Microsoft Teams Templates
09/30/2020
Status: In Development
Launch date: September/October 2020
Coming Soon! Preset Teams Structures
Microsoft Teams Administrators (a person in your IT/MIS Department with Administrative level rights to your organization’s Microsoft 365 Admin Center) are often responsible for adding Teams as requested to be used for collaboration in the organization. Many times, these Teams have the same structure (same Channels, same apps) but they must be built manually. So, the Administrator is left “recreating the wheel” over and over again.
Very soon, your organization’s Teams Administrator will be able to use preset Templates designed by Microsoft or will be able to create a custom Template for Teams and use that template to create new Teams sites!
What are Templates for Teams?
A template is a pattern, a model, or a preset format so that a shape, a structure, or a file doesn’t need to be recreated each time it is used. Templates for Teams are just that – a structure for a Team that is based on a standard Teams implementation, so that the Team structure doesn’t need to be recreated each time a new Team is created.
Microsoft is planning the release of several Templates for Teams that can be selected when a new Team is added in your tenant. Some of our favorites are…
Additional Microsoft templates soon to be available are for Healthcare, Banking, Finance, Retail and Government. Unfortunately, Templates for Teams are not currently available in the Education market, but we could think of many applications for Education where this would be SO valuable.
Didn’t We Mention Custom?
Indeed we did! Do you have standards that you use when creating a Team? We do. Our Teams include Channels for each project we execute for a customer plus Planner for scheduling tasks, OneNote for keeping meeting minutes and other project decisions, an Issue Tracker using the new Microsoft Lists template, and specific folders in the Files library. This standard is a perfect fit for creating a Template for Teams.
Creating a Template for Teams requires access to the Teams Admin Center. If you don’t have that level of access, your IT/MIS Department can help you to meet your needs. From the Teams Admin Center, you can…
Create a Template for Teams from scratch. Give your IT/MIS Department the requirements and ask them to build the template for you.
Create a Template using an Existing Template as the base. Like one of the Microsoft templates, but it doesn’t have all of the apps you use or you wish to have additional channels? No problem.
Create a Template using an Existing Team as the base. Are you an owner of a Team that you have setup to be “just so”? That “perfect” Team can be used as the basis to create a template for future Teams of the same type and purpose.
Learn More
We hope you will agree that using Templates for Teams can save you time, allow your organization to operate more efficiently, and avoid redundant activities. Additional information about Templates for Teams can be found in Microsoft’s Documentation Center.
