Teams ExpertsMicrosoft Teams works on top of Microsoft 365 and connects with third-party cloud services to provide group communications and collaboration. Designed as the successor to Microsoft's Skype for Business Online, Microsoft Teams provides a single interface for chat, voice/video conferencing with screen sharing, calling, cloud voicemail, group mailboxes, as well as document and app sharing. Teams is fully integrated with Office/Microsoft 365 and relies on Exchange Online and SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, and Microsoft Entra (formerly Azure Active Directory (AAD)) for opening up its complete set of capabilities. Your company can run Microsoft Teams only or you can deploy a hybrid architecture that supports Teams in conjunction with self-hosted Microsoft Skype for Business Server.

Progent's Microsoft Teams experts offer online and onsite expertise to assist companies of any size to evaluate the business benefits of Teams, plan and implement a cost effective upgrade to Teams from Microsoft Skype for Business or Microsoft Lync Server, and tune or debug a Microsoft Teams environment. Progent can assist your organization to configure and support a cloud-only communications ecosystem powered by Teams, and Progent's Skype for Business Server experts can help your organization to create a hybrid deployment that combines Teams with your on-premises Skype for Business Server system. Progent can assist you to integrate Microsoft Teams with Microsoft 365 Exchange Online, Microsoft SharePoint Online, and Microsoft 365 apps as well as with your in-house PBX, your PSTN connection. gateway, and conference room telephony equipment.

Progent's Cisco-certified network infrastructure consultants are available to assist your business to plan and configure a robust network topology for Microsoft Teams, and Progent's certified network security experts can assist your organization to plan enterprise-wide communications security policies based on leading. Progent's specialists can troubleshoot stubborn IT road blocks or provide end-to-end project management or co-management services to ensure that your Microsoft Teams installation is carried out on time and on budget.

Major Capabilities of Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams combines real-time chat messaging, conferencing, IP calling, document collaboration, app sharing, and cloud storage into a unified client experience. Microsoft Teams is regularly updated and has achieved or surpassed feature parity with Microsoft Skype for Business in all essential capabilities. Microsoft Teams also offers substantial improvements in scale, messaging, integration with Microsoft 365, and other aspects of collaboration. Also, Microsoft Teams introduces the concepts of Teams and Channels to make it easier to collaborate on initiatives, have group discussions, share documents and applications, and conduct conferences.

Teams and Channels
Teams and channels are defining structures in Microsoft Teams for promoting collaboration and sharing information. A team is a group of users from within and outside your company who can interact with one another in a positive manner via conferencing and by exchanging messages, documents, and applications. Teams can reflect departments, offices, company initiatives, mutual enthusiasms, or anything else that can benefit from a modern collaboration platform. Whenever you define a team you start a Office/Microsoft 365 group, a SharePoint Online web site and document library, an Exchange Online group mailbox and calendar, a OneNote notebook, and a persistent chat workspace. If you make a team from a current Office/Microsoft 365 group, that group's participants, SharePoint Online web site, mailbox, and OneNote team notebook are all added to Microsoft Teams. A team can be open or private and can have up to 10,000 participants.

Teams Solution Consultants

Microsoft Teams is built around the concept of teams and channels

Channels are chat-based workspaces within a team. Each channel other than the default General channel is dedicated to a theme you define. All conversations, document sharing, and conferences for a given topic take place within the appropriate channel. Channels can be available to all team participants or limited to a portion of the team. Permitted team members can enhance a channel by inserting apps that be tabs, connectors, and bots. Files shared within a channel via the Files tab are located on a SharePoint Online document collection. Managers can define policies to permit or block apps and services for a channel. Meetings occurring in a channel can feature digital whiteboards, notes, and chat. Integration with Microsoft Stream allows meetings to be recorded, saved, and played back.

Microsoft Teams Channels Expertise

Channels allow shared work areas inside a team

Integration with Office/Microsoft 365
The Microsoft Teams client interface works in conjunction with Microsoft 365 apps to deliver a modern collaboration solution. In addition, Teams connectors make it possible for your organization to integrate Microsoft Teams with third-party apps including Twitter (X), Facebook, YouTube, Google Analytics, Jira, and UPS Bot.

