Manage Teams in Microsoft Teams: Proven Strategies for 2025 Admins

Written By Mohit Kumar Jha

Approved By Anuraag Singh

Modified On October 17th, 2025

Reading Time 9 Minutes Reading

Managing Microsoft Teams effectively is crucial for any organisation. With the Microsoft Classic Teams End of Life, transitioning to the new Teams experience is essential. Without a proper management plan, Teams environments can quickly become cluttered and difficult to secure. As a Microsoft 365 admin for 12+ years, I know how to manage Teams in Microsoft Teams effectively.

Today, through this guide, I’ll share all my experiences and best practices for multi-tenant management of Microsoft Teams data hassle-free.

So, let’s discuss:

What Does It Mean to Manage Teams in Microsoft Teams?

How to Manage Teams in Microsoft Teams? – Step by Step

#Step 1. Understanding Roles in Microsoft Teams

#Step 2. How to Create a New Team

#Step 3. Prevent Team Sprawl

#Step 4. Managing Team Members and Roles

#Step 5. Organising Channels

#Step 6. Enable Messaging Security

#Step 7. Adapt to the New Teams Experience

#Step 8. Managing Team Settings and Permissions

#Step 9. Archiving or Deleting a Team

#Step 10. Simplify Management Across Multiple Accounts or Tenants

#Step 11. Monitoring and Reporting on Teams Usage

#Step 12. Managing Teams via PowerShell

Best Practices to Manage Teams Efficiently

Author’s Verdict

People Also Ask

What Does It Mean to Manage Teams in Microsoft Teams?

When I say “managing Teams,” I mean organising how your users collaborate, including:

Creating, naming, and structuring teams
Adding and removing members
Assigning roles, i.e. Owners, Members, and Guests
Managing channels and tabs
Configuring team settings and permissions
Archiving or deleting inactive teams
Monitoring usage

Understanding these areas helps you maintain a healthy Microsoft Teams environment without limiting collaboration.

How to Manage Teams in Microsoft Teams? – Step by Step

I regularly apply these best practices to keep collaboration in Microsoft Teams smooth. I guarantee that if you follow these steps, you won’t face any type of hassle like Microsoft Teams Not Loading while managing your MS Teams.

So, let me explain each step by step:

#Step 1. Understanding Roles in Microsoft Teams

Always start by clarifying user roles:

Team Owner can add or remove members, edit team settings, manage channels, and delete or archive the team.
Team members can participate in conversations, share files, and collaborate, but can’t make administrative changes.
Guest is an external user with limited permissions.

There is one recommendation from my side: keep at least two owners per team to prevent access and Microsoft Teams licensing issues if one leaves the organisation.

#Step 2. How to Create a New Team

Creating a well-structured team from the start is essential to manage Teams in Microsoft Teams. For the same:

Open Microsoft Teams.
Click Teams.
Select Join or create a team > Create a team.
Choose From scratch or From an existing Microsoft 365 group.
Select privacy level:
- Private: Only team owners can add members.
- Public: Anyone in your organisation can join.
Name your team and add a description.
Add members and assign them roles, which I explained above.

#Step 3. Prevent Team Sprawl

One of the biggest problems I see is Team sprawl, where anyone can create a Team, leading to hundreds of duplicates. Unfortunately, Microsoft still doesn’t offer a “disable Team creation” option. So, we have only one solution to manage Teams in Microsoft Teams is to control Microsoft 365 Group creation.

Here’s how to do it:

In Entra ID/Azure AD, create a security group called TeamCreators.
Add approved users like department leads or admins to that group.
Then use Microsoft Graph PowerShell to restrict Group creation to only that group.

To do so, run:

Install-Module Microsoft.Graph -Scope CurrentUser
Connect-MgGraph -Scopes "Group.ReadWrite.All","Directory.ReadWrite.All"
$template = Get-MgDirectorySettingTemplate | Where-Object {$_.DisplayName -eq "Group.Unified"}
$setting = $template.CreateInstance()
$setting["EnableGroupCreation"] = "false"
$setting["GroupCreationAllowedGroupId"] = "<TeamCreators-ObjectId>"
New-MgDirectorySetting -BodyParameter $setting

#Step 4. Managing Team Members and Roles

Regularly review team membership to ensure that only the right people have access. To manage members:

Go to the team name > click More options (⋯) > Manage team.
Under the Members tab, view and manage:
- Owners
- Members
- Guests
Click Add member to invite new users.
Select the Role dropdown to change permissions.

It is recommended to review team membership quarterly to remove inactive users or guests who no longer need access to manage Teams in Microsoft Teams effectively.

#Step 5. Organising Channels

Channels are where collaboration happens inside Teams. Create channels to separate conversations and files by topic or function.

Types of channels:

Standard Channels are visible to all members.
Private Channels are restricted to selected members only.
Shared Channels allow collaboration across different teams or even organisations.

