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Microsoft Teams Monitoring for Safer Schools

Microsoft Teams has become a part of everyday school life with the rise of hybrid learning. But a common question to consider is: How is Microsoft Teams Safe for Students?

Safeguarding software from Senso offers comprehensive and effective coverage for Microsoft Teams, giving you the power to keep Teams chats and calls secure.

How Can Teams Chats be Monitored Effectively?

As an integrated extension of Senso’s monitoring software, Microsoft Teams chat monitoring and filtering is just as effective as our protection elsewhere on the web. This process is built on identifying and blocking violations based on keyword monitoring algorithms and AI-based visual threat analysis.

The setup for effective Teams chat monitoring is simple. Firstly, sign in to your Office 365 admin account and the Senso Portal, making sure your data is synced on the Senso admin center dashboard. Then on the Microsoft Teams (Monitoring) tab on your Senso dashboard, click Authorize Senso and follow instructions from the page setup, making sure to select the options to monitor all Teams chats and channels. You can then add groups from the options drop-down menu to import users and assign different Microsoft Teams roles and permissions.

Once your system is correctly monitoring the chats and channels you need to track, you will receive alerts of behavior violations with information on the date, severity, and channel in which it occurred. As this is agentless software, each device seamlessly runs the software without any extra installation needed, so your safeguarding system can quickly and easily start running across your network.

How to Use Microsoft Teams for Hybrid Learning Safeguarding

Hybrid learning brings with it more exposure to fast-paced information streams and a perception of students' freedom to act out when compared to typical classroom communication. Therefore keeping on top of arising problems of inappropriate behaviour and cyberbullying is important to keep students on track with learning and away from harm.

You can set up email alerts for violations of conduct across your system in the Senso Admin Center. From here you can choose to receive emails of urgent or critical violations on Teams platforms or just receive a full weekly report. Keeping a log of chat violations and harmful behavior allows you to identify trends in online activity among your students to prioritize the most important issues and keep your school safe.

Automoderation settings can be implemented to remove inappropriate content before it appears in the Microsoft Teams chat. This keyword filtering system records violations as normal so you can identify hazards and trends, but limits students’ interactions with the content. This is set up in the Senso Admin Portal to reflect pre-built or manual content libraries of your safeguarding teams’ choosing so you can manage the specifics of what your students are able to access.

Alongside this comprehensive automated system, individual users (staff and students) can report concerns directly with the anonymized ‘Report a Concern’ feature directly from their Teams interface. This introduces a further human element that is key to safeguarding and meeting concerns head-on while having evidence of previous behavior to support these concerns from Teams chat log monitoring.

Is Microsoft Teams Secure?

Our top Microsoft Teams Security best practices that you should be aware of in the context of monitoring hybrid learning environments include:
• Regularly audit Microsoft Teams permissions and roles for admin staff so that only relevant members are able to access critical information and settings.
• Do not keep Teams logs for longer than necessary, especially if a false violation is identified.
• Educate classes on your school’s Microsoft Teams rules for students. This makes them more aware of their roles and responsibilities as part of the online community, often preventing inappropriate behavior in the first place.

Make the Most of Microsoft Teams Learning Tools with Senso Safeguarding

To decide whether Senso software is right for you, you can Book a Demo for Free today. Invest in your school’s technology today with a little help from Senso.