As a Microsoft Teams admin, and especially one who spends their day provisioning new users and carrying out moves, adds, and changes, you’re going to spend a lot of time in the Teams Admin Center (TAC).
In fact, in some large enterprises, it’s not unheard of that someone’s entire job role is to manage the TAC. Quality assurance for TAC changes and general health of users and numbers is such a big thing for phone-heavy organizations that it’s simply too much to ignore.
This reliance prompts the question:
Is the TAC everything I need to manage phone numbers and users?
For small businesses, the answer is 100% yes (with the caveat of edge cases and super high call volumes and complex contact center setups).
For larger businesses, however, you might be craving that little bit extra. Perhaps some automation for user provisioning, or a single pane of glass for number management so you don’t have to switch between apps and screens all day.
In this blog post, we include a checklist of the pros and cons of managing numbers and users in the Teams Admin Center and introduce something you might find rather interesting.
| Pros | Cons | Alternative | Suggested Reading |
| Intuitive interface; everything is easy to navigate upon logging in. | Possible changes are locked down and limited by Microsoft. | Orto’s number management tool. | We Created A Single Pane Of Glass For Microsoft Teams Management. |
| All changes happen in a single place one-by-one. | Making bulk changes is time-consuming and prone to error. | Auto-provisioning for Microsoft Teams. | How To Automate Moves, Adds, And Changes. |
| Admins can create and assign specific policies for different user groups, enabling highly tailored configurations for various departments or teams. | Configuring granular permissions can be complex, especially for large teams of admins. | Multi-Teams by Callroute. | Multi-Tenant Shared Calling For Microsoft Teams. |
| Provides access to some call reporting and analytics. | Limited detail available; poor call center reporting. | Akixi Business Insights. | The Ultimate Guide to Microsoft Teams Call Reporting. |
| Seamless integration with Microsoft 365 ecosystem. | Regular updates may result in interface or process changes that could cause confusion or misconfiguration. | ChangePilot. | How to Manage the Microsoft 365 Message Center – Best Practice Tips. |
| Create and apply consistent policy templates across the organization. | For complex configurations, PowerShell or other tools may be required. | Auto-provisioning for Microsoft Teams. | How To Assign Teams Policies To A Group Of Users. |
| Easily manage users, reset passwords, and adjust roles. | Learning curve for admins used to managing PBXs in a traditional environment. | N/A. | Everything You Need To Know About Microsoft Teams User Management. |
When I spoke to Jack Bond, the Senior Telecom Delivery Engineer at Flotek Group, he mentioned that making changes to policies en masse was a real burden on productivity.
“Some departments might want different outgoing CLIs or presence routing. There doesn’t seem to be a way to bulk edit these. From a support view, creating new users in multiple tenants means you must shift different logins across various browsers, tabs, and laptops.”
Ultimately, the TAC is horses for courses. For businesses with minimal moves, adds, and changes in their day-to-day management of Teams, the TAC is likely all you need.
However, for enterprises or businesses with high turnover or frequent promotions and user changes, an alternative may be desirable.
That alternative is going to be in the form of a third-party tool, manual script, or by using Power Shell to run manual commands. Each of these comes with its own pros and cons, just like the TAC.
Nobody said Teams Phone was going to be easy. Fortunately, we’ve got a cracking resource that walks through everything you need to know about Teams Phone.
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