Microsoft Teams has become the standard tool for digital collaboration in companies, public institutions and organizations alike. The platform offers all the functions modern teams need: Chat, meetings, file storage, project collaboration and more – fundamentally changing the way we work together across states and countries. But despite all the enthusiasm, Teams is not without its drawbacks – especially when used without proper control.
The appeal of flexibility
One of Microsoft Teams’ greatest strengths is its flexibility. Teams and channels can be created quickly and easily – even by business departments directly, without needing IT involvement. This leads to high user adoption: Employees can get started immediately, collaborate on projects and even work seamlessly with external partners.
Cross-organizational collaboration has become easier than ever. More and more companies now work together using shared Teams spaces – without endless email threads or context switching.
But who’s actually in control?
What may initially seem like a digital dream quickly reveals challenges in practice. When flexibility has no boundaries, chaos is inevitable:
- A new team is created for every project
- The exact purpose of each team becomes unclear
- Ownership and accountability go missing
- Memberships go unmanaged
- Permissions and settings spiral out of control
In short: Managing Microsoft Teams can quickly become a real headache.
Roles & permissions: But with clarity, please
Within a team, there are three basic roles:
Owner, Member and Guest. Each role comes with defined permissions – such as inviting users, creating channels or changing settings.
Microsoft also offers predefined administrative roles for broader management, such as:
- Teams Administrator
- Teams Communications Administrator
- But here's the catch:
Not all permissions can be delegated in a granular way. For instance, if you only want to allow management of guest access, you often have to assign a full administrative role – granting far more access than necessary. This lack of fine-tuning complicates role distribution and increases the risk of misconfiguration.
Conclusion: Control is good, governance is better
Microsoft Teams can be a true powerhouse for modern collaboration – but only if clear structures and responsibilities are in place.
Organizations should implement a well-thought-out Teams governance strategy early on:
- Who is allowed to create new teams?
- What naming conventions must be followed?
- Who is responsible for maintenance and oversight?
- How is guest access handled?
Without proper control, the flexibility of Teams can quickly turn into uncontrollable sprawl – pushing efficient collaboration further out of reach.
One Identity Active Roles: Taking Microsoft Teams governance to the next level
Especially when managing Microsoft Teams, it becomes evident that the standard tools in the Microsoft Admin Center fall short – particularly for fine-grained permissions and complex governance requirements.
That’s where One Identity Active Roles comes in.
Fine-grained permissions, without compromise
With Active Roles, you can define much more precise permissions than Microsoft’s native tools allow. A perfect example: Managing guest access in Teams.
Instead of assigning a broad administrative role, Active Roles enables you to delegate specific rights for managing guest settings – independently of other Teams permissions.
This is done using Access Templates, allowing you to control and delegate every permission with precision. As a result, responsibilities are clearly defined and security risks are reduced.
Graph API? Not an issue
Some Teams settings can only be configured via the Microsoft Graph API – not through the Admin Center. Active Roles solves this challenge as well.
It enables centralized management of both Admin Center settings and API-specific configurations. These too can be delegated selectively, without the need to assign full administrative access.
Figure: Microsoft Admin Console versus Active Roles
The benefit? Technical complexity is abstracted, while visibility and security are improved – even for highly specialized scenarios.
Naming conventions? Finally enforceable
Another common issue: Inconsistent team naming. The Microsoft Admin Center offers no native enforcement for naming policies. Active Roles, however, allows input validation during team creation using custom rules.
Examples include:
- Auto-generated names following a defined schema (e.g., DE-Sales-ProjectX)
- Mandatory fields for department, region, or project code
- Blocking of prohibited words or special characters
Figure: Microsoft Admin Console versus Active Roles
The result: Consistent data structures, easier reporting and improved discoverability.
Governance over chaos: Approval-based Team creation
To prevent uncontrolled growth, Active Roles supports approval workflows for creating new Teams spaces. The same can be applied to Microsoft 365 Groups.
You can define:
- Who is allowed to create new teams
- Which naming conventions must be followed
- Who is authorized to approve requests
This approach reduces unnecessary structures, saves costs and improves overall organization.
Easy delegation – even for archiving
Tasks like archiving Teams can also be delegated through Active Roles to specific teams or roles – for example, to a support team that otherwise has no administrative access.
This allows routine operations to be cleanly distributed – without compromising security.
Final thought: Active Roles brings order to the Teams chaos
Microsoft Teams has become an essential part of modern work – but without solid governance, it can quickly become unmanageable.
One Identity Active Roles significantly extends what’s possible in the Microsoft ecosystem by enabling:
- Granular delegation of permissions
- Enforcement of naming conventions
- Support for API-based settings
- Approval workflows for Teams creation
- Clear responsibilities without over-permissioning
If you're looking to run Microsoft Teams strategically, securely and efficiently, a platform like Active Roles is not just helpful – it’s essential.