To manage channels:

Go to the team name > More options (⋯) > Manage team > Channels.
Add, rename, or delete channels as needed.
Click Edit this channel to change privacy or settings.

Keep the number of channels minimal as too many can confuse.

#Step 6. Enable Messaging Security

Another major update in 2025 is Malicious URL Protection to manage Teams in Microsoft Teams. This is a Microsoft security feature that detects and blocks unsafe links shared in chats and channels.

Learn how to start it:

Enable the feature for a pilot group first.
Update your incident response playbook so the security team knows what to do when messages are flagged.

This feature helps to reduce phishing attempts inside Teams. So, enable this on a priority basis to ensure Microsoft Teams security and privacy settings.

#Step 7. Adapt to the New Teams Experience

According to the 2025 update, Microsoft has rolled out a redesigned Teams interface that combines Chats and Channels into one view, along with threaded conversations.

I’ve found my team need training to adjust to the same. That’s why I’m explaining this step also:

Pilot the new UI with 10–20 power users.
Create short tutorial videos showing how to use threads.
Explain the changes and how to stay organised.

#Step 8. Manage Teams in Microsoft Teams – Settings and Permissions

Microsoft Teams gives you precise control over how members interact within a team. For effortlessly managing the settings:

Go to Manage team > Settings.
Adjust key options:
- Member permissions: Control which members can create or delete channels, add apps, or edit tabs.
- Guest permissions: Choose what external users can do.
- @mentions: Enable or disable mentioning the whole team.
- Fun stuff: Decide whether to allow emojis, GIFs, and stickers.

#Step 9. Archiving or Deleting a Team

When a project ends, I prefer archiving the team instead of deleting it immediately. This preserves all content for future reference. To do so:

Open Teams Admin Center or Manage teams.
Select the team > Archive.
Members can still view content, but can’t edit anything.

To permanently delete:

Click More options (⋯) > Delete the team.
Confirm deletion (Note: this action is irreversible).

I always export critical files or migrate Teams from one tenant to another before deletion to prevent data loss. Next, I’ll share the insight on the same.

#Step 10. Manage Teams in Microsoft Teams Across Multiple Accounts or Tenants

Managing Teams data across multiple Microsoft 365 accounts or tenants quickly becomes a complex task. Additionally, switching between different environments to monitor chats, files, or channel activities consumes time and increases the risk of data inconsistency.

My team faced these challenges while managing projects under different tenants. That’s why I decided to merge the accounts, so that users can easily access data.

For the same, I rely on the SysTools Teams Migration Tool. It provides a reliable way to consolidate Teams data from multiple accounts or tenants into a single one, without compromising data integrity or permissions.

Download Now Purchase

I highly recommend giving it a chance to help you in MS Teams management for free by consolidating multiple accounts into one.

Why do I Suggest this to Manage Teams in Microsoft Teams?

Merge multiple Teams tenants for unified management.
Transfer data such as chats, files, and channels effortlessly between tenants.
Preserve user roles, permissions, and metadata throughout the process.
Ensure complete data integrity and compliance during migration or consolidation.
Support to migrate Teams chat from one user to another.

If you find yourself spending too much time switching between tenants or managing duplicate Teams structures, opting for this solution saves you from these types of headaches.

#Step 11. Monitoring and Reporting on Teams Usage

Use the Microsoft Teams Admin Center to monitor usage, activity, and compliance:

Open to Microsoft 365 Admin Center > Reports > Usage.
Select the Teams activity to view:
- Active users
- Messages posted
- Meetings organized
- Storage usage

This step is also crucial, as these insights help identify inactive teams.

#Step 12. Manage Teams in Microsoft Teams via PowerShell

For bulk management, you can opt for PowerShell, especially when handling multiple accounts. But before running the cmdlets, ensure you have proper technical knowledge of PowerShell; otherwise, you will lose everything.

Here are commands to run:

# Connect to Microsoft Teams
Connect-MicrosoftTeams
# List all Teams
Get-Team
# Add a user to a Team
Add-TeamUser -GroupId <TeamID> -User [email protected]
# Remove a user
Remove-TeamUser -GroupId <TeamID> -User [email protected]
# Archive a Team
Set-TeamArchivedState -GroupId <TeamID> -Archived:$true

Best Practices to Manage Teams in Microsoft Teams Efficiently

I’ve developed a few best practices to keep Teams organised:

Set clear naming conventions
Limit team creation rights to prevent sprawl
Review memberships quarterly
Use private or shared channels for sensitive discussions
Regularly back up important data
Archive old teams instead of deleting them

Author’s Verdict

I find that a well-structured Teams environment improves communication flow and enhances user productivity. That’s why today I explained how to manage Teams in Microsoft Teams to you. I hope this information helps you in effective MS Teams management.