Microsoft Teams adds third party file integration

This all really needs to be off by default.  Or at least a big exploding GIF when an Admin logs into Office 365 that says:

"Oh, Hey - we just turned on the ability for your users to integrate Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, and Sharefile inside of Teams so your company can totally lose control of your files. Good luck with it!"

Fair point but really only so far.

The article doesn't mention which services will be enabled (so no way to do advanced planning). The article doesn't show how to disable specific (or all) services.  File services are still not listed in the linked FAQ page.

Think about this from an end-user standpoint: "Hey, my IT Team says it is okay to use MS Teams. They rolled it out. Oh, look there is a link to Box for storing files. I guess that's an approved service now. Goodie! I love Box and hate SharePoint. I'm going to use Box now for everything!" 

Can you imagine the heartburn this is causing with IT, eDiscovery, Legal et. al.?

Hi,

In order for the Teams to be complete, it is necessary to act better on the permissions of the files and teams.

Hi all, thanks for your comments and questions.

To find the controls by provider for this new cloud storage feature, sign in to your Office 365 Admin Portal and under Settings > Services & Add Ins > Microsoft Teams you'll see the following UI:

This feature is now available in production and supports 4 main scenarios for companies using cloud storage providers such as Box, Dropbox, Google Drive and ShareFile:

1. Personal Files
   • Clicking the "Files" button on the app bar (left most navigation region) will show an additional "+ Add cloud storage" button where an individual employee can add their custom cloud storage account and view their folders and files within Teams. This is not visible to other employees.Files - "+ Add cloud storage" button
2. Channel Files
   • Under the Files tab in channels, there is a new "+ Add cloud storage" button designed to map custom cloud storage folders to a place where teams collaborate. Choosing to map a folder here will enable members of a team (with existing permissions to the folder) to see their content within Teams in this channel. Teams is not modifying access permissions as part of this feature, granting new team members access to resources stored on custom cloud storage accounts will require management through the provider's website.Channel "+ Add cloud storage" button

      

3. Document Viewing
   • Clicking on files within your personal file view or channel files view will display the document in the viewer used by the chosen cloud storage provider within Teams. File type support varies by provider. 
4. Conversations
   • Team members can start conversations around files stored on their chosen cloud storage provider by clicking to "Start a conversation" when viewing files, or sharing a link via the attach option in messaging. Note that sharing a link in this context doesn't automatically grant access to the file for all team members, permissions set by the storage provider are respected within Teams. Additional cloud storage locations in the messaging attach dialog are only visible when respective accounts have been added to Teams, these are not shown by default.Starting a conversation from the file viewer

     Messaging attach dialog

Hopefully this makes the core scenarios clearer, please continue to provide your feedback as you discover more. 

I agree that the feature as a default should be "off" and not "on". Besides that, I think the feature is really great! Within a company there CAN be use cases that makes it productive to have access to other content repositories than OneDrive and Sharepoint. For instance I have a client that has used Dropbox for mobile sales workers, and another that uses Box in their marketing department. Now they all can use MS Teams and have direct access to their content!

I hear you on this. We didn't do a follow up "it's here" message center post at availability, and I can see how that would have been helpful. Will do that next time and share it as a best practice.

Ed - I like that idea to build a 'reminder' feature into the admin portal. Anne Michels fyi on that.

Kady Dundas This is a situation where an effective solution might have been to expose the feature administration UI in Admin Center for a period of days or a week before exposing functionality in the client (web/app) UI, thus giving administrators a chance to align enabled user features with organizational needs and requirements before general exposure.

Thanks Jim and Ed for your feedback on message center and the roll out experience. Adding Brian Levenson for his information and to share with the right teams on our side.

Thanks,

Anne

The problem with the message center today Anne is there are no notifications when there are new messages, either on the web or on the iOS platform. Nor on the Windows 10 admin app from the store. You just have to go look for stuff. Then there is no way to "flag for followup" to remind me to review or act on the message when it is closer to a release date.

It is like an email app that never tells you you have email.

Thanks all for your feedback on the message center experience. Adding Brian Levenson as we're working on several message center improvements right now. Brian can share more.