Microsoft Confidential—Do Not Share
Microsoft Teams FAQ: Partners
DO NOT SHARE WITH PRESS OR CUSTOMERS
Contents
Product (Preview, Positioning, Availability, Integration) .......................................................................... 1
Sales Guidance .......................................................................................................................................... 6
Deployment and IT Admin ........................................................................................................................ 7
Partner and Developer Ecosystem.......................................................................................................... 11
Objection Handling/Rude Q .................................................................................................................... 11
Product (Preview, Positioning, Availability, Integration)
Q: What is Microsoft Teams?
A: Microsoft Teams is a chat-based workspace in Office 365 that is a hub for teamwork and is extensible
and customizable for the information your team needs. Microsoft Teams is flexible for file storage,
chats, calls, meetings, private and group messages. You can rely on the same security, privacy,
transparency and support that comes with Office 365 to help ensure privacy for your team’s most
sensitive collaboration.
Q: How does Microsoft Teams fit into the changing landscape of work?
A: We see both tremendous opportunity and tremendous change in how people and teams get work
done. More transparency and openness in decision making. Flatter organizations structures to keep
information flowing and with team members working from everywhere, even physical workspaces are
changing.
With Microsoft Teams, we see an opportunity to create a more open, digital environment that can meet
the evolving needs of today’s teams. Microsoft Teams is intended to be a digital translation of an open
office space. One that fosters easy connection and conversation to help people build relationships. One
that makes work visible, integrated, and accessible across the team, so everyone can stay in the know.
Q: How does Microsoft Teams fit in the Office collaboration story?
A: Microsoft Teams brings chat-based team collaboration to the Microsoft Collaboration story. With
Microsoft Teams, Office 365 provides a competitive offering in this emerging market category with
Office 365 advantages such as Office 365 integration, security and compliance and global scale.
Microsoft recognizes that there is not one collaboration tool or service that universally meets the needs
of our customers. Unique situations, workstyles, functional roles and workforce diversity call for
different collaboration solutions. Teams are diverse, and because of this, some may use all Office 365
collaboration solutions or just one or two of these apps to collaborate.
Q: What happens on Launch Day, November 2?
A: Starting November 2nd Microsoft Teams is available to customers in preview, which means that IT
Admins of Office 365 commercial customers can begin using Microsoft Teams. We recommend that IT
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Admins enable Microsoft Teams (it’s disabled by default during the preview) and begin piloting
Microsoft Teams now with targeted teams in their organization.
We also announced the Microsoft Teams Developer Platform for preview, enabling developers to extend
the Microsoft Teams offering. Partners like Zendesk and Asana have already leveraged the Teams
Developer Platform to bring their offerings directly into the Microsoft Teams experience with
integrations that are coming soon. Connectors from over 70 additional services like Jira and Trello are
also available today, and more than 40 bot developers have already committed to integrate their bots
into Microsoft Teams in the coming months.
Q: How does Microsoft Teams help teams achieve more?
A: As a hub for teamwork, Microsoft Teams is a customizable workspace in Office 365 where content,
people and tools – many of which people are already familiar with – live together so teams have instant
access to everything they need to help enable better, faster decisions across organizations. Tabs provide
instant access to frequently used documents and cloud services like PowerPoint and Planner. More
services like Zendesk and Asana will be available soon. Bots like Polly, Meekan and Workbot, which will
be available soon will allow teams to explore data and take quick actions. Integration with Connectors
will provide updates from services like Twitter, Dynamics CRM Online, VSTS, or GitHub.
Q: What are the Microsoft Teams supported markets?
A: Microsoft Teams will launch in 181 Office 365 markets, with localized language support with 18
languages in 52 markets. The 18 supported languages are: English (US), Chinese (Simple & Traditional),
Spanish, French, German, Italian, Russian, Portuguese (BR), Japanese, Korean, Dutch, Danish, Swedish,
Finnish, Norwegian, Turkish, Czech, Polish.
Q: What do customers need to do to turn on Microsoft Teams?
A: Following Microsoft Teams preview which begins on November 2, customers with an Office 365
commercial suite can turn on Microsoft Teams for their organization by flipping the tenant switch from
Off to On in the Office 365 admin center. Admins go to: Office 365 admin center and click Services >
Settings & Add ins > Microsoft Teams> On. Microsoft Teams is accessible to end users via the Office
365 app launcher as well as via the link: https://teams.microsoft.com.
