Microsoft Teams can suffer from' ‘bloat’ if too many Teams get created for too many purposes.
This has historically been a problem for SharePoint where just too many Sites get created for Users to be able to relate to, and so end up conversely making information harder to find.
We can manage this problem by having a purpose behind each Team we create so this purpose is easy linked to our User’s business processes.
Typically this purpose will be to collaborate on a particular Client, Project or Opportunity – and so naturally link to a concept that we already track in CRM.
Here integrating the ‘thing’ in CRM to when we create a new Team or Channel can be useful, it allows the information we track in CRM to have a direct link to our Teams and the Information Sharing we have in our Organisation.
We can use the DocDrive App in Dynamics to add this point-to-point link from the creation of a Record in CRM to the creation of a new Team.
We do this by opening the App and navigating to the list of Dynamics Entities enabled for Teams or SharePoint integration.
The list of Dynamics Entities configured to work with Teams and/or SharePoint in DocDrive365
We can open the Entity that we want to control how new Teams are created.
Viewing an Entity configured to work with Microsoft Teams
Here we have three options that can help with Teams Governance:
- On Create in CRM – Should a new Team be created whenever a Record of this Entity is created? If so, we will see a new Team automatically – if not, we can instead use a DocDrive Condition or Workflow in Dynamics to only create a Team for a Record that meets a particular criteria, such as only creating a new Team for only Client Accounts rather than any Company.
- On Update in CRM – Should the Team in MSTeams be renamed whenever the Record in Dynamics is renamed? Typically this is best set to YES so CRM and Teams is kept in sync, but there may scenarios where we want to allow Teams to have a different Team Name from the initial default created by CRM.
- On Delete in CRM – Should an Existing Team be automatically deleted if the corresponding record in CRM is deleted? This can be a very useful option for good governance, as it means that excess Teams created from records in Dynamics can be tided and removed if the corresponding record is deleted. Obviously this option can also be very dangerous and so it is key to ensure that he Delete Privilege in Dynamics is locked down from most day to day use.
This set of options allows us to bind the events in our CRM to the resulting outcomes in Teams, and so define what ‘units of collaboration’ we have within our business.
As sometimes we will want either:
- New Records triggering New Teams for entirely new collaboration areas
- New Records triggering New Channels in an Existing Team as new rooms for existing team members.
- New Records triggering a SharePoint Document Library or Folder for Document Storage (which may be viewed in Teams, CRM or in SharePoint directly)
Each of these defines a type of team working within our organisation, and so tracking a type of event in CRM to how we want our Team to work on it – this helps our Sales Team have a single Teams Area for exchanging information on a group of Opportunities, or our Service Team have a dedicated area for a particular Client, and in doing so, gives an organisational structure where information is easier to find and promotes better working as a Team.
Deleting a Team Manually
When we delete a record in Dynamics and have the ‘On Delete in CRM’ option activated for that Entity in the App, this will automatically delete the corresponding Team, Channel or SharePoint Area.
This can be be excellent for ensuring good governance of Teams, and any unwanted Teams are removed to avoid confusing Users.
If we have this option deactivated, then we can delete a Team manually within the MSTeams Client.
Deleting a Microsoft Team Manually in the Teams Desktop Client
Teams Admin Portal
We can also delete Teams quickly using the Teams Admin area in Office 365.
Alongside allowing us to set our Teams Policies for creation, chat and video, this offers the Manage Teams Area to govern our list of Teams:
The Management Teams Area within the Teams Portal
This can still only delete one team at a time and so is slightly slower than using DocDrive or the API – but gives a quicker way to manage the list of Teams in a Tenant over the usual Teams Client.
Technical Details
DocDrive365 handles this automatic creation and deletion of Teams by integrating Dynamics with the Graph API.
For deletion requests this invokes the Delete Group Request to delete a Team within an authenticated Tenant.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/api/group-delete?view=graph-rest-1.0&tabs=http
This request will immediately delete elements of the Team and the corresponding SharePoint Team Site, but it will take up to 24 hours for the Team to fully disappear from the Microsoft Teams Client - this is to allow the Team to be deprovisioned behind the scenes. (the following thread gives a good breakdown of this delay in deletion: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/teams-developer/deleting-a-team-via-graph-api/m-p/729152)
Microsoft Teams and Dynamics
We’ve been integrating SharePoint with Dynamics for years to help teams get a better level of productivity between CRM, Documents and Emails – and the advent of Teams has allowed us to take this up a notch.
For further information on how we create new Teams from Dynamics, the following articles may be useful: