Teams ConsultingMicrosoft Teams works on top of Office/Microsoft 365 and integrates with third-party cloud services to deliver real-time collaboration and communication. Designed as a replacement for Skype for Business Online, Microsoft Teams can support chat, audio/video meetings with screen sharing, calling, cloud voicemail, group email, plus file and app sharing. Teams is tightly integrated with Office/Microsoft 365 and depends on Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, and Azure Entra (formerly branded Azure Active Directory) for delivering its full feature set. Your company can run Teams exclusively or you can configure a hybrid architecture that combines Microsoft Teams with on-premises Skype for Business Server.

Progent's Teams consultants can provide remote and onsite expertise to help organizations of any size to assess the business benefits of Teams, plan and implement an efficient migration to Teams from Skype for Business or Lync Server, and tune or troubleshoot a Teams deployment. Progent can help you configure and manage a cloud-only communications ecosystem based on Teams, and Progent's Skype for Business experts can help you integrate a hybrid solution that seamlessly combines Teams with your self-hosted Skype for Business Server system. Progent can help you integrate Teams with Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and Office/Microsoft 365 applications as well as with your in-house PBX, your PSTN gateway, and conference room telephony equipment.

Progent's Cisco-certified network integration experts can help you plan and configure a robust network architecture for Teams, and Progent's security and compliance consultants can help you plan communications security policies based on industry best practices. Progent's consultants can guide you through occasional technical bottlenecks, provide online group or one-on-one training, or deliver end-to-end project management services to make sure your Teams deployment is successfully carried out on schedule and within budget.

Key Features of Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams combines chat, meetings, calling, document collaboration, app integration, and file storage into a single client interface. Microsoft Teams is continually updated and has achieved feature parity with Skype for Business in all essential functions. Teams also offers improvements in scale, chat, integration with Office/Microsoft 365, and other areas. In addition, Teams introduces the concepts of Teams and Channels to make it easier to collaborate on projects, have conversations, share files and apps, and conduct meetings.

Teams and Channels
Teams and channels are defining features of Microsoft Teams for promoting collaboration and organizing information. A team is a collection of people from both inside and outside your company who can interact with one another in a productive way via meetings and by sharing discussions, files, and apps. Teams can be based on departments, offices, projects, common interests, or anything else that can benefit from a modern collaboration environment. When you establish a team you create a Microsoft 365 group, a SharePoint Online site and document library, an Exchange Online group mailbox and calendar, a OneNote notebook, a persistent chat-based workspace, plus tie-ins with other Microsoft 365 apps like Power BI or Microsoft Stream. If you create a team from an existing Microsoft 365 group, that group's participants, SharePoint site, shared mailbox, and OneNote notebook are all brought into Microsoft Teams. A team can be public or private and can have up to 10,000 members.

Teams Integration Consultants

Teams is organized 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 topic you specify. All conversations, file sharing, and meetings for a topic take place within the associated channel. Channels can be open to all team members or restricted to a subset of the team. Authorized team members can expand a channel by adding apps that include tabs, connectors, and bots. Files shared on a channel via the Files tab are hosted on SharePoint Online. Administrators can control policies to allow or block apps and services for a channel. Meetings held within a channel can include shared digital whiteboards, notes, and chat. Integration with Microsoft Stream allows meetings to be recorded, stored, and played back.

Microsoft Teams Channels Consultants

Channels provide shared workspaces within a team

Integration with Office/Microsoft 365 Services
The Microsoft Teams client interface works on top of Office/Microsoft 365 productivity services to provide a cohesive collaboration solution. In addition, connectors allow you to integrate Microsoft Teams with third-party apps including Twitter (X), Facebook, YouTube, Google Analytics, and MailChimp.