Q: Is Microsoft Teams available to all existing and new Office 365 commercial customers?
A: Microsoft Teams is available with most Office O365 commercial suites: Business Essentials, Business
Premium, E1, E3, and E5. Microsoft Teams will also be available to existing E4 customers who have
purchased E4 prior to its retirement. Team is also available to non-profit customers as well.
Q: What is the availability for Education and Government customers?
A: Microsoft Teams is not available to Education and Government customers at this time. Microsoft is
currently focused on making the preview and GA a great experience. We have started investing
engineering work to ensure future readiness for Education and Government, and will communicate
roadmap after commercial GA.
Q: Can a customer purchase Microsoft Teams as a standalone service?
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A: No. Microsoft Teams requires customers to have additional products such as Exchange Online,
SharePoint Online, OneDrive and Office Online, so Microsoft Teams is only available as part of Office 365
commercial suites, as listed above.
Q: Is there any tiering of Microsoft Teams features across different O365 suites?
A: No. Microsoft Teams has the same core functionalities across all Office 365 commercial suites listed
above. This allows all our customers to immediately get the most value from Teams.
Q: What is T-Bot?
A: T-Bot is a help bot that answers questions and provides help about Microsoft Teams through chat. TBot is available in English now and will be available in more languages soon.
Q: What level of security and compliance does Microsoft Teams support?
A: Microsoft Teams is Tier C compliant at launch. This includes: ISO 27001, ISO 27018, EUMC, SSAE16
SOC1 Type I & II, SOC2 Type I and II, HIPPA, FERPA, GLBA. Microsoft Teams also enforces team wide and
tenant wide two-factor authentication, single sign on through Active Directory and encryption of data in
transit and at rest. Files and notes are stored in SharePoint and OneNote, respectively, which are backed
by SharePoint and OneNote respective encryption.
Microsoft Teams was included in our SOC audit for this year and we expect final report by end of 2016.
Q: What does Tier C compliance mean?
A: Within the Microsoft compliance framework, Microsoft classifies Office 365 applications and services
into four categories. Each category is defined by specific compliance commitments that must be met for
an Office 365 service, or a related Microsoft service, to be listed in that category. Services in
compliance categories C and D that have industry leading compliance commitments are enabled by
default while services in categories A and B come with controls to enable or to disable these services for
an entire organization. Details can be found in this Compliance Framework for Industry Standards and
Regulations.
Q: Are Office 365 security features like legal hold and eDiscovery supported in Microsoft Teams?
A: We are proud to have achieved SOC-2 compliance before the launch of our preview, and we are
working to achieve additional compliance certifications. We are working to support archiving,
eDiscovery, and legal hold, based on Microsoft Exchange.
Q: What client platforms and browsers does Microsoft Teams support?
A: Microsoft Teams is available on Windows (Windows 7 and above) and Mac desktop (Mac 10.10 and
above), web, iOS (9.0 and above), Android (4.4 and above) and Windows Phone (10.0.10586 and above).
Microsoft Teams supports the web client on Microsoft Edge 12+, Internet Explorer 11+, Firefox 47.0+,
and Chrome 51.0+. Users trying to open the Microsoft Teams web client on Safari will be directed to
download the desktop client. Microsoft is looking into Safari support and will share updates via the
public Office 365 Roadmap.
Q: Can I collaborate with people outside of my organization using Microsoft Teams?
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A: External access is not available in Microsoft Teams preview. We are working on several ways to expand
the value of Microsoft Teams to more diverse types of organizations and teams, including the ability for
guests outside the team or company to participate in a meaningful way.
Q: What is the maximum number of people in a Microsoft Team?
A: Each Microsoft Team can have a maximum of 600 per Team and 80 people in a meeting.
Q: Does Microsoft have access to uploaded content?
A: No. Content is stored in OneDrive for Business and/or SharePoint Online, customer data stays within
the tenant.
Q: What are the minimum technical requirements for Microsoft Teams?
A: Microsoft Teams customers must be enabled on Exchange Online and Azure Active Directory (or
sync). Microsoft Teams can also support some scenarios of hybrid deployment.
