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The Technical Prerequisites for Microsoft Teams for Remote Work

Dustin Miller

Apr 28 2020

3 min read

Many organizations have rapidly shifted to remote work. The scope of the shift to remote work varies widely depending on the status of the technology stack at an organization at the beginning of Q1 2020.

For example, here at Sikich and with many of our clients, we are already fully digitally enabled with Microsoft Office 365, including Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Skype for Business, and Teams. Our journey to the Microsoft Cloud has been over the course of many years and in multiple steps. We started with Exchange Online and Skype for Business for email, presence, instant messaging, audio/video/web conferencing, and phone system. We next introduced OneDrive for Business and SharePoint Online as a replacement for on-premises file storage to enable modern file storage/synchronization and collaboration.

Microsoft Teams History

We started using Teams in preview as soon as it came out in 2017 and introduced group chat and collaboration quickly as those were new features. We quickly realized the conferencing experience is superior to Skype for Business and added that workload next in our pilot program. That was our status in Q1 2020.

From that strong position, our shift to remote work has consisted mainly of accelerating the rollout of Teams conferencing. We already had end-user and IT knowledge of the tool, so the implementation of additional users has been quick and painless.

This history can be used as a roadmap for any organization. To understand this further, some detailed explanation of Microsoft Teams is helpful.

Teams for Working Remotely

Microsoft Teams is not a marketing rebrand of Skype for Business (like Skype for Business was for Lync). Teams is also different from Skype for Business in that it isn’t really a standalone product as much as it is a browser that ties together AND DEPENDS ON existing Microsoft Office 365 products. Those products are Exchange, SharePoint, OneDrive for Business, and Office 365 Groups. Teams depends on Exchange and SharePoint/OneDrive for messages and file storage and Office 365 Groups for security. These dependencies are important to understand because they equate to prerequisites for effectively running Teams in production.

Therefore, the road to Teams for remote work includes deploying an Office 365 tenant with Azure AD Connect and Exchange Online (hybrid with modern versions Exchange on-premises is also supported). Many clients are already in this state and have been waiting to take further advantage of Office 365. Now is a great time to take the next step with Teams. SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business can be effectively deployed as part of a Teams rollout, and Office 365 Groups is part of any Office 365 tenant deployment.

Now that the technical requirements are understood, you can move on to the fun part (real challenge): training, rollout, and adoption. If you have any questions about doing any of this fun part, please contact us at any time!

This publication contains general information only and Sikich is not, by means of this publication, rendering accounting, business, financial, investment, legal, tax, or any other professional advice or services. This publication is not a substitute for such professional advice or services, nor should you use it as a basis for any decision, action or omission that may affect you or your business. Before making any decision, taking any action or omitting an action that may affect you or your business, you should consult a qualified professional advisor. In addition, this publication may contain certain content generated by an artificial intelligence (AI) language model. You acknowledge that Sikich shall not be responsible for any loss sustained by you or any person who relies on this publication.

About the Author

Dustin Miller

Dustin serves our managed services clients as a virtual chief information officer (vCIO). Dustin helps business owners and executives understand their current IT assets, create a vision and multi-year roadmap for IT that integrates with business objectives, and align specific technology initiatives within the annual budgeting process. Dustin helps clients by providing ongoing collaboration with an executive level technology team member that understands and can speak to both technology and business topics.