Configuring Microsoft Teams for Firstline Workers

Introduction

Hello, and welcome to this Interactive Guide about how to configure and deploy the right Microsoft Teams environment for your Firstline Workforce. Today we will walk through the configuration steps to enable your workers – from how to pin the right apps to creating an intuitive environment that mimics the reality of your workers.

After this interactive guide, you will be able to:

• Configure chat and Channels to align with organizational needs and worker productivity.
• Use Teams policy packages for Firstline workers and managers to get your workforce up and running quickly.
• Enable last mile configuration that you or your managers can do like code sharing, targeted communication, and time clock geo-fencing.

Scenario

You are the Teams service administrator for Contoso - in the process of setting up Teams for Seattle Store 121.  You have already created the team and added all of the team members and most of the channels they will be using.  At this point, you need to add one more channel, then adjust channel and team settings to align with Contoso’s policies and improve team productivity.   Seattle Store 121 will also be the location of Contoso’s pilot program to empower Firstline workers to manage inventory more proactively, so you will be making several adjustments specifically tailored to that initiative.

Exercise 1: Configure chat and channels

Make your store managers team owners

1. Starting in the Microsoft Teams web app – in the General Channel of the Seattle Store 121 team, select the three dots next to Seattle Store 121 in the left navigation to open the more options menu.
2. Select Manage team from the menu to open the Seattle Store 121 management page.
3. On the Members tab, click to expand Members and guests.
4. Locate Christie Cline in the list of members, click on the Member dropdown menu in her row and then select Owner to make her an owner of the team. Managers of the Seattle Store will be responsible for managing shift schedules for the team as well as other tasks like setting up tags for targeted communications.   These responsibilities require them to be team owners.
5. Do the same for Adele Vance, who is the other store manager – clicking on the Member dropdown and selecting Owner.
6. Click on Owners to expand the list and confirm that Adele and Christie are now listed as team owners.

Configure Channels

1. Click on the Channels tab in the Seattle Store 121 management page.
2. Contoso is rolling out a program that enables all Firstline workers to directly submit inventory requests from the floor. With all employees taking a greater stake in inventory management, you need to create an Inventory channel to aid in communication.  Click the Add Channel button.
3. In the Channel Name field, type Inventory and hit Enter.
4. In the Description field, type Channel for discussion related to inventory management and hit Enter.
5. Leave Privacy set to Standard and select the checkbox to Automatically show this channel in everyone’s channel list.
6. Click the Add button.
7. In the left hand navigation, select the three dots next to Seattle Store 121 in the left navigation to open the more options menu.
8. Select Manage team to return to the management page for Seattle Store 121, then select the Channels tab to return to the channels page.
9. In the list of Channels, select the three dots in the righthand column of Inventory to expand the options menu, then select Manage channel.
10. Verify that Channel moderation is set to Off, which is a requirement for Contoso, and then click the radio button next to Everyone except guests can start a new post.
11. Click the back button in Microsoft Edge to return to the channel list.
12. In the channel list, verify that the checkbox in the Show for members column for the Inventory channel is selected (you chose this option during creation). You also want the Promotions channel to be visible by default for all team members, so click the checkbox in the Show for members column for Promotions.
13. On the Automatically show Promotions dialog box, click the Confirm button.
14. Select the Settings tab on the Seattle Store 121 management page.
15. Click to expand Member permissions.
16. In general, Contoso does not want team members fundamentally changing the Team’s workspace by changing channel configuration, adding/removing apps, etc. That responsibility lies with Teams service administrators and team owners.    Click the checkbox to un-select Allow members to create and update channels (this will also disable private channel creation for members.)
17. Click the checkbox to un-select Allow members to delete and restore channels.
18. Click the checkbox to un-select Allow members add and remove apps.
19. Click the checkbox to un-select Allow members to upload custom apps.
20. Click the checkbox to un-select Allow members to create, update and remove tabs.
21. Click the checkbox to un-select Allow members to create, update and remove connectors.

Exercise 2: Configure policies for Firstline workers and managers.

You will be leveraging Teams policy packages to quickly onboard team members with policies aligned to the needs and requirements for Firstline workers.  A policy package in Microsoft Teams is a collection of predefined policies and policy settings that you can assign to users who have similar roles in your organization – including Firstline workers and Firstline managers. Policy packages simplify, streamline, and help provide consistency when managing policies. You can customize the settings of the policies in the package to suit the needs of your users and any future updates to those policies automatically propagate to assigned users.   In this case, you want to adjust Firstline worker policies to pin the Walkie Talkie app (a new push-to-talk experience built natively into Teams) and the Inventory Request PowerApp developed by Contoso IT to empower Firstline workers.

Review and assign Firstline manager policy package

1. Click on the Teams admin center tab in Microsoft Edge.
2. In the left navigation of the Microsoft Teams admin center, select Policy Packages.
3. In the Policy packages page, select the Firstline manager row and then click the Manage users button.
4. In the Manage users panel, click to place focus in the search field and then type Adele and hit Enter.
5. Hover over Adele in the results list and click the Add button.
6. Click the X in the search field to clear the field, then type Chris and hit Enter.
7. Hover over Christie Cline and click the Add button.
8. Click the Apply button at the bottom on the Manage users panel.

