Assigning Different Teams Roles in Microsoft Admin Centre

Michael ~ Modified: July 9th, 2024 ~ Microsoft Teams ~ 11 Minutes Reading

Appointing and changing Teams roles is a very simple process. To benefit from Microsoft Teams you should designate the right roles to each team member that has the appropriate level of access and responsibility to be 100% efficient at their work. This way, you will be able to maximize the productivity of the entire team while keeping your data secure. You can easily assign roles in the Microsoft admin centre that will help you manage your entire team with the help of advanced tools. In this article, we discuss how to assign Microsoft Teams roles in the admin centre.

Table of Content

  1. What Does Permissions and Roles Mean in Microsoft Teams?
  2. Associated Permissions to Microsoft Teams Roles
  3. What is an Administrator’s Role and Associated Permissions in Microsoft Teams
  4. How To Decide Which User is Suitable to Assign Microsoft Teams Roles in the Admin Centre?
  5. What are the Risks of Role Assignments Done Incorrectly
  6. Steps to Add an Admin
  7. Roles and Capabilities of Admins in Teams
  8. How to Assign Microsoft Teams Roles in the Admin Centre
  9. Assign Users to Each Role Using Cmdlets 
  10. What Should You Do if You Want to Shift Your Data?
  11. Conclusion
  12. FAQ

What Does Permissions and Roles Mean in Microsoft Teams?

When you have a business online, it is important that you have a secure and structured service that suits your business’s needs. Before you create a channel or a group, you need to decide which users get access to permissions and control over these channels. In Microsoft Teams, every user needs to be assigned a role as an owner, a member, or a guest. These roles are important to specify which user gets access to permissions and to what extent. 

The Teams admin will specify the access to permissions relying on Microsoft’s Azure Active Directory to support the role and permission management and in this way, you can assign Microsoft Teams roles in the admin centre. 

Tip: Delegating a few owners to manage the entire team can lighten the workload. You can also guarantee accountability and security of the content.

Associated Permissions to Microsoft Teams Roles

By understanding the roles available in Microsoft Teams and their user permissions, you can help users protect and contribute to the Teams environment and Assign Microsoft Teams roles in the admin centre. 

  1. Owner – Owners have complete control over a team and their settings. They can add and remove members, and can also oversee the channels. 
  2. Members – Members have comparatively more limited permissions and user access to the environment. They have the ability to join meetings, participate in conversations, and view the team activity. They cannot control the activity of the environment like an admin or access the settings of the team.
  3. Guests These generally are users from outside the organisation who have been invited to collaborate with your team. When a user has access as a guest, they have very limited access and can only participate in specific channels and conversations. 

What is an Administrator’s Role and Associated Permissions in Microsoft Teams

You can also use Azure Active Directory to assign Microsoft Teams roles in the admin centre. 

  1. Teams Administrator – Creates and manages the groups in Microsoft Teams.
  2. Teams Communication Administrator – Manages the communication such as calls and meetings for the team. 
  3. Teams Communications Support Engineer – Uses advanced tools to troubleshoot communication issues. 
  4. Teams Communication Support Specialist – Their roles are similar to the communication support engineer but they can only troubleshoot issues using basic tools.
  5. Teams Device Administrator – Manages the entire organisation’s devices that are configured for Microsoft Teams.

How To Decide Which User is Suitable to Assign Microsoft Teams Roles in the Admin Centre?

You might understand what the importance of assigning roles is, but as an administrator, you might need help in deciding who to Assign Microsoft Teams roles in the admin centre.

  1. When assigning roles, consider the responsibilities and permissions needed to be based on the team members’ duties and functions. 
  2. The Team owners should be a part of your organisation within the  management or with administrative duties who need to control the duties and functions of the organisation
  3. Members should be the users who collaborate and contribute to the work in the organisation but do not need administrative control.
  4. Guests should be the users who are from outside the organisation and who need access to specific channels or conversations but do not need access to the sensitive data in the organisation.

Also read: Microsoft Teams Licensing Explained

What are the Risks of Role Assignments Done Incorrectly

By assigning Microsoft Teams roles in the admin centre to the appropriate members, you can maximise productivity and collaboration. However, if you assign these roles to the wrong user, then your organisation may be vulnerable to significant risks. These are: 

  1. Security Vulnerabilities – Giving out great control could enable people to make unwanted changes. They may change the names of the groups, delete the channels, and perform actions that can disrupt your daily operations and lead to losses. 
  2. Reduced Productivity – you should be prepared for reduced productivity when admin roles are improperly assigned. Someone may need certain permissions for their tasks but would not be able to perform the same if they do not have the necessary permissions.
  3. Confusion – Assigning incorrect roles can lead to quality issues and chaos, as people might be unclear about managing the responsibilities that are associated to their roles. 

To avoid this, you should consider assigning roles carefully. You should create a proper plan to assign the right roles to the qualified users. This way, you can maximise the productivity and improve the security of the entire organisation.

Steps to Add an Admin

  1. When users sign up for Office 365 business, they become a global admin automatically. In order to manage the business, users can make other people in the business an admin too.
  2. In the Office 365 admin centre choose Users > Active users.
  3. Select the user that you want to make an admin. Go to manage roles option.
  4. Select the access for the admin that you want to give to the user and then select the save option.

