7 Measures for Microsoft Teams Data Governance
Discussing the measures and considerations for implementing Microsoft Teams data governance in your organization
Since the pandemic, Microsoft Teams has been one of the most popular collaboration tools in the remote work age, bridging the gap between the office and the remote workforce allowing users to interact, exchange ideas, and establish relationships all in one place. To put that into perspective, Microsoft Teams grew from 20 million daily active users (DAUs) in November 2019 to 44 million in March 2020 to 250 million monthly active users in July 2021. And as Microsoft Teams creates novel features and integrations, there are no signs that Microsoft Team's growth will decrease.
However, in a rush to embrace new technologies for their sudden remote workforce, many businesses neglected one critical element – Microsoft Teams data governance. Although establishing governance before the tool's initial deployment is ideal, a sudden shift to remote work in 2020 made this almost impossible. But as organizations continue to meet, collaborate, and automate their work, companies must consider creating a practical Microsoft Teams governance agenda that is ideal and possible even today.
Microsoft Teams Governance
Since Microsoft Teams involve the organizational data framework combining technology, people, processes and policies into one, it is essential to consider the information governance solutions aspect of the software. Moreover, given its close connections with SharePoint, OneDrive, and other services, strong governance can help maximize the value and limit the risk of not only your Microsoft Teams data but also data dispersed throughout the Microsoft Suite.
Setting Permissions for Creating New Teams
When it comes to Microsoft Teams governance, deciding who can and cannot form teams is a great place to start. You have the option of allowing all users to create teams, adding a third-party app to manage team creation, or prohibiting direct team creation and forcing users to submit a request. You will also want to ensure that users know when to establish a team and when it is better to just add a channel.
Another permission to consider is whether users can invite others from outside your organization to join teams. You want to keep your information private, but you do not want to make it impossible for others to collaborate.
Establishing Naming Conventions
Not just for basic hygiene but also to make content easily discoverable in the event of an eDiscovery and compliance solutions request, your teams must follow a naming convention. If you do not have a good naming convention, you will not be able to tell if a group has taken another team's name as it will allow two teams with the same name to coexist.
Securing the Information
When people collaborate, they share their expertise. When your data leaves your network, it loses the built-in security of your organization's firewall. As a result, ensure you have appropriate Microsoft Teams compliance tools to protect your sensitive data as part of your Microsoft Teams governance plan. You may use Microsoft Teams to build custom sensitivity labels to encrypt an email or a document to provide a level of protection to a document. Additionally, access to a folder containing sensitive content, such as a site or a group, should also be restricted.
Restricting Access to Third-Party Programs
An app authorization policy is a Microsoft Teams governance recommended practice that lets you configure permissions for downloading and running applications based on whether they are from your company, Microsoft, or a third party. To ensure people have access to what they need while still protecting your data, you may want to select the option that permits applications while blocking all others.
Reviewing the Default Data Loss Prevention Policy
Microsoft Teams allows you to control the sensitive material that users disclose in chats and channels. For example, by default, Microsoft Teams maintains data privacy by keeping track of all credit card numbers supplied with the company, both internally and externally. Additionally, an alert is generated when a phone number is shared, and an email is sent to the administrator.
To cater to such problems, you can set up a policy to stop your teams from sharing data with each other in the Microsoft Teams Compliance Center. You can also define constraints for the procedure, such as the types and amounts of data sharing instances that will trigger the rule. You can also create rules for specific accounts, sites, and workloads and limit how much data is shared.
Creating New Data Retention Policies
The software lets you create a data retention policy, which should be followed for effective Microsoft Teams governance. With so much essential data flowing through Microsoft Teams, you will want to be sure you can save what you need for data privacy compliance and legal requirements while defensibly deleting data that no longer serves a purpose.
Additionally, Microsoft Teams managers can apply a chat and channel message retention policy to the whole company or specific teams or individuals. Users may still modify and delete their messages once you have set a retention policy, but the original message is saved in a secure area only admins can access.
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