Microsoft Teams: Threads in channels

🚨 The Signal: Microsoft Teams now supports threaded conversations within channels. This change improves conversation organization but increases the risk of information silos and unmonitored discussions, potentially impacting data governance and compliance.

The Impact

All Teams users are affected by increased complexity in monitoring channel communications, posing a risk to information governance and eDiscovery.

• Security Teams: Increased difficulty in monitoring and auditing conversations for policy violations.
• Compliance Officers: Greater challenge in ensuring data retention and eDiscovery requirements are met.
• End Users: Potential for important information to be missed in unmonitored threads.
• Admins: New considerations for managing and governing channel content.

The Action

1. Review existing Microsoft Teams governance policies for channel communication and information architecture.
2. Communicate best practices for using threaded conversations to all Teams users, emphasizing appropriate content and sensitivity.
3. Assess current eDiscovery and retention policies to ensure they adequately cover threaded conversations.
4. Consider implementing or refining communication compliance policies in Microsoft Purview to monitor threaded discussions.
5. Educate security and compliance teams on the new threading functionality and its implications for monitoring and investigations.

Domain: Teams · Impact: medium · Workload: Teams