Roles and Capabilities of Admins in Teams

There are several roles for the admins in Teams such as: 

  1. Teams administrator. 
  2. Teams communication support specialist. 
  3. Communication support engineer. 
  4. Teams communication administrator. 
  5. Telephony Administrator. 
  6. Teams device administrator. 

You can take a look at the following table to understand what each role can do. You will also understand the tools they can use in the Microsoft Teams admin center and PowerShell. 

Name of Role  Tasks That Can be Done Access to the Tools
Teams administrator. They can manage the services of Teams and create Office 365 groups.  Can access the Teams admin center as well as PoerShell controls that include: 

  • Managing meetings and their policies, configurations, as well as conference bridges. 
  • Manages the voice feature, including its policies, and phone numbers. 
  • Looks after messaging as well as its policies. 
  • Manages settings such as upgrading the teams and client settings in the organisation. 
  • Manages the teams in the organisation as well as their settings including the membership. 
  • Looks after the Teams certified devices and sets up the configuration policies. 
  • Can view the user profiles and can troubleshoot the quality of calls problems by using the advanced toolset for troubleshooting. 
  • Access the monitor of the users and troubleshoot the tenant’s quality of calls and reliablility using the data in call quality dashboard. 
  • They can also publish applications to the tenant app catalog in the admin center. 
Teams Communication Support Specialist. Troubleshoot the issues in communication within the Teams by making use of basic tools.  Access the user profile page for troubleshooting the calls in analytics for calls. They can only view the information of the users for the specific user that they are searching for. 
Teams Communication Support Engineer. Make use of advanced tools to troubleShoot the communication issues within Teams. 
  • View the user profile page. They can troubleshoot the call quality issue by using advanced toolset for troubleshooting. 
  • They can monitor, access, and troubleshoot the quality of calls and reliability using the data in the Call Quality Dashboard (CQD). They can find the impact that users have due to poor call quality. 
Teams communication administrator.  Communication administrators can manage the calling and meeting features in the Teams service. 
  • Can manage the meetings including its policies, conference bridges, and configurations. 
  • Can manage the voice including policies for making calls. It also manages the inventory for phone numbers and their assignment. 
  • They can view user profiles and can troubleshoot the quality of call issues using advanced tools. They can access, monitor, and troubleshoot the issues in quality of calls using the data in Call Quality Dashboard (CQD) for the users that have an impact on their workflow due to the poor quality of calls. 
Teams telephony administrator. Manages the telephony features in Teams. 
  • Manage the telephony and voice features including the policies. It also includes phone numbers and their management as well as assignments. 
  • Access to the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) usage reports. 
Teams device administrator.  Manages the devices that were configured for use with the Teams services. 
  • Manages the configuration of devices and updates. They can review the health of devices and the status of the peripherals that are connected, set up the configuration profiles, and apply them. 
  • The device administrator roles do not provide access to the call quality or analytics for calls. To access them, you need to assign the Teams communication administrator role. 

How to Assign Microsoft Teams Roles in the Admin Centre

Here are the steps to assign roles in the admin centre in Microsoft Teams:

  1. Open the Microsoft Teams admin centre.
  2. Click on Teams to open the drop-down menu.
  3. Select Manage Teams.
  4. Click on Team Name under the display name column.
  5. Select the Members option.
  6. Here, you can assign the roles of the users and also add or remove members. 

Assign Users to Each Role Using Cmdlets

Most of the PowerShell tools for the admin roles are in the PowerShell module. You can view the list of all the cmdlets by this cmdlets:

Get-Command -Module MicrosoftTeams

What Should You Do if You Want to Shift Your Data?

If you want to shift your data from your current account to another, you should use an automated tool to do so. Using an automated tool is much easier and less complicated than doing the entire process manually. 

Migrator Wizard Microsoft Teams Migration Tool is the best tool for migrating your files and data between accounts. 

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It has the following features:

  1. Helps migrate Teams data in bulk.
  2. Supports different Office 365 plans.
  3. Provides mapping between source and destination.
  4. Migration can easily be re-run.
  5. Maintains the data integrity.
  6. Generates a detailed report of the migration.
  7. Helps keep file folders and timestamps intact. 

Conclusion

Appointing and changing Teams roles is a very simple process. When you have a business online, it is important that you have a secure and structured service that suits your business’s needs. In this article, we discuss how to assign Microsoft Teams roles in the admin centre.

By understanding the roles available in Microsoft Teams and their user permissions, you can help users protect and contribute to the Teams environment and assign Microsoft Teams roles in the admin centre. If you want to shift your data from your current account to another, you should use an automated tool to do so. Using an automated tool is much easier and less complicated than doing the entire process manually.

Also read: Where are the Teams Recordings Stored: Mystery Explained

FAQ
  • How do I manage assigning roles in Microsoft Teams?

You can manage the role assignment by changing the team settings as well as adding or removing the members. You should also regularly review the assignment of the roles as they can change over time.

  • What would happen if I assign the wrong role to a team member?

Assigning the wrong role to a team member can leave the organisation vulnerable to security risks. Therefore, you should be careful and make sure that you are assigning the right role to the qualified team member.

  • Can I customise the Microsoft Teams roles?

No, you cannot customise the team roles. You can use Azure Active Directory to create custom roles for users alongside PowerShell.  It is Microsoft’s cross-platform task automation solution. This allows IT admins to save time and manage their workload more efficiently.