Microsoft Teams: How to disable Teams Creation
When enabling the Teams license in Office 365, every member within the organisation can create new Teams. Giving your employees the possibility to create Teams themselves and according to their needs increases acceptance of the newly introduced tool.
Nevertheless, it can lead to problems if many employees have high permission levels for team creation. Often it is not clearly defined when it is necessary to create a Team and when a channel or even just a chat is sufficient. It can also lead to Teams with the same purpose being created more than once. Team creation can quickly cause uncontrolled growth that confuses your employees with many Teams without any real benefit.
To prevent uncontrolled growth of Teams, it is a best practice to disable the creation of Teams. Of course, there are other dangers involved in completely depriving users of any freedom in this form. Too strict restrictions can demotivate users or make them lose interest. We recommend implementing a controlled version of Teams creation with Teams Manager offering a request and approval process for Teams. In the next paragraph you will learn how to disable teams creation completely.
How to disable teams creation in Microsoft Teams in 3 steps
Time needed: 10 minutes
Since the standard O365 UI does not provide the option to disable Teams creation, a Powershell script has to be used.
Note: The script will disable not just the creation of Teams but also the creation of groups in general, i.e. sites in SharePoint, sites/groups in Planner, groups in Outlook etc.
- Create security group
Before you execute the script, you have to create a security group in your Office 365 Admin Centre. Click on ‘Groups’, add a new group and choose the type ‘Security’.
- Add member
Add member to the group that should later still be able to create teams.
- Execute following script
Execute the following script to disable the creation of Teams:
(Replace ‘Name of your security group’ with your group name)
Connect-AzureAD
Get-AzureADGroup -SearchString "Name of your security group"
$Template = Get-AzureADDirectorySettingTemplate | where {$_.DisplayName -eq 'Group.Unified'}
$Setting = $Template.CreateDirectorySetting()
New-AzureADDirectorySetting -DirectorySetting $Setting
$Setting = Get-AzureADDirectorySetting -Id (Get-AzureADDirectorySetting | where -Property DisplayName -Value "Group.Unified" -EQ).id
$Setting["EnableGroupCreation"] = $False
$Setting["GroupCreationAllowedGroupId"] = (Get-AzureADGroup -SearchString "Name of your security group").objectid
Set-AzureADDirectorySetting -Id (Get-AzureADDirectorySetting | where -Property DisplayName -Value "Group.Unified" -EQ).id -DirectorySetting $Setting
(Get-AzureADDirectorySetting).ValuesNote: In order to execute the script, you need the preview module for Powershell ‘AzureADPreview’. If you already have installed the AzureAD module, you need to uninstall it first.
The creation of Teams is now disabled for users. This AzureAD Security Group will be the only one that can later create teams. Note that Global Admin members can also create Microsoft Teams.
Now you know how to disable teams creation. Teams Manager offers easy solutions not just for team creation, but for most admin problems in MS Teams. Check out our features or book a quick demo now.
Watch this video for a detailed step-by-step tutorial on how to deactivate teams creation in Microsoft Teams:
Hi,
I wanted to disable Team creation based on ADGroup, but I’ts now disabled for all users.
I tried to run it again with the $Setting[“EnableGroupCreation”] = $True but I still can’t create Teams.
Can you please advise how can I revert back?
Could you please try deleting the line
$Setting[“GroupCreationAllowedGroupId”] = (Get-AzureADGroup -SearchString “Name of your security group”).objectid
from the script? Then it should work again!
How can we disable only MS Teams creation? As this approach disables O365 group so users cannot create groups for Planner, Yammer, and SP Hub site? Any help would be helpful..
Unfortunately, it is not possible at the moment to disable only Teams creation. For now you can only disable groups creation as a whole.
We will gladly update you if this changes in the future!
how to restrict in ms team that without permission of global admin no one can make a group
This permission can only be given to AD groups, so you need to add all admins to an AD group and then reference this group.
New-AzureADDirectorySetting : Error occurred while executing NewDirectorySetting
Code: Request_BadRequest
Message: Another object with the same value for property templateId already exists.
InnerError:
RequestId: 5c73dd32-5e96-4a30-b00b-62f7d7261a9e
DateTimeStamp: Sun, 16 Aug 2020 13:21:04 GMT
HttpStatusCode: BadRequest
HttpStatusDescription: Bad Request
HttpResponseStatus: Completed
At line:8 char:1
+ New-AzureADDirectorySetting -DirectorySetting $Setting
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : NotSpecified: (:) [New-AzureADDirectorySetting], ApiException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : Microsoft.Open.MSGraphBeta.Client.ApiException,Microsoft.Open.MSGraphBeta.PowerShell.New
DirectorySetting
This error means that your AzureAD already has such a setting and that you need to update it. Please try using
Set-AzureADDirectorySetting
instead of
New-AzureADDirectorySetting
in the script.
after setting how much time to take effect?
The effect should be more or less immediate. However, according to Microsoft, it may take up to 48 hours in some cases.
Hi i want to know what rights or permission is required to Run this script. Can you help?
You need to have Azure AD Directory Administrator rights, as that is where you change the settings. The error below means that you do not have the necessary rights.
because while running this script I am getting below error.
New-AzureADDirectorySetting : Error occurred while executing NewDirectorySetting
Code: Authorization_RequestDenied
Message: Insufficient privileges to complete the operation.
InnerError:
RequestId: 7b792b59-1566-45b8-9201-78c3ae133817
DateTimeStamp: Mon, 14 Sep 2020 15:04:21 GMT
HttpStatusCode: Forbidden
HttpStatusDescription: Forbidden
HttpResponseStatus: Completed
At line:1 char:1
+ New-AzureADDirectorySetting -DirectorySetting $Setting
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : NotSpecified: (:) [New-AzureADDirectorySetting], ApiException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : Microsoft.Open.MSGraphBeta.Client.ApiException,Microsoft.Open.MSGraphBeta.PowerShell.NewDirectorySetting
Will this script work for GCC High tenants?
Hi There,
yes the Powershell Script should also work for GCC Tenants.
you should mention that running this scripts will prevent users who are not member of the security group the creation of sites in sharepoint, plans in planner, etc,,,
You are right, thank you for pointing this out! I have adapted the blog post to clarify that the script will disable not just the creation of Teams but also the creation of groups in general, i.e. sites in SharePoint, sites/groups in Planner, groups in Outlook etc.
(Users will still be able to create new plans in Planner, as that is separate from group creation.)
How to enable that function again, incase something goes wrong? Is that redo that script?
My account cannot open team app one website. When $AllowGroupCreation = “True” or False
Exactly, just delete the following lines from the script:
$Setting[“GroupCreationAllowedGroupId”] = (Get-AzureADGroup -SearchString “Name of your security group”).objectid
and set AllowGroupCreation to “True” to reverse it.