Computer Support for Small Businesses

Microsoft Teams works in conjunction with Office/Microsoft 365 and connects with a variety of cloud applications to provide group communications and collaboration. Developed as the successor to Skype for Business Online, Teams offers a single interface to support chat, voice/video conferencing with shared screens and white boards, IP calling, cloud voicemail, group email, as well as document and app sharing. Teams is seamlessly integrated with Office/Microsoft 365 and depends on Exchange and SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, and Microsoft Entra (formerly Azure AAD) for opening up its complete feature set. Your organization can use Teams only or you can configure a hybrid architecture that supports Microsoft Teams along with self-hosted Skype for Business Server.

Progent's Microsoft Teams specialists can deliver remote and on-premises expertise to help organizations of all sizes to evaluate the business advantages of Microsoft Teams, plan and implement an efficient upgrade to Teams from Skype for Business or Microsoft Lync Server, and tune or debug a Teams deployment. Progent can assist your organization to install and support a cloud-only collaboration system based on Microsoft Teams, and Progent's Skype for Business Server consulting experts can help you to integrate a hybrid deployment that combines Teams with your self-hosted Skype for Business Server system. Progent can help your organization to integrate Teams with Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and Office/Microsoft 365 applications and also with your in-house PBX, your PSTN connection. gateway, and in-room telephony products.

Progent's Cisco CCIE network specialists can help your organization to plan and configure a robust network topology for Teams, and Progent's information security specialists can help you to establish enterprise-wide communications security policies and rules based on industry best practices. Progent's consultants can help you resolve occasional IT road blocks or provide comprehensive project management support to ensure that your Microsoft Teams initiative is successfully carried out on schedule and on budget.

Major Features of Teams
Microsoft Teams combines messaging, meetings, IP calling, document co-editing, app sharing, and file storage into a unified user experience. Teams is regularly updated and has reached feature equivalence with Skype for Business in all essential functions. Teams also delivers significant improvements in scale, messaging, operation with Office/Microsoft 365, and other aspects of collaboration. In addition, Microsoft Teams brings the structures of Teams and Channels to make it easier to collaborate on initiatives, have real-time discussions, share files and apps, and stage meetings.

Teams and Channels
Teams and channels are key concepts in Microsoft Teams for promoting cooperation and sharing knowledge. A team is a collection of users from inside and outside your company who can interact with each other in a productive way through conferencing and by sharing messages, documents, and applications. Teams can be based on business divisions, office locations, company initiatives, common enthusiasms, or any unifying theme that can benefit from a modern collaboration ecosystem. When you establish a team you create a Office/Microsoft 365 group, a SharePoint Online web site and document collection, an Exchange Online group mailbox/calendar, a OneNote team notebook, and a persistent chat workspace. If you create a team from an existing Microsoft 365 group, that group's members, SharePoint Online site, shared mailbox, and OneNote notebook are all brought into Teams. A team can be public or restricted and can have up to 10,000 members.

Channels are chat-based workspaces within a team. Every channel except the default General channel is dedicated to a theme you specify. All conversations, file sharing, and conferences for a topic occur inside the appropriate channel. Channels can be open to all team members or restricted to a subset of the team. Authorized team participants can expand a channel by inserting apps that be tabs, connectors, and bots. Files shared within a channel using the Files tab are hosted on a SharePoint Online document collection. Administrators can define policies to allow or block apps and services for a channel. Meetings held in a channel can feature shared digital whiteboards, notes, and messages. Integration with Microsoft Stream allows conferences to be recorded, saved, and replayed.

Compatibility with Microsoft 365
The Teams client interface works on top of Microsoft 365 apps to provide a modern collaboration solution. Also, Teams connectors make it possible for your organization to integrate Microsoft Teams with third-party apps such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Google Analytics, Trello, and UPS Bot.

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

• Exchange Online and Microsoft Outlook support group 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 solid security. You can also set up advanced security and data loss protection (DLP) for in-transit email and file attachments.
• SharePoint Online support allows you to create discussion and news sites. Extensive options for managing permissions enable highly secure document sharing in the cloud.
• OneDrive for Business allows secure cloud storage of private documents or files shared in Microsoft Teams chat, synchronizes file updates made when users are unconnected to the Internet, and allows simultaneous editing. Additional storage services you can append to Teams channels include Dropbox, ShareFile and Google Drive.
• Microsoft Entra ID (formerly ADD) is used by Teams to provide Single Sign On (SSO) with Office/Microsoft 365, multi-factor authentication (MFA) for advanced security, and conditional access governed by group membership, location, and endpoint status.

How Progent Can Assist Your Business to Upgrade to Teams from Skype for Business or Lync
Microsoft Teams replaces Skype for Business Online as Microsoft's flagship cloud platform for unified communications and collaboration. Companies currently running Skype for Business or Lync Server should prepare for the upgrade to Microsoft Teams.

Progent offers on-demand support for the wide range of IT disciplines required to optimize the business value of your Teams deployment. Progent offers the assistance of Skype for Business Online specialists and Microsoft Lync Server consultants to assist you to stage your legacy collaboration environment for upgrading to Teams. Progent's Exchange experts, SharePoint consulting experts, and Microsoft 365 consulting experts can help your organization to combine Teams with your favorite cloud apps. Progent's phone system infrastructure experts can help your business to connect your phone system to Microsoft Teams.

Progent offers remote or on-premises consulting support to help you to overcome occasional IT obstacles or Progent can deliver end-to-end project management outsourcing and co-sourcing services to your business to design and carry out your upgrade to Microsoft Teams

Progent's expert services for helping your business to migrate to Teams include:

• Help you to determine your objectives for your Microsoft Teams environment
• Inventory your existing IT assets and call out any additional requirements for rolling out Microsoft Teams
• Verify that all workers have correct licenses for Office/Microsoft 365 services
• Provide guidance for choosing a collaboration solution that uses Microsoft Teams only or a hybrid deployment that combines Teams with on-premises Skype for Business Server
• Configure a compatible session border controller (SBC) for SIP trunking and PSTN lines to connect your existing telephony environment with Microsoft Teams
• Check and update current Dial Plans for running with Teams
• Establish secure access and efficient workflows for telecommuters and mobile users
• Establish a governance strategy that meets your company standards as well as regulatory requirements
• Plan and validate a cost-effective, non-disruptive upgrade procedure
• Set up a temporary or long-term hybrid deployment that allows coexistence between Microsoft Teams and on-premises Skype for Business Server
• Set up Microsoft Entra sync (formerly AAD sync), SharePoint and Exchange Online, and OneDrive for Business
• Upload data from a on-prem SharePoint implementation
• Configure Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure Active Directory) Premium P1 and Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS)
• Configure Microsoft Entra Connect (formerly Azure Active Directory Connect) with writeback for hybrid Exchange deployments
• Set up, deploy, and manage Office/Microsoft 365 workloads
• Deal with DNS and certificate issues
• Provide mobile computing integration by offering Apple iPhone and iPad integration and Android phone and tablet management
• Deploy management utilities such as Microsoft Teams Admin Center, Microsoft Entra (formerly Azure AD) Admin Center, and Office/Microsoft 365 Security and Compliance Center
• Configure the Microsoft Teams Premium product to extend the capabilities of Microsoft 365 Teams
• Deliver group and one-on-one online education
• Provide ongoing guidance, development, and troubleshooting help

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