Use Teams for audio/video only? Works!
Krähe mit HutMicrosoft Teams is a comprehensive collaboration solution for businesses. As such, it offers a wealth of features for this purpose, such as meetings, data storage and joint editing, integration of additional solutions such as Kanban plans, and much more. If a company wants to evaluate Teams, it will most likely be overwhelmed by all these features at first.
Other companies may be subject to regulatory requirements and therefore want to use Teams exclusively for meetings at first. Under no circumstances should files be able to be uploaded to the cloud.
The problem
Previously, preventing users from uploading files to SharePoint Online, Teams, and OneDrive for Business was a very cumbersome process. Typical methods included:
- Deny write access to personal OneDrive sites or delete them
- Deactivate license components for OneDrive and SharePoint
- Prevent automatic provisioning of OneDrive sites
These features were gradually disabled by Microsoft, made subject to licensing fees, or redesigned so that they no longer have any effect. For example, while license components can still be deactivated, personal OneDrive sites are still automatically provisioned. The license component is then automatically reactivated.
The solution: disable file uploads
Since 2021 at the latest, there has been a direct technical option for disabling the natively integrated functionality for uploading files. The great thing about this is that the function applies to Teams as well as SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business. This means that you no longer need to use numerous different functions to achieve your goal—one command is all it takes!
PowerShell is required for configuration, and the Microsoft Teams module is needed:
# Check if module is installed and install, if not
if (!(Get-InstalledModule MicrosoftTeams -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue)){Install-Module MicrosoftTeams -Scope CurrentUser}
# Disable upload functionality
Set-CsTeamsFilesPolicy -Identity Global -NativeFileEntryPoints DisabledThe setting can also be changed selectively for individual users. To do this, a new policy must be created and assigned to the users or groups accordingly.
# Create new policy
New-CsTeamsFilesPolicy -Identity <beliebiger Name> -NativeFileEntryPoints Disabled
# Assign policy to user or group
Grant-CsTeamsFilesPolicy -Identity <E-Mail-Adresse> -PolicyName <Name der Richtlinie> # User
Grant-CsTeamsFilesPolicy -Group <ID der Gruppe> -PolicyName <Name der Richtlinie> # GroupAlternative storage providers
This configuration can be used not only to prevent uploads directly to Microsoft 365. It's also possible to integrate alternative storage providers instead of SharePoint Online (the platform behind Teams and OneDrive). For this, third-party apps are integrated and enabled within Teams.
Liked this article? Share it!
One thought on “Use Teams for audio/video only? Works!”