Exchange Online
The ideal state is for all Microsoft Teams users to have their mailboxes homed on Exchange Online. The
minimum state for users to use Microsoft Teams are Exchange mailboxes on-premises with their
identities synchronized to Office 365. For these Exchange hybrid customers, if the user's mailbox is onpremises, the only limitation is the user cannot add Connectors to Microsoft Teams channels. However,
as long as one IT Pro / user can add Connectors for a given team, the rest of the team members can
have Exchange mailboxes homed on premises with their identities synchronized to O365. Exchange
mailbox enabled ('online' or 'on-premises + directory sync') is required.
Group Creation Enablement
Group creation must be enabled as a feature under Exchange (it is on by default) so that groups can be
created. IT Admins can limit users who can create groups through updating MSOL settings in Powershell
and restrict to a specific security group.
Azure Active Directory Connect for Hybrid Users
All Office 365 subscribers are assigned a free license by default for Azure Active Directory. In the case
where tenant have users' mailboxes homed on-premises, they must go through O365 Directory
synchronization to either:
1. Synchronize Identities: Synchronize on-premises directory objects with Office 365 and manage
users on-premises. Users can also synchronize passwords so that the users have the same
password on-premises and in the cloud, but they will have to sign in again to use Office 365.
2. Federate Identities: Synchronize on-premises directory objects with Office 365 and manage your
users on-premises. The users have the same password on-premises and in the cloud, and they
do not have to sign in again to use Office 365. This is often referred to as single sign-on.
Q: What is the SharePoint integration with Microsoft Teams?
A: Every Microsoft Team channel comes with a Files tab so that users can upload, edit and save files that
are shared with the team. This tab uses SharePoint for storage. Users can additionally integrate an
existing SharePoint to their Microsoft Team by clicking “+”at the top of the page to add SharePoint as a
tab.
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For advanced SharePoint functionality, Microsoft Team users can easily drill down to see the SharePoint
document library, making it easy to manage files, apply workflow, review version history and comply
with document retention policies.
Q: What is the user experience if the customer doesn’t have a SharePoint license?
A: A key user benefit of Microsoft Teams is Office 365 integration which includes file sharing through
SharePoint. This makes it possible to find files in one place for teamwork including chats, people, and
everyday tools. If a customer doesn't have SharePoint enabled in their tenant, Microsoft Teams users
will not be able to share files in Microsoft Teams. File sharing between users in private chat will also not
function as OneDrive (which is tied to the SharePoint license) is required for that functionality.
Q. How is Microsoft Teams integrated with Office 365 Groups?
A: Office 365 Groups is a cross-application membership and various shared assets used by Office 365
apps and services, enabling a team to collaborate effectively using the different team services all team
members have access to. When a Microsoft team is created, Office 365 Groups membership group is
created, which provides the team with a SharePoint site, OneNote notebook and more. Further, an
owner of an Office 365 Group which meets certain criteria can activate Microsoft Teams for that group.
To be activated for Microsoft Teams, the Office 365 Group needs to be set to "private" by the Team
owner and have fewer than 600 members.
Q: Is there interoperability between Microsoft Teams and Email?
A: Microsoft Teams users will receive a missed activity notification via email if an @mention or private
chat message has gone without a response for 90 minutes. Users will also receive an email notification
when they are added to a new Microsoft Team.
There is some interoperability with Calendar, where Microsoft Teams users can see scheduled Skype for
Business meetings from their Calendar and join those meetings from Microsoft Teams.
Q: Will Microsoft Teams support additional email integration in the future?
A: Email is a powerful and proven tool for communication, especially with broad audiences and across
company boundaries. Today, Microsoft Teams uses email to notify people of missed messages and other
important updates. We are also looking at appropriate ways to integrate email into our chat-based team
workspace in the future.
Q: How does Microsoft Teams integrate with Skype for Business?
A: Microsoft Teams users can join scheduled Skype Meetings on their calendar from the Meetings icon.
<see additional detail in Rude Q&A>
Q: Will Microsoft Teams replace Skype for Business over time?
A: No. There is not a plan for replacement. Skype for Business provides best-of-breed telephony and
conferencing for Office 365, and is integrated into the Microsoft Teams experience to help teams have the
right kind of conversations, chat, voice and video, in the context of their work
Q: Is Yammer dead? How is it different from Microsoft Teams?
A: No, Yammer is a key part of our Office 365 collaboration vision to help people connect across a
company and used by 85% of the Fortune 500. We continue to invest in new Yammer features, including
integrations with Delve, Office Video, and Skype Meeting Broadcast. Yammer is great for crossorganizational conversations where one-to-many conversations are critical.
