WAY OF
PROVISIONING NEW TEAMS
• Metadata
• Owners
• Features
Triggering the
team creation
Source of the trigger can be almost anything
• New Teams Order Form (Forms, PowerApps,
SharePoint Framework webpart) is saved
• ERP system, Project Management system, or other
external system triggers the creation
Metadata, Owners and desired feature set should
come with the triggering order.

15. AUTOMATED, CUSTOMIZABLE WAY OF
PROVISIONING NEW TEAMS
• Creating
the actual
team
Creation of
the team
Custom provisioning solution will use Microsoft Graph
API to create the default team
Azure AD application identity is used as the creator
instead of normal user account
Provisioning solution waits until all the parts of
the new team are available

16. AUTOMATED, CUSTOMIZABLE WAY OF
PROVISIONING NEW TEAMS
• Settings
• Features such as
channels, tabs, …
• Adding users
Provisioning
the team
Provisioning continues through Microsoft Graph API and other APIs as needed
• Modifying the basic settings if needed
• Channels and Tabs are created
• Teams Apps could be added
• SharePoint site customizations such document metadata and template
documents
• Planner plan could be added
• …
• Finally users are added to the team

17. AUTOMATED, CUSTOMIZABLE WAY OF
PROVISIONING NEW TEAMS
• Notify owners
• Make the team
discoverable
Start using the
team
Note: Newly created teams might not be available
immediately for the users (~1 hour) when the team has
been provisioned through Microsoft Graph API
Notify the owners (out of the box or otherwise)
Make sure you have saved the metadata of the team,
so it can be more discoverable

18. CUSTOM METADATA DESCRIBING THE INDIVIDUAL
TEAMS
OUT OF THE BOX
• Name and Description
• Private/Public(/Org-wide)
• Classification
• Owners, members, and guests
TYPICAL CUSTOMIZATIONS
• Purpose or type of the team
(org. unit, project, recreational, …)
• Owning organization unit or team
• Project data (project dates, name,
identifier, …)

19. METHODS OF MICROSOFT TEAMS PROVISIONING
Microsoft Graph API
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/api/resources/teams-api-overview?view=graph-rest-1.0
• Microsoft Teams PowerShell module from Azure Function
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/teams/set-team?view=teams-ps
• Flow or Logic App using Microsoft Graph API
• Custom Application using Microsoft Graph API

20. DEMO
• Creating and configuring a team using PowerShell

21. CREATE A CONFIGURABLE TEAMS DIRECTORY
Microsoft Graph
Custom Teams
metadata
Teams Directory
Featured Your Teams Projects Filter
Search
Popular
+ New team

22. AUTOMATED GOVERNANCE SCRIPTS FOR EXISTING
TEAMS
• Run daily
• Run different checks like
• Ask for missing metadata if the team is created using the user interface
• Update metadata values based on current settings
• Ensure that there is at least two owners for each team
• Check if a team is about to expire, archive the team automatically based on custom metadata
• Delete archived teams after certain period of time
• Check if the team is compliant to your own rules like “A Team shared with guests should not
have documents labeled as ‘Internal’”

23. KEY TAKEAWAYS
CUSTOMIZING MICROSOFT TEAMS PROVISIONING AND GOVERNANCE

24. KEY TAKEAWAYS
• Out of the box provisioning and governance of Teams might not cover all business
needs
• Team provisioning can be extended using Microsoft Graph API
• In order to fulfill the business needs, you might want to collect more metadata of
Team
• Custom team metadata can be used in Teams directory for better discoverability
• Automated scripts can be run daily to fulfill business needs

25. THANK YOU!