Category:Blog

The Microsoft 365 Governance Blog provides practical insights, guidance and implementation strategies for securing and governing Microsoft 365 environments. It covers Microsoft Purview, data security, data governance, compliance and Microsoft 365 Copilot, helping organisations reduce risk, prevent oversharing and improve their overall security posture.

Use Power Automate to bulk export members from Microsoft Teams

Posted on 9 November 2021Updated on 11 August 2024by Nikki Chapple

How can I quickly export a list of all members in a specific Team? As a Microsoft Team’s owner you have probably come to the conclusion that managing your Team membership is not easy.

This blog is a two part blog. Read part one to see how you can use Power Automate to bulk add new members into a Microsoft Team.

Part two of the blog now explains how you can use Power Automate to automatically export a list of members from a Team into an Excel spreadsheet. With the added bonus of including several user attributes such as job title, mobile or office along side their name and email.

Use Power Automate to bulk add members into Microsoft Teams

Posted on 9 November 2021Updated on 11 August 2024by Nikki Chapple

How can I add many members into my Microsoft Teams quickly and easily? As a Microsoft Team’s owner then you have probably come to the conclusion that managing your Team membership is not easy.

This blog explains how you can use Power Automate to automatically bulk add members into any Microsoft Team that you own.

I will walk through four scenarios

Automatically add members to a Team using email addresses.
Automatically add members to a Team using their display names.
Automatically add a list of managers to a Team as owners and their direct reports as members.
Create a data entry field in the Power Automate flow to allow the owner to choose which Team to import the users into.

Read part two of the blog to see how you can use Power Automate to export members of a Team into an Excel spreadsheet.

Implementing Microsoft Teams governance to stop Teams sprawl

Posted on 31 October 2021Updated on 1 December 2021by Nikki Chapple

How to stop Microsoft Teams sprawl is one of the most common concerns from both end users and IT administrators. Questions such as:

We have too many Teams?
When do we create a new Team?
Why do we have duplicate Teams names?
When should we delete Teams?
Which Teams are inactive?
Why do we have ownerless Teams?

Do too many Teams really equate to Teams sprawl? No, not necessarily; active Teams are not sprawl. What you need to identify is your inactive teams that are just cluttering up the Teams menu and taking up storage space.

Inactive teams can be a result of limited or no training, limited user adoption, no user accountability and/ or no governance rules in place.

My blog addresses these questions and looks at both technical and business solutions for implementing Microsoft Teams governance to stop Teams sprawl.

Microsoft Teams governance is not a project, it’s a lifestyle

Posted on 18 October 2021Updated on 23 November 2021by Nikki Chapple

There is no doubt that Teams communications and collaboration is here to stay, with the home now the new branch office.

Now is the time to take a strategic look at Teams and implement the governance and controls required to answer the key question: ‘How can I optimize and secure my Teams environment while still empowering our end users to work effectively, with the fewest possible constraints?’.

Collaborate securely with guests in Microsoft Teams

Posted on 20 May 2021Updated on 16 May 2026by Nikki Chapple

It is important that you allow employees to collaborate with external guests in Microsoft Teams. This way you remain in control of your data and you control the access to the data. However it is important to put the appropriate controls in place to enable your organisation to collaborate securely with guests in Microsoft Teams and in addition effectively manage the guests lifecycle.

Here are the top 10 tips to enable your organisation to collaborate securely with guests in Microsoft Teams.

Using PowerShell to report on your Microsoft Teams data

Posted on 21 April 2021Updated on 24 November 2021by Nikki Chapple

Do you know how many Microsoft Teams you have or which Teams have guests or private channels? Or what Teams are ownerless and unused? If not have you thought of using PowerShell to report on your Microsoft Teams data to enable you to analyse the data in the product of your choice?

The Microsoft Teams Admin centre https://admin.teams.microsoft.com/ provides some top-level information however there are some downsides to this such as:

There is limited filtering and sorting
It may not show the information you need
You may not be able to download the data

These limitations are acceptable if you only have a few Teams and can easily scroll through the list. However in reality most organizations have hundreds or thousands of Teams and as a result need a solution that aloows them to analyse their data.

Read on to find out about the limitations in the reporting in the Teams Admin centre and using PowerShell to report on your Microsoft Teams data therefore enabling you to analyse the data in the product of your choice.

Can I use Microsoft Teams on a mobile device?

Posted on 15 March 2021Updated on 16 May 2026by Nikki Chapple

Its easy to set up and use Microsoft Teams on a mobile device to work seamlessly across multiple Android and iOS devices.

You can chat, call, collaborate and join meetings from your mobile and even switch between multiple tenants to access your guest accounts.

In addition you can set up quiet times if you don’t want to be interrupted outside office hours.

Keep reading to read how to set up and configure the Teams mobile app.

Do you know who is joining your Teams meeting?

Posted on 6 March 2021Updated on 16 May 2026by Nikki Chapple

Do you know who is joining your Teams meeting? For some meetings it is critical that you know exactly who is joining your Teams meeting.

Luckily Microsoft Teams has a number of controls that let the meeting organiser stop the meeting invitation being forwarded and control who needs to wait the meeting lobby until admitted.

Read on to see how easy it is to control access to your Teams meetings.

Microsoft Teams meetings: Are you back yet?

Posted on 2 March 2021Updated on 16 May 2026by Nikki Chapple

Are you back yet? Is a common question asked after you have had a break during a Teams meeting.

When you run virtual meetings with Microsoft Teams it is not always easy to see when people are back. Especially when people in the meeting don’t have their video cameras on.

Let me show you how to quickly see when people have returned to your meeting.

Microsoft Teams – Where is my data stored?

Posted on 13 February 2021Updated on 11 August 2024by Nikki Chapple

One of the most common questions I am asked is ‘Where is my Microsoft Teams data stored’?

Why is this? In short, Microsoft Teams is not an individual application, it is a productivity hub that utilises many applications and services across Microsoft 365. Therefore Teams stores data across multiple locations.

Why do I need to know where my data is stored?

For several reasons. Knowing where your data stored helps you address the following questions:

Which geographic location is my Teams data stored?
How can I govern Teams when I don’t know what is stored where?
Can I control who has access to my Teams data?
What information protection can I apply to my Teams data?
Where do I need to apply retention policies?
How to ensure my eDiscovery searches are scoped to include the right locations?

Let’s dig deeper into Microsoft Teams and see where your data is being stored.