How to allow auto-forwarding to Teams channels

Email forwarding can be useful, but poses a security risk due to the potential disclosure of information. Therefore the Anti-spam outbound policy blocks the auto-forwarding at the tenant level by default. Although this minimises the security risks, it hampers productivity since there are valid reasons to allow auto-forwarding to an external domain.

There are valid use cases for external email forwarding such as:

  • To support the adoption of Microsoft Teams and the concept of working in Teams rather than sending email. However, users cannot auto-forward emails to a Teams channel, because the Teams channel email addresses are external email addresses, for example (uniqueid@emea.teams.ms or uniqueid@uk.teams.ms).
  • Auto-forwarding emails to a third-party system, such as CRM or ticketing system for processing.

Read on to learn how to allow auto-forwarding to Teams channels and other authorised external domains to increase productivity and reduce security risks.


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How to use sensitivity labels to control access to Microsoft Teams, Groups and Sites

Are you using Microsoft Purview sensitivity labels to control access to Microsoft Teams, Groups and Sites? If not, why not?

Did you know that your Guest access and external sharing controls are managed at the tenant level? As a result, security becomes ‘one size fits all’ rather than providing granular security controls based on Teams, Groups, and Sites’ confidentiality requirements.

For example

  • When guest access is enabled, Team owners can add external guests to all Microsoft Teams, Groups and SharePoint sites.
  • When you create a new Team or a Group, the default SharePoint external sharing is set to New and existing guests unless your tenant setting is more restrictive. So Team members can share Team content externally.

Check out the information below to learn how you can use sensitivity labels to apply granular security controls to Teams, Groups, and Sites.


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How to manage guest access reviews in Microsoft 365

With guest access switched on for Microsoft Teams, do you have a process to manage guest access reviews?

It is easy for Team owners to invite external guests into their Team. However, how do you proactively review guest accounts to ensure people only have access as long as they need it?

With internal users, there are joiners, movers and leavers processes to manage access and reviews, but these processes typically exclude guest users.

Read on to see how you create a regular review of external guest access to ensure they only have access as long as necessary.


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How to use Power Automate to manage Ownerless Teams (& Groups)

A Microsoft Team or Group without an owner is ungoverned and unmanaged. It is like a school classroom full of children without a teacher. You know it will end up in chaos.

So do you have an effective process for managing your ownerless Teams?

Microsoft recently added a process for managing ownerless Microsoft 365 groups and teams however this process just asks the members of the group of they wanted to become the owner.

Read on to find out how you can mitigate the issue by using Power Automate to automatically transfer ownership to another user.


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Create a simple Teams creation workflow using Power Automate

Why do I need to build a Teams creation process using Power Automate? What’s wrong with the standard Team creation process?

When you create Microsoft Teams out of the box, there are only limited governance capabilities. For example:

  • Limited Teams naming convention
  • Duplicate Teams names
  • Only one owner required
  • No justification or approval process

This blog describes how to create Teams using Power Automate plus add governance steps to the workflow to include:

  • Apply a tailored Teams naming convention
  • Add an approval step
  • Stop duplicate Team names
  • Add multiple owners
  • Add sensitivity label to allow or block guests and external sharing
  • Capture additional metadata such as justification, Team type, or Team duration

Read on for my step-by-step guide on creating a Power Automate Flow for your Teams creation process.


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Implementing Microsoft Teams governance to stop Teams sprawl

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.


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

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?’.


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Microsoft Teams – Where is my data stored?

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:

  1. Which geographic location is my Teams data stored?
  2. How can I govern Teams when I don’t know what is stored where?
  3. Can I control who has access to my Teams data?
  4. What information protection can I apply to my Teams data?
  5. Where do I need to apply retention policies?
  6. 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.


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