Microsoft Certified Consulting

Microsoft Teams works in conjunction with Office/Microsoft 365 and connects with a variety of cloud services to deliver real-time conversation and cooperation. Developed as the successor to Microsoft's Skype for Business Online, Teams provides a single interface to support messaging, audio/video meetings with shared screens and white boards, calling, cloud-hosted voicemail, group mailboxes, as well as document and app sharing. Microsoft Teams is tightly integrated with Office/Microsoft 365 and depends on Exchange and SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, and Azure Active Directory for delivering its full set of capabilities. Your company can run Microsoft Teams only or you can deploy a hybrid model that supports Teams alongside self-hosted Microsoft Skype for Business Server.

Progent's Microsoft Teams specialists can deliver remote and on-premises expertise to help organizations of all sizes to assess the strategic benefits of Microsoft Teams, design and implement an efficient upgrade to Teams from Skype for Business or Lync Server, and optimize or debug a Microsoft Teams environment. Progent can assist you to configure and support a cloud-centric communications system powered by Teams, and Progent's Skype for Business consulting experts can assist your company to create a hybrid deployment that combines Microsoft Teams with your on-premises Skype for Business Server ecosystem. Progent can help your company 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 CCIE network infrastructure specialists are available to help your organization to design and configure a reliable network topology for Microsoft Teams, and Progent's certified data security experts can assist you to plan communications security policies and rules following industry best practices. Progent's experts can troubleshoot stubborn IT bottlenecks or provide end-to-end project management support to make sure that your Teams initiative is successfully carried out on schedule and on budget.

Key Capabilities of Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams combines real-time chat chat, conferencing, calling, document co-editing, app sharing, and cloud storage into one client interface. Teams is regularly enhanced and has reached feature parity with Microsoft Skype for Business in all essential capabilities. Microsoft Teams also delivers significant improvements in expandability, messaging, operation with Office/Microsoft 365, and other aspects of collaboration. In addition, Teams introduces the concepts of Teams and Channels to make it simpler to work together on projects, have group chats, share files and apps, and conduct meetings.

Teams and Channels
Teams and channels are defining concepts in Teams for promoting collaboration and sharing information. A team is a collection of people from inside and outside your company who can interact with each other in a positive way via meetings and by exchanging discussions, documents, and apps. Teams can reflect departments, offices, projects, common interests, or anything else that can take advantage of an advanced collaboration platform. When you establish a team you create a Microsoft 365 group, a SharePoint Online site and document library, a Microsoft Exchange Online group mailbox/calendar, a OneNote team notebook, and a persistent chat-based workspace. If you create a team from an existing Office/Microsoft 365 group, that group's participants, SharePoint Online web site, mailbox, and OneNote team notebook are all brought into Microsoft Teams. A team can be public or private and can have as many as 10,000 members.

Channels are chat-based workspaces within a team. Each channel except the default General channel is concerned with a theme you define. All discussions, document sharing, and conferences for a theme occur inside the associated channel. Channels can be open to all team members or limited to a subset of the team. Permitted team members can enhance a channel by inserting apps that include tabs, connectors, and bots. Files shared on a channel via the Files tab are located on SharePoint Online. Managers can define policies to allow or block apps and services for a channel. Conferences held within a channel can include shared digital whiteboards, notes, and chat. Integration with Microsoft Stream makes it possible for meetings to be recorded, saved, and played back.

Compatibility with Office/Microsoft 365
The Microsoft Teams client interface operates on top of Office/Microsoft 365 productivity apps and services to deliver a modern collaboration solution. Also, Teams connectors make it possible for your organization to integrate Teams with third-party apps such as Facebook, YouTube, Trello, and MailChimp.

Examples of the integration of Microsoft Teams with Microsoft 365 include:

• Exchange Online and Outlook support email and calendar functions. You can set up and participate in conferences through either Outlook or Microsoft Teams. Chat and channel messages are stored in Exchange for strong data security. You can also set up advanced security and data loss protection for in-transit email and file attachments.
• SharePoint Online integration enables you to create communication and news sites. A wide range of choices for managing permissions enable highly secure file sharing in the Azure cloud.
• Microsoft OneDrive for Business allows secure cloud storage of personal documents or files shared in Microsoft Teams chat, synchronizes file edits made while unconnected to the Internet, and supports concurrent edits. Third-party file storage providers you can manage in channels include Dropbox, ShareFile and Google Drive.
• Azure Active Directory is leveraged by Teams to allow Single Sign On (SSO) with Office/Microsoft 365 applications, multi-factor authentication for increased data security, and conditional access rights based on group membership, location, and endpoint state.

Progent can provide on-demand expertise in the wide range of IT disciplines required to maximize the business value of your Teams deployment. Progent offers the assistance of Skype for Business Online experts and Microsoft Lync Server experts to assist you to stage your legacy system for migration to Microsoft Teams. Progent's Exchange consultants, SharePoint experts, and Office 365 specialists can assist your business to combine Microsoft Teams with your favorite cloud apps. Progent's telephony integration experts can help you to integrate your phone environment to Teams.

Progent offers online or onsite consulting support to assist your business to overcome stubborn technical obstacles or Progent can deliver comprehensive project management outsourcing and co-sourcing expertise to your organization to plan and carry out a smooth upgrade to Microsoft Teams

Progent's consulting support for assisting your organization to upgrade to Teams include:

• Help you to define your goals for your Microsoft Teams environment
• Inventory your existing resources and call out any additional requirements for migration to Teams
• Verify that all workers have appropriate licenses for Office/Microsoft 365 services
• Provide advice for choosing a collaboration architecture that includes Teams only or a hybrid deployment that combines Teams with self-hosted Skype for Business Server
• Configure a supported session border controller (SBC) with SIP trunking and PSTN lines to connect your current telephony environment with Teams
• Check and update current Dial Plans for running with Microsoft Teams
• Design connectivity and workflows for at-home workers and mobile users
• Create a governance strategy that complies with your company standards as well as regulatory mandates
• Design and validate an efficient, phased upgrade procedure
• Set up a temporary or permanent hybrid implementation that allows concurrency between Microsoft Teams and self-hosted Skype for Business Server
• Configure Azure Active Directory sync, SharePoint and Exchange Online, and OneDrive
• Migrate data from a on-premises SharePoint implementation
• Configure Azure AD Premium P1 and Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS)
• Set up Azure Active Directory Connect with writeback for hybrid Exchange Server deployments
• Set up, deploy, and administer Office/Microsoft 365 services
• Deal with DNS and certificate issues
• Provide BYOD support by providing iOS management and Google Android phone and tablet integration services
• Set up management tools including Microsoft Teams Admin Center, Azure AD Admin Center, and Office/Microsoft 365 Security and Compliance Center
• Deliver group and one-on-one webinar education
• Provide as needed consulting, programming, and debugging services

Contact Progent for Teams Consulting
To find out more about Progent's upgrade support for Teams, phone 1-800-993-9400 or refer to Contact Progent.