Getting started with the new Microsoft Teams & Skype for Business Admin Center

Posted Tuesday, May 1, 2018 4:40 PM by CoreyRoth

The new Microsoft Teams & Skype for Business Admin Center is starting to roll out to first release.  This post will show you some of the highlights and how to get started.  First, you have to know where to find it.  Currently, the Microsoft Teams & Skype for Business Admin Center does not show up in the list of Admin Centers on your Tenant.  To find it in your Admin Center, go to Settings -> Services & add-ins and then Microsoft Teams

TeamsAdminCenterSettingsLink

If the new admin center has been provisioned on your tenant, you will see a message at the top warning you that some settings are only available in the new admin center.

TeamsAdminSettingsMigrated

Click on the link to take you to the new admin center.  It will take you to the URL below.

https://admin.teams.microsoft.com/

The will take you a dashboard that looks a bit incomplete for the moment.  It lets you quickly get to your users as well as some help videos.

TeamsAdminCenterDashboard

On the Users page, you can see a dashboard of users, phone numbers (if any) and that one policy has been defined.  It looks like the RestrictedAnonymousAccess policy is assigned to everyone by default.

TeamsAdminCenterUsers

When you click on a user, you see a screen with some general information including the conference bridge and phone number (if assigned).  Here you can reset the conference ID or PIIN, set policies, and set defaults.

TeamsAdminCenterUser

If you click Edit next to Assigned policies, it will let you change the Teams Messaging policy but you cannot change the Teams Meeting Policy yet.  The option simply isn't present when you click on it.  I suspect that will come later in the future.

TeamsAdminCenterUserPolicy

If you click Edit next to Microsoft Teams, you can set the Default calling app and the Default chat appEach one has a value of Teams, Skype for Business, or Default.  However, when you try to change the Default calling app, you get an error:

This combination of preferred applications isn't allowed.

TeamsAdminCenterUserDefaults

I suspect this will be resolved in the future as more of the Interop features on the roadmap are launched.

Under Meetings, you can now manage your conference bridge phone numbers.  This is a welcome change from the old Skype for Business audio conference settings.

TeamsAdminCenterMeetings

Clicking Settings takes you to bridge settings include entry and exit notifications and PIN length.

TeamsAdminCenterMeetingsSettings

In reality, not that many settings have been migrated to the new admin center yet.  The most noticeable move will be the Messaging settings.

TeamsAdminMessagingMoved

Here you will see the new expanded Teams messaging policy with the ability to set more than one policy now.

TeamsAdminCenterMessagingPolicies

You can control External Access under Org-wide settings.  This is where you can turn off communication to external Skype (consumer) users.  By the way, Secure Score actually recommends you turn off communication to Skype users now.

TeamsAdminCenterExternalAccess

Under Guest Access you can control all of the settings that you allow guests of your Teams to do.

TeamsAdminCenterGuestAccess

That's all of the new settings for now.  Like the new SharePoint Admin Center, many of the legacy settings will take some time to migrate over to this new experience.  If you can't find the setting you are looking for, go back to the Skype for Business admin center or the Teams Settings menu.

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