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Q: Does Microsoft Teams support 3rd party cloud storage solutions?
A: Microsoft Teams does not support Google Drive, DropBox and Box at this time. OneDrive and
SharePoint are built into Microsoft Teams for encrypted cloud storage.
Q: What are the Office 365 services that back Microsoft Teams?
A: Microsoft Teams is part of the O365 Collaboration solution with a foundation built on Office 365
Groups, Office Graph and Trust. Microsoft Teams is supported by SharePoint for files, OneNote for
notes, Planner for project management, Power BI for data visualization, Exchange for calendar,
scheduled meetings and Connectors.
Microsoft Teams also benefits from the global reach Office 365 data centers.
Q: What is the basis for status in Microsoft Teams?
A: Status in Microsoft Teams is based on the person’s activity in the Microsoft Teams app. The signals
for Status are different from presence in Skype for Business. There are plans to bring these together in
the future.
Q: What is the data retention and data deletion policy in Microsoft Teams?
A: Microsoft Teams retains all messages. Microsoft Teams retains deleted messages for at least 7 days
and at most 30 days before messages are permanently deleted. However, there is no support yet for
retaining edit and deletion logs for all messages.
Q: What accessibility tools are included in Microsoft Teams?
A: Microsoft Teams supports screen readers, keyboard navigation, high contrast, and other accessibility
features. We'll have more to share on supported accessibility standards plans at GA.
Sales Guidance
Q: Who is the target customer for Microsoft Teams?
A: Microsoft Teams targets highly engaged teams across companies of all sizes, from small businesses to
enterprise customers. Microsoft Teams is well suited for teams that work closely together, iterating on
shared deliverables. Some roles that fit these scenarios include Sales, Marketing, Product Management,
Engineering, and Customer Service.
Q: What is the business opportunity for driving Microsoft Teams usage?
A: Microsoft Teams will be made broadly available to most Office 365 commercial suites customers.
Chat-based team collaboration creates new, viral usage scenarios and an expanded Office 365 footprint
in our customers. By expanding the value customers receive from Office 365 we strengthen the overall
usage and loyalty to Office 365.
Q: How do I sell the value of Microsoft Teams against competitors?
A: Office 365 sets Microsoft Teams apart – it gives Microsoft Teams its super powers. Microsoft Teams is
differentiated with Office 365 integration (Office documents, SharePoint, OneNote, Planner, and Skype
for Business) and Office 365 security and manageability. Additional features that makes Microsoft
Teams unique include threaded conversations, the ability to start a spontaneous call in a channel (Meet
Now), Tabs which allow teams to customize content by channel and recent activity feed for mobile.
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IT Admins can manage Microsoft Teams in the same way they manage other Office 365 apps, and can
rely on the same security, privacy, transparency and support that comes with Office 365. Microsoft
Teams is included in Office 365 subscription for existing customers and does not require a separate
subscription.

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Chat for today’s teams: Supports modern conversations with threaded, persistent, and
searchable chat. (Only Microsoft supports threaded conversations)
A hub for teamwork: Provides one place for teamwork, Office apps and SharePoint built in (With
MSFT Teams, everything happens in one place)
Customizable for each team: Offers APIs for custom integrations and full bot support using the
MSFT bot framework (available in preview). (Tabs deliver one-click access to cloud services)
Security teams trust: Delivers unrivaled enterprise-grade security and meets global compliance
standards. (Conformity with 8 global standards)
Q: If I have the beta version of Microsoft Teams, do I need to uninstall?
A: Yes, please uninstall any beta versions of the Microsoft Teams app and install the desktop app from
http://teams.microsoft.com
Deployment and IT Admin
Q: Will FastTrack support Microsoft Teams onboarding?
A: FastTrack will soon be adding a new Office 365 scenario and resources to help customers begin planning
for Microsoft Teams. This update will help customers understand the scenario for Microsoft Teams and
allow them to include this into FastTrack Success Plans.
Partners are encouraged to work with their customers to understand the usage scenarios for Microsoft
Teams and assist customers to complete the success plans.
Q. How do customers with Office 365 Groups migrate to Microsoft Teams?
A: The owner of a private Office 365 Group can add Microsoft Teams to that group rather than creating a
new Microsoft team. This will allow the group members to use Microsoft Teams using the existing
SharePoint and OneNote.
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Q: What admin controls are there for Microsoft Teams?
