HOW TO MAKE A PUBLIC MICROSOFT TEAMS CHANNEL PRIVATE

Microsoft Teams is without a doubt one of the top collaboration platforms out there. Their users love hosting meetings and the deep integrations with other Microsoft products for intuitive collaboration. One of the issues that usually comes around is that companies start using it without having a good notion of how MS Teams should be used. It’s very common to find what we call “Team and Channel cluttering” with too many Teams and Channels. A common question we get asked is how to convert public Channels to private.

Use cases for converting a public Channel to private

There are many reasons why someone would like to make a public Channel become private. But usually, the case is when Channels start storing more and more sensitive information in a way that could be risky for other users to see. In that case instead of deleting the information, companies want to restrict access to very specific users and keep the conversation history, files and other tabs there.

How to Change a Microsoft Teams Channel from public to private.

As many of the?Microsoft Community ?members understand, converting a public Channel to private is not supported yet. The good news is that SphereShield Channel Management can do this very easily, and much more. It just takes a few steps. To change a Channel from private to public:

1. In Microsoft Teams, create an empty Channel with a very similar name
2. Go to the Microsoft Teams management console
3. Click ‘Manage’ next to the Team to present a list of Channels within the Team
4. Select the Microsoft Teams private Channel you want to convert and click ‘Merge’ from the available actions

5. Select the destination Team and then the destination Channel. In this case it will be the same Team, and the Channel you created in step 1 (you can easily do it for another team)

6. After that click ‘Continue’

And it’s done! You’ll see a confirmation message saying that it’s in process and could take a few minutes. You will be notified when the operation was completed. It can take around 20 minutes to complete (depending on how much content is within the channel you are moving)

Check the video below to see Channel Management in action

Contact us today to try out the MS Teams Channel Management solution for free.