Teams Architecture Consultants

Teams integrates with Microsoft 365 services like SharePoint, Exchange Online, and OneDrive

Examples of the integration of Microsoft Teams with Office/Microsoft 365 services include:

  • Exchange Online and Outlook support email and calendar services. You can schedule and attend meetings via either Outlook or Microsoft Teams. Chat and channel messages are stored in Exchange for information security. You can also configure advanced security and data loss protection for in-transit email and attachments.
  • SharePoint Online integration allows you to build communication and news sites. Extensive options for managing permissions allow highly secure file sharing in the cloud.
  • OneDrive for Business allows cloud storage of private files or files shared in chat, synchronizes file updates made while offline, and supports co-editing. Additional storage providers you can add to channels include Dropbox, Box, ShareFile and Google Drive.
  • Azure Entra is leveraged by Teams to provide Single Sign On (SSO) with Microsoft 365 applications, multi-factor authentication (MFA) for increased security, and conditional access based on group, location, and device state.
Features of Microsoft Teams Premium
Microsoft Teams Premium is an add-on product that makes Teams more personalized, intelligent, secure, manageable, and scalable. The rich feature set available with Teams Premium offers significant enhancements to key areas addressed by Teams including meetings, webinars, town halls, collaboration, protection, AI-assisted meeting notes and recaps, and virtual appointments. To run Teams Premium, users must have a subscription to Microsoft 365 Teams plus a separate subscription to Teams Premium. Progent can help you plan, configure, and tune your Teams Premium deployment so your organization can derive maximum business value from this powerful, AI-driven add-on.

Teams Premium Integration Consultants

Teams Premium can be customized to improve engagement and productivity

How Progent Can Help You Migrate to Teams from Skype for Business
Teams replaces Skype for Business Online as Microsoft's flagship cloud platform for real-time communications and collaboration. Organizations currently running Skype for Business or Lync Server should prepare for the transition to Teams. Progent can provide expertise in the broad range of technologies needed to maximize the business value of your Microsoft Teams deployment. Progent offers the support of Skype for Business consultants and Lync Server consultants to help you prepare your legacy system for migration to Teams. Progent's Exchange experts, SharePoint developers, and Microsoft 365 consultants can help you integrate Teams with cloud apps. Progent's telephony integration specialists can assist you to connect your phone system to Teams.

Progent offers online or onsite consulting support to help you overcome stubborn technical obstacles or Progent can provide comprehensive project management outsourcing and co-sourcing services to help you plan and carry out your Teams migration.

Progent's consulting services for helping you migrate to Microsoft Teams include:

  • Help you determine your objectives for your Teams environment
  • Review your existing resources and identify any additional requirements for rolling out Microsoft Teams
  • Verify that all users have appropriate licenses for Office/Microsoft 365 services
  • Provide guidance for selecting a collaboration solution that uses Teams exclusively or a hybrid combination of Teams with on-premises Skype for Business Server
  • Configure a supported session border controller (SBC) with SIP trunking and PSTN lines to connect your existing phone infrastructure to Microsoft Teams
  • Review and update existing Dial Plans for operation in your Teams environment
  • Design connectivity and workflows for telecommuters and mobile workers
  • Create a governance, policy, and security strategy that complies with your internal standards and regulatory requirements
  • Design and test a cost-effective, phased migration process
  • Set up an intermediate or permanent hybrid deployment that allows coexistence between Microsoft Teams and on-premises Skype for Business Server
  • Set up AAD sync, SharePoint Online, Exchange Online, and OneDrive for Business
  • Migrate content from SharePoint on-premises
  • Configure Azure Entra Premium P1 and Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS)
  • Set up Azure Entra Connect with writeback for hybrid Exchange deployments
  • Configure, deploy, and manage Office/Microsoft 365 workloads
  • Deal with DNS and certificate issues
  • Provide BYOD support by offering iPhone and iPad integration and Android phone and tablet consulting
  • Set up management tools including Microsoft Teams Admin Center, Azure Entra Admin Center, and Microsoft 365 Security and Compliance Center
  • Integrate the Microsoft Teams Premium add-on to extend the capability of Microsoft 365 Teams
  • Provide group and individual online training
  • Provide ongoing consulting, development, and troubleshooting services
Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE network consultants can help your organization configure your network infrastructure to provide the capacity and availability required for your Microsoft Teams solution. Progent can also provide Cisco UC integration services to connect Teams with Cisco IP voice and video conferencing systems. Progent's certified information security experts can help you create policies for your Teams environment based on leading practices. Progent's disaster recovery specialists can help you build fault tolerance into your phone infrastructure.

Call or Email Progent for Microsoft Teams Expertise
To learn more about Progent's migration support for Microsoft Teams, call 1-800-993-9400 or visit Contact Progent.