A: As an admin, you have control over how Microsoft Teams are created and viewed in your organization.
You can enable or disable Microsoft Teams in your organization, you can enable or disable Microsoft
Teams for individual users, and you can allow or block what content sources can be used in Microsoft
Teams. Refer to Administrator settings for Microsoft Teams for more details.
Q: Can I restrict Microsoft Teams creation within an organization?
A: By default, Office 365 Group creation is enabled in Exchange Online. However, there are a couple of
methods administrators can use to limit the creation of new groups to specific users.
Every Exchange Online user has an OWA mailbox policy that governs what they can and can't do with their
mailbox. By using the Set-OwaMailboxPolicy cmdlet, you can configure the GroupCreationEnabled
parameter to be $true for users who are allowed to create groups and $false for users who are not
authorized to create groups. At this time, the only way to update the mailbox policy is through Windows
PowerShell. See Use PowerShell to manage Office 365 Groups – Admin Help for more information. Note,
these commands disable group creation for OWA and Outlook only.
If you want to disable the group creation in your organization, use Azure Active directory settings.
Alternatively, the General Availability of Office 365 Planner on June 6, 2016 provides the opportunity to
change the control mechanism to a policy stored in Azure Active Directory. The advantage of this approach
is that Azure Active Directory provides a central point that all Office 365 applications can check. After a
suitable policy is created, control over the creation of new Office 365 Groups is consistent everywhere.
See the blog post, Controlling the creation of Office 365 Groups using an Azure Active Directory policy, for
more information.
Q: Can I enable Microsoft Teams for only a portion of the organization?
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A: Not at this time. Managing access to Microsoft Teams will eventually be done through user license
management of service plan assignments.
Q: When I create a new Microsoft Team, what is created in the background?
A: In addition to what Office 365 Groups provides, we provision an Exchange mailbox, SharePoint site,
OneNote Team on site, Planner, and Skype for Business services for Chat, Calling and Meetings.
Q: Are Microsoft Team names visible in the global address book seen in Outlook?
A: Yes.
Q: Can naming restrictions be applied for Microsoft Team creation?
A: Naming restrictions cannot be applied at this time.
Q: Can I globally disable Microsoft Teams after it is enabled?
A: Yes, the administrator can disable Microsoft Teams anytime from the Office 365 admin center.
Q: After Microsoft Teams are disabled, what happens to existing Teams content and permissions?
A: Access is blocked. All data remains in place unless the Teams are explicitly deleted.
Q: What happens when a member of a Microsoft Team is terminated?
A: The Microsoft Team will continue to function as-is. All data remains and all existing users can continue
to use the Microsoft Team. If the terminated user was the only owner of the Team, an IT admin can retake
control of the Microsoft Team by going through the Office 365 admin center and adding themselves or
someone else as the team owner and the Microsoft Team will recognize that change.
Any Connectors added by the terminated user will stop working. Meetings scheduled will continue to
work as they’re on the group calendar.
Q: What process should be followed when terminating or suspending a Microsoft Team member?
A: Nothing – files and conversations are retained.
Q: Can I manage Microsoft Teams via PowerShell?
A: We do not support PowerShell for Microsoft Teams. But overall settings applied to Groups will be
honored. See Use PowerShell to manage Office 365 Groups – Admin Help for more information.
Q: Can an admin create Microsoft Teams centrally?
A: No. Microsoft Team creation can only be done within the Microsoft Teams app.
Q: Do Microsoft Teams allow use of multi-factor authentication?
A: Yes, same as the Office 365 platform.
Q: How is Microsoft Teams different from Office 365 Groups?
A: Office 365 Groups is a service that provides cross-application membership and a set of shared team
assets (email, calendar, SharePoint, OneNote and Planner) so the team can collaborate effectively using
the different team services all team members have access to.
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Microsoft Teams is built upon Office 365 Groups and provides a new way to access shared assets for an
Office 365 Group. Microsoft Teams is the best solution for persistent chat among group/team members.
Q: How do I migrate Office 365 Groups to Microsoft Teams?
A: The owner of a private Office 365 Group can add Microsoft Teams to that group rather than creating a
new Microsoft Team. This will allow the group members to use Microsoft Teams using the existing
SharePoint and OneNote.
Q: Can I add Microsoft Teams to an existing Office 365 Group?
A: No. However, you can add an existing Office 365 Group to a Team.
