How to become Copilot-Ready: How Teams Governance paves the way for success

The question of the moment is: 'How do you become 'Copilot-ready' as an organization?' At Wortell, we have developed a number of steps for this. One of them is to get started with Teams Governance. For this we use products from AvePoint — a partner of which we recently have received the Partner of the Year Belgium and the Ambassador of the Year 2024 awards. High time to tell you what makes AvePoint special and how we help our customers with this! That's why we sat down with Worteller Dave Lancée, consultant and service owner Teams Governance. 

Teams Governance: clear environment, limited risks 

"With Teams Governance, we ensure that people within an organization can collaborate in Microsoft Teams in a manageable, secure and productive way," explains Dave. "Together with the organization, we draw up a policy. How do people work together? How and where do you store information? We record these kinds of things. In addition, we supply our own software, with which you can create standardized teams, and AvePoint software, with which you comply with the established agreements and rules. In this way, we create a clear environment in which the risks are limited." 

AvePoint Policies: Monitoring, Reporting, and Remediation Actions for Enforcement 

But how does Wortell use AvePoint via Teams Governance? This is done in two ways, says Dave: "With AvePoint Policies, you ensure that Teams rules and settings are maintained. AvePoint Policies monitors this, recognizes deviations and reports on them." 

When there is a deviation, you don't have to worry about it as an organization. "When AvePoint Policies detects that something is not compliant, it can automatically perform a remediation," says Dave. "In addition, you can communicate about this in an automated way — with the managers of the environment and with the people who performed the action in question. Depending on the situation, you either send a notification about the remedial action or a request for adjustment. The latter is useful, for example, when a team needs to have two owners, but one owner has left the team. In such a case, you can ask the latter if he wants to appoint another team owner." 

AvePoint Insights: risk mitigation around sensitive information 

AvePoint Policies is a standard part of Teams Governance. Some Wortell customers also use AvePoint Insights. Why do they do this? "Where AvePoint Policies is fully committed to protecting your workspace, AvePoint Insights focuses on the data," says Dave. "This tool scans the sensitivity of information. Think of personal data, such as social security and passport numbers or bank details." 

Is this a kind of scan of sensitive files? "Yes," says Dave. "What makes AvePoint Insights so powerful is that it links the sensitivity of data to the people who have the right to see it. This allows you to assess the risks. Storing a resume in an HR tool may be less sensitive than storing all zip codes in a team that includes the entire organization. So when an organization runs such a scan, it can really focus on mitigating the biggest risks." 

In the Microsoft Copilot era, this is particularly relevant. Because, Dave explains, this handy AI assistant collects and aggregates an enormous amount of data: "You want to have insight into this data and Insights can help you significantly with that. Where is data stored? Who has what rights? With AvePoint Insights, you can answer these kinds of questions well." 

Want to know more about regaining control of your data now that there is a proliferation in Teams? Read the tips from our productivity expert Thijs or download our guide to effective information management and compliance (only available in Dutch). 

Do you want to become 'Copilot-ready' and get started with Teams Governance? Please contact us.