Review and update Firstline worker policy package  

1. On the Policy packages page, click on Firstline worker to open that policy package.
2. On the Policy packages \ Firstline worker page, click on Firstline_Worker in the Messaging policy row.
3. On the Firstline_Worker messaging policy page, review the default settings, scroll down and click Cancel.
4. On the Policy packages\Firstline worker page, click on Firstline_Worker in the App setup policy row.
5. Click the Edit button in the upper right to enable editing of this policy.
6. Scroll down, and under Pinned apps, click +Add apps.
7. In the Add pinned apps pane, click to place focus in the Search by name field, then type Walkie and hit Enter.
8. Hover over Walkie Talkie and click Add.
9. Click the X in the search field to clear the field, then type Inventory and hit Enter.
10. Hover over Inventory Request and click Add.
11. Click Add at the bottom of the pane.
12. Click in the checkbox (left hand) column to select Inventory Request.
13. Click the Move up button to position the new app above Communities but below Shifts in the Teams experience for your Firstline workers.
14. Scroll down and click the Save button.

Assign Firstline worker policy package to a batch of users with PowerShell

1. Click on the Windows PowerShell icon in the Windows taskbar to open PowerShell.
2. Type the following and hit Enter:
   $Cred = Get-Credential
3. In the Windows PowerShell credential request window, Sign in with the following credentials
   • Type admin@contoso.com and hit tab or click in the password field
   • Type password and hit enter or click OK
4. Connect to Azure AD by typing the following and hitting Enter:
   Connect-AzureAD -Credential $Cred
5. Connect to Microsoft Teams by typing the following and hitting Enter:
   Connect-MicrosoftTeams -Credential $Cred
6. Type the following and hit Enter to store the name of the team as a variable to be used in future commands. You can replace this string with the name of any team and the rest of the commands will work to assign a policy package to a batch of users.
   $groupName = "Seattle Store 121"
7. Type the following and hit Enter to access and store the ID of the group:
   $groupId = (Get-AzureADGroup | where {$_.DisplayName -eq $groupName}).ObjectId
8. Type the following and hit Enter to create an array of all users in the group:
   $users = Get-AzureADGroupMember -ObjectId $groupId
9. Get a list of policy packages and confirm Firstline_Worker is listed by typing the following and hitting Enter:
   Get-CsPolicyPackage | fl
10. Assign the Firstline_Woker package to users in the Seattle Store 121 group using the following cmdlet:
    New-CsBatchPolicyPackageAssignmentOperation -Identity $users.sipProxyAddress -PackageName Firstline_Worker
11. Verify the operation is completed by using the following cmdlet (in practice you would use the ID returned by the previous cmdlet):
    Get-CsBatchPolicyAssignmentOperation -OperationId d1205951-21ae-43c7-8ddb-84da238a3721

Exercise 3: Enable last mile configuration for managers

Generate a Team code to simplify onboarding

1. Click on the Microsoft Edge icon in the Windows Taskbar to switch to Edge
2. Switch to the Microsoft Teams Web App tab in Microsoft Edge.
3. On the Seattle Store 121 page, click to expand Team code.
4. Click the Generate button. This will create a code that store managers can share directly with employees to onboard to the team without requiring join requests.  You can return to this page later to copy the code and send to Adele and Christie to pass on to new team members.

Manage tags to enable targeted communication

1. Switch to the tab in Microsoft Edge corresponding to the Microsoft Teams admin center.
2. In the left navigation, select Org-wide settings > Teams settings
3. Under tagging, verify that tags are managed by Team owners, then set the Let team owners override who can manage tags toggle to Off. In this case you will be creating a tag to bootstrap things, but moving forward the store managers will be empowered to create and manage tags for targeted communications themselves.
4. Scroll down and click the Save button.
5. Switch back to the Teams web app by clicking on that tab in Microsoft Edge.
6. Select the three dots next to Seattle Store 121 to expand the more options menu, then select Manage tags. You will be creating a new tag (‘inventory specialist’) and adding 2 users (Lidia and Nestor) who have been trained on the procurement system and new inventory request app. This tag will enable the rest of the team to communicate directly with inventory specialists by using this tag in conversations.
7. Click the Create tag button.
8. In the Tag name field, type Inventory Specialists and hit Enter.
9. In the Add people field, type Lidia and hit Enter.
10. Click on Lidia Holloway in the results list.
11. In the Add people field, type Nestor and hit Enter.
12. Click on Nestor Wilke in the results list.
13. Click the Create button.
14. Click the X to close the Manage tags pop-up.

Configure Time Clock for Shifts

With Time Clock configured for Shifts, your Firstline workers can clock in and out of shifts in Teams using their mobile device or desktop.    You can also set up location detection and allow Teams access to location. With this configured, location will be documented when team members clock in and out.  For scale, time clock configuration can be managed by Team owners/Firstline managers, but you will be doing the initial setup for Seattle Store 121.

1. In the left navigation of the Teams web app, click on Shifts
2. Click on Clock in button to being setting up Time clock.
3. Click the Next button on the Meet Time clock panel.
4. In the Time clock setup pane, check the box Include location detection for the mobile app
5. Click to place focus in the Enter coordinates field, then type 47.639603, -122.128120 and hit Enter.
6. Click the Turn on button.

Summary

During this lab, you learned how to structure chat, channels and app permissions to control your Firstline Workforce's environment, configured and deployed policy packages to get your workforce up and running quickly and enabled last mile configurations that you or your managers can do to get the final touches done for an intuitive and easy experience.

More information on Microsoft Teams can be found at aka.ms/Learn