Q: When an existing Office 365 group is associated with a Microsoft Team, what happens to the Group
conversation?
A: Remains in place.
Q: How can I transition an Exchange distribution group to a Microsoft Team?
A: Similar to Office 365 Groups, you can add Distribution List groups as members of a Microsoft Team.
Q: How can I transition a mail-enabled security group to a Microsoft Team?
A: You are unable to add mail-enabled security groups as members of a Microsoft Team.
Q: What’s changing in the existing admin center Groups administration node?
A: There are no changes in the Groups node.
Q: If I have an existing SharePoint team site can I make it the site used for a new Microsoft Team?
A: No, you cannot change the SharePoint site used for a Microsoft Team. You can integrate an existing
SharePoint site with your Microsoft Teams by clicking “+” at the top of the page to add a document library
as a tab.
Q: Can data be exported from a Microsoft Team for external review?
A: Data export is not available.
Q: Can an administrator control if the banner notification to install the Microsoft Team client is shown
to users?
A: No, this cannot be controlled.
Q: How can the Microsoft Teams application be installed by centralized IT?
A: We provide the Teams installation file as an .exe in 32-bit and 64-bit for Windows. We also have a .dmg
installation file for Mac computers. IT Admins can choose their preferred method to distribute the
installation files to machines in their organization.
Q: Where can IT Administrators get current and recent versions of the client application?
A: To get the most recent desktop versions, administrators and users should go to
http://teams.microsoft.com to download. For mobile apps, you should go to the relevant mobile store
for Google Play, Apple App Store and Microsoft Store.
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Q: What is the maximum number of Microsoft Teams that an Office 365 tenant may create?
A: The default maximum number of groups that an Office 365 tenant can have is currently 500,000.
Q: How many Microsoft Team owners can there be per Team?
A: 10.
Q: How many Microsoft Teams can a user create?
A: 250.
Q: How many Microsoft Teams can a global administrator create?
A: Unlimited.
Partner and Developer Ecosystem
Q: How many partners are working with Microsoft Teams?
A: Microsoft has seen interest from many companies like Zendesk, Asana, Intercom, Hootsuite, Polly,
Meekan, Workato and others. We are working hard to continue enabling partners and developers to make
their solution a native part of Microsoft Teams using Microsoft Teams APIs.
Q: When will a Microsoft Teams Developer Platform be available?
A: On Nov. 2 we also announced the Microsoft Teams Developer in preview, enabling developers to
extend the Microsoft Teams offering. Partners like Zendesk and Asana have already leveraged the
Teams Developer Platform to bring their offerings directly into the Microsoft Teams experience.
Connectors from over 70 additional services like Jira and Trello are available today, and more than 80
bot developers have already committed to integrate their bots into Microsoft Teams in the coming
months.
Q: Is there a developer program? Where can developers go for more information?
A: Yes, Developers can visit https://dev.office.com/microsoft-teams to learn more about the Developer
Preview and working with Microsoft to build new experiences for Microsoft Teams.
Q: What is the opportunity for our partners?
A: The inclusion of Microsoft Teams strengthens the value of the Office 365 commercial suites. Partners
can upsell collaboration scenarios to their existing and new Office 365 customers and drive deployment
of Office 365 workloads. There is an opportunity for consulting services to help customers define the use
cases for Microsoft Teams.
In addition, partners can start building rich integrations with Microsoft Teams Developer Preview.
Partner resources can be found on Office Drumbeat.
Objection Handling/Rude Q
Q: Why does Microsoft have so many different collaboration products, Yammer, Skype for
Business, SharePoint and Outlook
 Collaboration is increasingly important to the way we work. People collaborate twice as much
now as they did just 5 years ago.
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This hunger for collaboration has spurred interest in specialized tools that efficiently address new
scenarios.
But customers need these tools to work together to deliver a seamless user experience and the
security, compliance and manageability required in today’s workplace.
Office 365 is built to work together to address the broad range of collaboration needs across an
organization, from email to enterprise social and now a chat-based workspace for teams, deliver
an integrated user experience and industry-leading security, compliance and manageability.
We’ve built Office 365 to deliver a universal toolkit for collaboration that meets the needs of
diverse teams.
o Microsoft Teams: Chat-based workspace
o Skype for Business: Voice and video
o Outlook: Email and calendar
o SharePoint: Sites and Content Management
o Yammer: Enterprise Social
o Office 365 ProPlus: Content co-authoring
o Office 365 Groups: Enables cross-O365 group membership
Q: Which Office tool do I use when?
