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Deliver More to your Organization with Custom Teams Apps - Ft. Andrew Connell
Updated June 2023
Unfortunately, few users think about the impact that team names have on long-term productivity in Microsoft Teams at the time of team creation.
This is usually because administrators and users are too busy to give fair consideration as they rush to collaborate. However, Microsoft Teams doesn’t come with strict remediation or checkpoints around this issue. Even though there are policies in Microsoft Azure, they lack real enforcement, so the Microsoft Teams platform is without naming conventions for channels and tabs.
We are here to help you navigate the complexities of naming teams, channels, and tabs. Read more to follow along for best practices on what we’ve learned about implementing naming for adoption, usage, and long-term engagement!
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First, let’s look at all the places your team name will appear: within the Microsoft Teams app (of course), it will also apply to the SharePoint site, the Microsoft 365 Group, your team email address, and a few other places in Microsoft 365. Given this, you want to get the name right to help your team find this collaboration Workspace easily and to avoid duplication of Workspaces. A key purpose of the name is to provide context and explain the use of the team. In fact, the Microsoft Teams team name should also indicate the collaborative content it will contain.
Let’s jump right in! There are four things you must consider when naming Microsoft Teams teams:
1. Prefix: Our go-to naming best practice is using prefixes to distinguish the purpose, context, and content of a team. Here is what you need to keep in mind, without going rogue, when using prefixes:
MICROSOFT TEAMS NAMING TIP #1: Keep your prefixes limited to 12 characters and always prefix based on team function or type.
2. Spaces: How you use spaces in names impacts the search experience of users across the platform. If you are using too many or none at all, your users will have a hard time finding the right team at the right time. There aren’t that many considerations when it comes to spacing as the internal Microsoft Teams findability experience has many limitations. But do takeaway our best practice below to simplify the issue.
MICROSOFT TEAMS NAMING TIP #2: Use spaces instead of separators such as – or _ for prefixes, but spaces for the Workspace Name (e.g. PRJ-USA Marketing Planning)
3. Duplication: Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams both have very few restrictions around creating communication assets. Thus, it is possible to have sixty teams just for Human Resources. These teams could have the same name or a variation of names or they could be private, making each hard to find. This is a key reason why organizations disable group and team creation – to avoid sprawl. Here is what you need to do:
MICROSOFT TEAMS NAMING TIP #3: A Microsoft Teams Directory to help users find teams and sites can be invaluable when you assemble a repository of all collaboration assets.
4. Length: This might seem repetitive, but sometimes we just need to hammer down the point. Long Microsoft Teams team names hamper the user experience. Not only are users not able to see the complete name without hovering, but the search experience is also hindered.
MICROSOFT TEAMS NAMING TIP #4: After several rounds of trial and error, we have determined that the maximum length of a team should not be more than 29 characters for a full team name display.
What can we say, either you can sit idly by and watch your environment succumb to sprawl or make use of the limited capabilities available in Microsoft Azure AD P1. These features are, unfortunately, only available at the group level, giving you no granularity whatsoever to differentiate between different types of teams.
Another lesser-known approach is governance training for Microsoft Teams adoption. While users are often too occupied to take the time for training and find it hard to adhere to rules later, our recommendations include:
While Azure AD P1 has limited policies around naming teams, it does have is the ability to block words. You must make use of this feature to improve naming and enforce naming convention to a certain degree in Microsoft Teams. Here is a list of categories we recommend blocking:
You can string along a combination of elements to name teams efficiently. Such as using function-based acronyms like Project (PRJ), Department (DEPT), Loan (LOAN), Branch (B), or even location/division-based acronyms to indicate the purpose of your team.
Within Orchestry, we enable you to set up these criteria in the Team Description form, not available out-of-the-box in Microsoft Teams, that can be utilized to help implement naming conventions.
Microsoft Teams Channels help you break up conversations and documents into logical units. You have the ability to structure your Microsoft Teams teams and have individual tab configurations for a systematic approach to collaboration.
MICROSOFT TEAMS NAMING TIP #5: Be careful with channel names as they have a direct correlation with folder names on your SharePoint site.
Here are a few DOs and DON’Ts of Microsoft Teams channel naming:
As much as we would like more clarity around the order of channels, we hate to break it to you, there is no way to order channels to your liking. Channel order is based on an alphanumeric structure which is rather complex to decipher. Using numbers, special characters, and emojis in channel names makes the ordering more complicated and could wreak havoc on your Microsoft Teams channel order.
MICROSOFT TEAMS NAMING TIP #5: Accept what you cannot control. In essence, Microsoft Teams channel order is uncontrollable. Let it be!
Microsoft Teams Tabs are an important component of channels and teams. They allow you to surface apps and content within each channel in every team. It is a simple way to integrate third-party apps into your Microsoft Teams and enable easy navigation. However, make note, you cannot remove the Post and Files tab in your Microsoft Teams channels as they are the focal point of collaboration.
MICROSOFT TEAMS NAMING TIP #6: Each channel should have at least one additional tab than the default tabs.
Let’s take a look at how we can get Microsoft Teams tab naming right:
Different types of Microsoft Teams teams for different goals should have different structures. We have found that before deploying Orchestry, nearly 80% of our customers had no dedicated structure for their various teams. It is important that each team has a purpose and that it is structured to fit that purpose. The structure of each and every team in Microsoft Teams consists of channels, tabs, apps, and the SharePoint site.
We have put together a clear categorization on the basis of different purposes of teams that you can use as a starting point to structure your Microsoft Teams Workspaces.
To reiterate our Microsoft Teams channel best practice, you need to have more than just a ‘General’ channel in a team. On top of that, it is important to treat the ‘General’ channel as special. Use it primarily for team communication and break down other topics into other channels. Use it as a control channel, such as only allowing team owners to post to it, you make sure users utilize other channels for conversations.
MICROSOFT TEAMS NAMING TIP #7: Include a SharePoint Homepage tab and a News Archive tab as part of your ‘General’ channel tabs.
Let’s review ways in which you can ensure your Microsoft Teams channels are systematically organized:
Microsoft Teams tabs are very useful and bring the entire team together by integrating applications and documents within each channel.
Simplify the Microsoft Teams tab structure in channels by:
There is much to think about when deploying Microsoft Teams with best practices and real-world insights. You can share that load with a platform like Orchestry. Orchestry has the ability to automate channel creation, tab creation, and most importantly help you implement an effective naming policy across the Microsoft Teams platform.
Most organizations are not using Microsoft 365 to its full potential.
Orchestry makes Microsoft 365 simple for all users.
Orchestry helps your teams fully take advantage of M365 and increases your ROI in the platform.
To see Orchestry in action, request a demo!
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