How to Migrate Private Channels in Teams

Read time 7 minutes

Channels in Microsoft Teams are dedicated places for conversations related to specific topics. Generally, these channels are public, and the Office 365 users under the same Administrator can open it and check its chats. But, there is an option to create Private channels that will allow only the selected members to chat; the remaining users cannot open the private channel. Only the owner and the selected members of the channel can access a private channel. Any guest can also be allowed in a private channel as long as they are in the team.

How is a private channel useful in Microsoft Teams?

A business may require a private channel to allow some members of a team to collaborate more closely. For example, when some web designers are working on a new website, the Team lead can create a new channel where only the web designers can discuss their work. The private channel will protect their communication, and there will be no requirement to manage the communication using any other secure medium or application.

A private channel is beneficial in the following scenarios-

• A group of employees in a team requires a separate space to discuss without sharing information with others.
• A subset of employees wants to discuss some confidential details like budgeting, recruitments, firings, resourcing, decision-making, merger, official policies, etc.

You can easily recognize a private channel with its lock icon adjacent to the channel name. When the Administrator creates a Team in Microsoft Teams as a private one, it is attached to its parent Team, and it cannot be moved. Moreover, you cannot convert a private channel into a standard one. The Team owner can perform several tasks related to a private channel like creation, deletion, leave, edition, restoration, adding members, editing settings, and managing tabs and apps.

A private channel may contain important chats and files useful in a project. If you are working on a new project that may benefit from an older piece of communication present in a private chat, you can migrate it into a new team. The ownership of the channel will remain the same. In the checklists for Microsoft Team migration, the private channel should be handled carefully.

Due to the limitations of manual migration between Microsoft Teams, you should use the Kernel Microsoft Teams application to migrate the private channel. You can migrate teams that contain the private channels.

Kernel Microsoft Teams Migration software allows you to connect two Office 365 tenants and move Teams between them.

• Open the software and go to the Microsoft Teams option in the source section.
• Right-click and choose Add Teams.
• In the Add Team wizard, you need to input the required details. You can access these details in the Azure portal. You should click the App Registration option and follow the procedure.
• Provide a project name, Tenant ID, username, Client ID, and Client Secret. Then, click the Register and Connect button.
  • After you click the Register and Connect button, then a new Login page will open where you must select Modern or Basic authentication. It will require you to provide the account credentials twice to register the app. Click OK.
  • Copy the Application ID and follow the steps to register app in the Azure Active Directory. Then, click OK.
  • A prompt message will ask you if you have registered the app in the AD. If you have done it, then click Yes.
• The Office 365 tenant is connected with the software. It will show all the Teams present in the account.
• Go to the Destination section, then choose Microsoft Teams>>Add Teams.
• Follow the same process to retrieve details from destination Office 365 tenant. Then, click Register and Connect.
• The new tenant ID is connected with all the teams.
• Now copy the team that has the private channel in it.
• Right-click on the destination section and choose the Paste option.
• Now you should map the Teams properly. Use the checkbox to select/deselect Teams. You can also provide a nickname to the Team at the destination. Click Start Migration.
• The migration will start quickly.
• The migration is completed successfully.
• A migration summary will denote the correct status of migrated teams.

Conclusion

A private channel in Microsoft Teams is very convenient for users. But if they try to move the Private channel manually, they will have to maintain its environment as it is closely related to other applications like SharePoint.

Kernel Microsoft Teams Migration tool takes care of all these things and migrates Teams data accordingly. The user can access the same channel in the migrated team instantly after the migration. It will migrate the entire team; so all the channels present in it will be migrated.