A: We don’t believe one size fits all when it comes to collaboration. For example, a marketing team
might collaborate with a number of other teams across the company on an upcoming product launch.
For this, Yammer is well suited because it fosters open conversations and sharing due to its
conversational UI and social features. Other teams may already be working in Outlook and find it to be a
more convenient place to collaborate. Either option includes access to the rich collaboration assets
provided by Office 365 Groups – Team Site, OneNote, Planner etc.
Q: Can people that use Microsoft Teams chat with co-workers that don’t? Does it work with Skype for
Business?
A: There is basic interoperability between Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams to ensure that
Microsoft Teams user can still interact with Skype for Business users who have not previously used
Microsoft Teams. A Microsoft Team private chat sent to a Skype for Business user who has never
previously used Microsoft Teams will appear in Skype for Business as an IM. Responses from the Skype
for Business user will appear in the sender’s Microsoft Teams private chat. Microsoft Teams user can
also see Skype for Business presence of the IMs sent from a Skype for Business user to a Microsoft
Teams user in a new conversation will appear both as a private chat on Microsoft Teams as well as an IM
on Skype for Business. These private chats in Microsoft Teams are not persistent and will not appear
across Microsoft Teams clients.
Microsoft Teams users can join Skype for Business meetings from the Meetings icon in Microsoft Teams.
recipient. This interoperability is only supported for users on web and desktop apps. No chat history from
this exchange will be saved in Microsoft Teams chat. These private chats in Microsoft Teams are not
persistent and will not appear across Microsoft Teams clients.
Q: Can customers turn off Microsoft Teams in their tenant
A: IT Admins can turn off Microsoft Teams for their tenant via Settings in the Office 365 admin center.
Admins can also assign licenses by user should they want to limit access for a pilot or to certain groups in
the company. We recommend that Microsoft Teams is enabled for all users in a company so that teams
can be formed organically for projects and other dynamic initiatives.
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Q: What is the current state of Yammer?
A: Yammer is a critical piece of Office 365 and continues to be a key communication and collaboration
tool for businesses. Its integration within Office 365 is the most significant way it stands out from other
collaboration tools. With the Office 365 integrations, the possibilities are endless for Yammer. We are
committed to continuing to rapidly iterate on Office and Yammer, delivering updates that meet the ever
evolving needs of our customers.
Q: Will Microsoft Teams cause more confusion among customers given existence already of Skype for
Business, Yammer, Office 365 Groups and other collaboration tools?
A: We don’t believe one size fits all when it comes to collaboration. The context of what you’re doing
and your preference for work style dictate the tool you use. The bottom line is that there’s no single tool
or application that can single handedly solve for all of the collaboration needs inside an organization.
That’s why we’ve built Office 365 to deliver a complete group collaboration solution that meets the
needs of diverse teams.
No other company can deliver the full set of enterprise communications capability from the cloud at
global scale, including meetings, enterprise voice and connectivity to the entire Skype network, and no
other company can deliver full enterprise communications as part of a full productivity stack, as we do
with Office 365. We believe communications are essential to modern productivity.
Microsoft Teams is intended to be a digital translation of an open office space. One that fosters easy
connection and conversation to help people build relationships. One that makes work visible,
integrated, and accessible across the team, so everyone is in the know. And helps build a team culture
that is inclusive and ensures everyone has a voice and can express their personality.
Q: When should users choose Microsoft Teams and when should they use Yammer or Office 365
Groups? What are the differences between the three?
A: We don’t believe one size fits all when it comes to collaboration. The context of what you’re doing
and your preference for work style dictate the tool you use. The bottom line is that there’s no single tool
or application that can single handedly solve for all of the collaboration needs inside an organization.
That’s why we’ve built Office 365 to deliver a complete group collaboration solution that meets the
needs of diverse teams.
Talking with customers we know that there isn’t one collaboration tool or service that meets the needs
of different companies. Different situation, workstyles, different functional roles and workforce diversity
raise needs for different collaboration tools. Teams are diverse, and because of this, some may use all
Office 365 collaboration solutions or just one or two of these apps to collaborate. Email and calendar,
Create, share and find content, Call and meet, Chat, and Connect across the Org make up business
critical scenarios that various companies do every day.