Teams Architecture Consultants

Teams integrates with SharePoint and Exchange Online and Stream

Samples of the integration of Microsoft Teams with Office/Microsoft 365 include:

  • Exchange Online and Outlook provide email and calendar functions. You can set up and attend conferences through either Outlook or Teams. Chat and channel messages are held in Exchange for strong security. You can also set up enterprise-class security and data loss protection (DLP) for en-route email and attachments.
  • SharePoint Online support allows you to build communication and news sites. A wide range of options for managing permissions enable secure document sharing in the Azure cloud.
  • OneDrive for Business supports cloud storage of private files or documents shared in Teams chat, synchronizes document updates made when users are offline, and supports co-editing. Additional file storage services you can add to Teams channels include Dropbox, ShareFile and Google Drive.
  • Microsoft Entra ID (formerly ADD) is used by Microsoft Teams to provide Single Sign On with Microsoft 365 applications, multi-factor authentication (MFA) for advanced data security, and conditional access rights based on group, geographic location, and device status.
Features of Microsoft Teams Premium
Microsoft Teams Premium is an add-on product that allows Teams to be Teams more personalized, intelligent, protected, manageable, and scalable. The rich features available with Teams Premium offer substantial improvements to vital areas supported by Teams such as meetings, webinars, town halls, collaboration, security, AI-assisted meeting recaps, and virtual appointments. To access Teams Premium, users must subscribe to Microsoft 365 Teams plus an additional subscription to Teams Premium. Progent can assist you to design, implement, and tune your Teams Premium installation so your organization can extract maximum business value from this potent, AI-powered product.

Microsoft Teams Premium Integration Experts

Teams Premium can be customized to improve productivity

Ways Progent Can Assist Your Business to Upgrade to Microsoft Teams from Skype for Business or Lync
Teams takes the place of Skype for Business Online as Microsoft's flagship cloud platform for unified communications and collaboration. Companies currently relying on Skype for Business or Lync Server should prepare for the transition to Teams.

Progent can provide as-needed expertise in the broad range of technologies needed to maximize the ROI of your Teams deployment. Progent can provide the support of Skype for Business Online consulting experts and Lync specialists to assist your organization to stage your legacy collaboration environment for upgrading to Microsoft Teams. Progent's Exchange specialists, SharePoint Online consulting experts, and Microsoft 365 experts can assist your organization to combine Microsoft Teams with familiar productivity applications. Progent's telephony integration consulting experts can help your business to integrate your phone system to Teams.

Progent offers remote or on-premises expertise to help you to overcome stubborn technical issues or Progent can deliver comprehensive project management outsourcing services to you to plan and implement your upgrade to Microsoft Teams

Progent's consulting support for assisting your business to migrate to Teams include:

  • Help you to determine your goals for your Teams deployment
  • Review your existing IT assets and call out any new requirements for rolling out Teams
  • Verify that all users have correct licenses for Microsoft 365 apps
  • Provide guidance for selecting a collaboration architecture that uses Microsoft Teams only or a hybrid deployment that integrates Microsoft Teams with on-premises Skype for Business Server
  • Set up a supported SBC with SIP trunking and PSTN lines to connect your existing phone environment with Teams
  • Review and revise current Dial Plans for operation with Microsoft Teams
  • Establish secure access and efficient workflows for telecommuters and mobile users
  • Create a security strategy that meets your company standards and regulatory requirements
  • Plan and validate a cost-effective, phased upgrade procedure
  • Set up a temporary or long-term hybrid deployment that allows concurrency between Teams and on-premises Skype for Business Server
  • Set up Microsoft Entra sync (formerly Azure Active Directory sync), SharePoint Online, Exchange Online, and OneDrive for Business
  • Upload data from a on-prem SharePoint implementation
  • Configure Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure AD) Premium P1 and Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS)
  • Set up Microsoft Entra Connect (formerly Azure Active Directory Connect) with writeback for hybrid Exchange Server environments
  • Set up, install, and manage Microsoft 365 workloads
  • Deal with DNS and certificate issues
  • Provide mobile computing support by providing Apple iPhone and iPad management and Android phone and tablet integration services
  • Deploy management tools including Microsoft Teams Admin Center, Microsoft Entra (formerly Azure Active Directory) Admin Center, and Microsoft 365 Security and Compliance Center
  • Integrate the Microsoft Teams Premium add-on to enhance the feature set of Microsoft 365 Teams
  • Deliver group and one-on-one remote education
  • Deliver ongoing guidance, programming, and troubleshooting services
Progent's Cisco-certified network consultants can assist your business to configure your network infrastructure to deliver the capacity and availability required for your Microsoft Teams environment. Progent also offers Cisco UC management expertise to connect Microsoft Teams with Cisco IP voice/video conferencing technology. Progent's certified information security and compliance experts can help your business to define policies for your Teams environment based on industry best practices. Progent's disaster recovery specialists can help you to incorporate resilience into your phone infrastructure.

Call or Email Progent for Teams Consulting Services
To learn more about Progent's upgrade services for Teams, call 1-800-993-9400 or refer to Contact Progent.