Microsoft Gold-Certified Consultants

Teams operates on top of Office/Microsoft 365 and integrates with a variety of cloud services to provide group conversation and collaboration. Developed as the successor to Skype for Business Online, Teams provides a single platform to support messaging, audio/video meetings with screen sharing, IP calling, cloud voicemail, group email, plus file and app sharing. Teams is seamlessly integrated with Office/Microsoft 365 and relies on Exchange and SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, and Azure Active Directory for opening up its complete set of capabilities. Your company can run Microsoft Teams only or you can deploy a hybrid model that combines Teams along with self-hosted Microsoft Skype for Business Server.

Progent's Microsoft Teams consultants can deliver remote and onsite support to help organizations of any size to understand the strategic advantages of Microsoft Teams, plan and carry out a cost effective migration to Microsoft Teams from Skype for Business or Microsoft Lync Server, and optimize or troubleshoot a Microsoft Teams deployment. Progent can help your organization to configure and manage a cloud-centric communications system powered by Teams, and Progent's Skype for Business specialists can assist your organization to create a hybrid deployment that combines Microsoft Teams with your on-premises Skype for Business Server ecosystem. Progent can help you to combine Teams with Microsoft Exchange Online, Microsoft SharePoint Online, and Office/Microsoft 365 applications and also with your on-premises PBX system, your PSTN connection. gateway, and conference room telephony equipment.

Progent's Cisco CCIE network infrastructure consultants can help your business to design and configure a robust network topology for Teams, and Progent's certified data security experts can assist your company to define communications security policies and rules based on leading. Progent's consultants can help you resolve occasional technical bottlenecks or provide end-to-end project management or co-management support to make sure that your Teams deployment is successfully carried out on schedule and within budget.

Key Capabilities of Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams combines chat, meetings, calling, document co-editing, app sharing, and file storage into a single client experience. Microsoft Teams is continually updated and has reached feature parity with Skype for Business in all key capabilities. Teams also delivers significant advantages in scale, chat, operation with Microsoft 365, and other aspects of collaboration. Also, Teams introduces the concepts of Teams and Channels to make it easier to collaborate on initiatives, have group chats, share files and apps, and conduct conferences.

Teams and Channels
Teams and channels are innovative structures in Microsoft Teams for promoting collaboration and organizing knowledge. A team is a group of users from inside and outside your business who can interact with one another in a productive manner through conferencing and by exchanging messages, files, and applications. Teams can be based on business divisions, offices, company initiatives, mutual enthusiasms, or anything else that can take advantage of an advanced collaboration environment. When you define a team you start a Microsoft 365 group, a SharePoint Online web site and document library, a Microsoft Exchange Online group mailbox and calendar, a OneNote notebook, and a persistent chat workspace. If you create a team from an existing Office/Microsoft 365 group, that group's members, SharePoint Online web site, mailbox, and OneNote team notebook are all added to Microsoft Teams. A team can be open or private and can include up to 10,000 members.

Channels are chat-based workspaces within a team. Every channel other than the default General channel is dedicated to a topic you define. All conversations, file sharing, and conferences for a topic take place within the appropriate channel. Channels can be available to all team members or limited to a subset of the team. Authorized team members can enhance a channel by adding apps that include tabs, connectors, and bots. Any files shared within a channel via the Files tab are hosted on a SharePoint Online document collection. Managers can control policies to allow or reject apps and services for a channel. Meetings occurring in a channel can feature shared whiteboards, notes, and chat. Incorporation of Microsoft Stream allows meetings to be recorded, stored, and replayed.

Compatibility with Office/Microsoft 365
The Microsoft Teams client interface works in conjunction with Microsoft 365 productivity apps and services to provide an extensible real-time collaboration ecosystem. Also, connectors allow your organization to integrate Teams with outside apps including Facebook, Google Analytics, Jira, and UPS Bot.

Samples of the combination of Teams with Microsoft 365 apps include:

• Exchange Online and Microsoft Outlook provide email and calendar services. You can schedule and attend conferences through either Outlook or Microsoft Teams. Chat and channel messages are stored in Exchange for strong information security. You can also configure enterprise-class security and data loss protection (DLP) for en-route email and file attachments.
• SharePoint Online integration allows you to create discussion and news web sites. Extensive choices for managing permissions enable highly secure document sharing in the Azure cloud.
• OneDrive for Business allows cloud storage of private files or documents shared in Teams chat, synchronizes file revisions made while offline, and allows simultaneous editing. Other storage providers you can append to Microsoft Teams channels include Dropbox, Box, and Google Drive.
• Azure Active Directory (ADD) is leveraged by Microsoft Teams to provide Single Sign On with Office/Microsoft 365 apps, multi-factor authentication for advanced data security, and conditional access governed by group membership, geolocation, and endpoint state.

Progent offers as-needed expertise in the broad array of technologies required to maximize the ROI of your Teams deployment. Progent offers the assistance of Skype for Business Server specialists and Lync specialists to assist you to stage your legacy system for upgrading to Microsoft Teams. Progent's Exchange Online consulting experts, SharePoint Online consulting experts, and Office 365 consulting experts can assist your organization to combine Microsoft Teams with familiar productivity applications. Progent's phone system infrastructure consultants can help your business to connect your phone system to Microsoft Teams.

Progent can provide remote or on-premises expertise to help your organization to overcome occasional IT issues or Progent can deliver end-to-end project management outsourcing and co-sourcing expertise to your organization to design and carry out a smooth upgrade to Microsoft Teams

Progent's consulting services for assisting your organization to migrate to Teams include:

• Assist you to define your objectives for your Teams environment
• Review your existing resources and call out any additional requirements for migration to Teams
• Check that all users have appropriate licenses for Microsoft 365 services
• Provide guidance for selecting a collaboration architecture that includes Teams exclusively or a hybrid deployment that integrates Teams with self-hosted Skype for Business Server
• Set up a compatible SBC with SIP trunking and PSTN lines to integrate your existing telephony infrastructure with Microsoft Teams
• Check and revise current Dial Plans for running with Microsoft Teams
• Design secure access and workflows for telecommuters and mobile workers
• Create a governance plan that meets your company standards as well as regulatory mandates
• Plan and test an efficient, non-disruptive upgrade process
• Set up an intermediate or permanent hybrid implementation that allows coexistence between Teams and on-premises Skype for Business Server
• Configure Azure AD sync, SharePoint and Exchange Online, and OneDrive for Business
• Upload data from a on-premises SharePoint implementation
• Configure Azure AD Premium P1 and Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS)
• Set up AAD Connect with writeback for hybrid Exchange Server environments
• Configure, deploy, and administer Office/Microsoft 365 workloads
• Deal with DNS and certificate issues
• Provide mobile computing support by offering iOS integration and Google Android smartphone integration services
• Deploy management tools including Teams Admin Center, Azure Active Directory Admin Center, and Microsoft 365 Security and Compliance Center
• Provide group and one-on-one webinar education
• Deliver as needed consulting, development, and troubleshooting help

Call or Email Progent for Microsoft Teams Expertise
To find out more about Progent's upgrade support for Microsoft Teams, call 1-800-993-9400 or see Contact Progent.