Plan for Office 365 Government - GCC High deployments

Article
10/26/2023
Applies to:

Microsoft Teams

This guidance is for IT pros who are driving deployments of Office 365 in US federal government entities or other entities that handle data that's subject to government regulations and requirements, where the use of Office 365 Government – GCC High is appropriate to meet these requirements.

Note

If your organization has already met the Office 365 Government – GCC High eligibility requirements and applied for and been accepted into the program, you can skip steps 1 and 2 and go directly to step 3.

Step 1: Determine whether your organization needs Office 365 Government - GCC High and meets eligibility requirements

The Office 365 Government - GCC High environment provides compliance with US government requirements for cloud services. In addition to enjoying the features and capabilities of Office 365, organizations benefit from the following features that are unique to Office 365 Government – GCC High:

Your organization's customer content is logically segregated from customer content in the commercial Office 365 services from Microsoft.
Your organization's customer content is stored within the United States.
Access to your organization's customer content is restricted to screened Microsoft personnel.
Office 365 Government – GCC High complies with certifications and accreditations that are required for US Public Sector customers.

You can find more information about the Office 365 Government – GCC High offering for US Government customers at Office 365 Government plans, including eligibility requirements.

The Office 365 US Government service description describes the platform's benefits, which are centered on meeting compliance requirements within the United States.

Tip

You might want to transfer the tables of information in the service description into an Excel workbook and add two columns: Relevant for my organization Y/N and Meets the needs of my organization Y/N. Then you can review this list with your colleagues to confirm that this service meets your organization's needs.


Decision points	Decide whether Office 365 Government - GCC High is appropriate for your organization. Confirm that your organization meets eligibility requirements.

Note

Office 365 Government - GCC High is only available in the United States. Non–US Government customers can choose from a number of Office 365 Government plans.

Step 2: Apply for Office 365 Government - GCC High

Having decided that this service is right for your organization, start the process of applying for this service.

Step 3: Understand Office 365 Government - GCC High default security settings

We recommend that you take time to carefully review your admin and security settings before you modify them, and consider impacts on compliance before you make any changes to the default security settings.


Decision point	Decide whether you'll need to modify any of the default Office 365 Government - GCC High security settings, resolving to first understand the impact of any changes you might make.

Step 4: Understand which Teams capabilities are currently available in Office 365 Government - GCC High

To accommodate the requirements of our government cloud customers, there are some differences between Teams in Office 365 Government - GCC High and Teams in the Enterprise plans. Refer to the following table to see which features are available.

Microsoft Teams service description

Step 5: Plan for governance

Determine your requirements for governance and how you can meet them. Go to Plan for governance in Teams for more information.


	Decision point	Determine and document your governance requirements, following the guidelines in Plan for governance in Teams.

Step 6: Deploy Teams for collaboration

After you've been onboarded to Office 365 Government – GCC High, follow the recommended deployment path outlined in How to roll out Microsoft Teams. Be sure to engage with your Adoption and Change Management team and Teams champions.

You can also work with FastTrack or your chosen partner to onboard the service.

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