Teams enterprise deployment overview

If you're a medium or large business, you need to think about how you're going to roll out the service to your users, how you're going to deploy the Microsoft Teams client to them, how your network design could impact the quality of real-time communication, and so on. Check out the following sections for pointers to articles that'll help you plan for Teams in your organization.

After you've read the sections below and are ready to start deploying Teams in your organization, see Set up Microsoft Teams in your enterprise.

Architecture

Teams is tightly integrated into Microsoft 365 and uses many features to power chat, file sharing, meetings, telephony, video streaming, and more. Before you roll out Teams, check out Microsoft Teams IT architecture and telephony solutions posters to get familiar with how Teams works with the rest of Microsoft 365 to create a complete collaboration experience for your users.

Workloads

Teams has three workloads that can be deployed independently of each other: chat, teams, and channels; meetings and conferencing; and Phone System and PSTN (public switched telephone network) connectivity. Each workload has its own section in our documentation to make it easier to find information about that workload. This includes deployment planning information.

To see deployment planning information for the workload you want to deploy, see the following articles:

• Chat, teams, and channels
• Meetings and conferencing
• Phone System and PSTN connectivity

Network planner

Network planning for Teams is extremely important when you have large numbers of users, complex networks, or both. Teams supports voice calling and video conferencing, both of which rely on real-time communications to provide the best experience possible for users. Networks must:

• Have sufficient bandwidth capacity to accommodate the number of concurrent voice calls, video conferences, meetings, screen sharing, and so on.
• Have network hardware that supports real-time communication protocols.
• Allow the required network ports between devices on your networks, Microsoft 365 services, and people outside the network.

See the following articles to help you understand Teams network requirements:

• Prepare your organization's network for Microsoft Teams
• Proxy servers for Teams or Skype for Business Online

To help you with your planning, Teams includes the Network planner. The Network planner asks you questions about the number and types of users you have, how many sites your organization has, the bandwidth capacity of your network links, and more. Using this information, the Network planner creates a report that shows the bandwidth requirements for each activity, along with the recommendations.

(You must be a Microsoft 365 global admin to open the Network planner.)

For details about how the Network planner works, see Use the Network planner for Microsoft Teams.

To see an example of how Network planner can plan your network, see Using Network Planner - example scenario.

Teams advisor

The Teams advisor is a solution within Teams that brings together teams, channels, file sharing, and Planner, to create a deployment project for your organization. Teams advisor creates project plan, specific to the workload you select (such as chat, teams, and channels), that includes the recommended tasks you should perform during your deployment. Each task contains instructions, suggestions, and links to relevant articles, to guide you through the process. You can easily assign tasks to one or more individuals, and specify start and end dates for each task.

(You must be a Microsoft 365 global admin to open the Teams advisor.)

For details about how the Teams advisor works, see Use Advisor for Teams to help you roll out Microsoft Teams.

Lifecycle and governance planning

As you plan your Teams deployment, you need to consider the lifecycle of teams, channels, files, and so on, in your organization. You should also think about what types of information will be stored in them. Teams may be created for a specific project, for a department, or they might be used as a central resource for the entire organization. Each of these uses has different requirements, which drive questions like the following:

• How long will the teams remain active?
• Who should own and manage the teams and their channels?
• Should certain compliance requirements apply to some teams, but not others?
• Should there be a naming policy to help users identify the right team?

Creating policies and guidelines as part of your initial deployment will help ensure that your users can find the information they need. Just as importantly, however, appropriate policies will help protect your organization from information leakage, help you conform to regulatory requirements, and help you retain information as needed for archival purposes.

To learn more about lifecycle management and governance in Teams, see the following:

• Plan for lifecycle management in Teams
• Plan for governance in Teams

Adoption

To ensure that your organization and your users get the most out of Teams, you need an adoption program. An effective adoption program can mobilize early adopters who can:

• Articulate the benefits of Teams to their colleagues and to business or group leaders.
• Spark excitement in others who see how Teams improves collaboration and makes it easier to connect with each other.
• Help evaluate existing business processes and make recommendations for how Teams can be integrated into them.
• Report back to the deployment team both successes and difficulties to help improve the adoption process.

For details about setting up an adoption program, see Adopt Microsoft Teams.

Teams analytics & reports

Teams reports in the Teams admin center give you insights into how Teams is used in your organization. Use the reports to get a view into Teams usage, user activity, and device usage across your organization.

To view these reports, you must be a global administrator or Teams administrator. Go to the Microsoft Teams admin center, in the left navigation, select Analytics & reports, and then under Report, choose the report you want to run.

For more information about available reports, see Microsoft Teams analytics and reporting.