Today, a wide range of 3rd party recording solutions are available for Microsoft Teams. We look at the possible reasons why you might need one and which is the best out there!
If you use Microsoft Teams or sell it to others, you may know that it already comes with a manual recording option. So then why does someone need a 3rd party recording solution? Depending on your business, there may be a few reasons.
Let’s start with how Microsoft Teams fits in your communication structure: Are you using it solely for internal collaboration? Or does Microsoft Teams account for most of your internal and external communications? If it’s the latter, do you need to record calls to maintain compliance? Or do you want to be able to analyze and use them for training purposes? If any of these reasons fit your organizational needs, you need to consider a better recording solution than the inbuilt manual recording in Microsoft Teams.
4 Recording Requirement Types Defined by Microsoft:
Although we recommend using Clarify as the 3rd party recording software for Teams, you may or may not need it depending on your recording requirements. Microsoft combines Teams’ users into four groups:
1. Convenience: This one is for ad-hoc purposes to record a meeting or call by an end-user. If you need to record for convenience purposes like later reference, share with absent team members or customers, or take minutes, then Team’s own manual recorder would suffice. Microsoft license owners and anyone with admin rights can record calls with every participant’s permission.
2. Functional: If you need to record a meeting, webinar, live stream, or training session for productivity and learning purposes, you need a 3rd party recorder.
3. Organizational: To record employee conversations for administrative purposes like maintaining compliance and managing risk, you need a 3rd party solution.
4. Legal: If you need do perform silent surveillance authorized by the LEA (Law Enforcement Agency), then a 3rd party recording solution is needed.
How to Choose the Best 3rd Party Call Recorder for Teams:
Choose a Microsoft Partner solution
The huge uptake of Microsoft Teams has, unsurprisingly, led to the arrival of a fair few 3rd party recording solutions on the market. For the best performance and interoperability, it’s worth seeking out those whitelisted and certified by Microsoft themselves, such as Clarify from Oak Innovation. These should integrate with Microsoft’s own Graph API to ensure all communication types are captured, including audio, video and screen-sharing between Teams users both inside and outside an organization. Other benefits of choosing a Team’s certified solution include:
Select the Features You Need, Not What’s Offered:
If you prioritize compliance, go for a vendor that checks all the boxes in this area. Do you want to capture both internal and external communications for MiFID II? Do you want to avoid abuse by tracking who’s accessing and removing records under GDPR? Do you want to ensure every call is stored securely in a tamperproof format for Dodd-Frank or the FCA? Do you want to have automated PCI stop/start to ensure the software doesn’t record sensitive credit card details by mistake? No matter which of these functions you need, the right solution should cover that!
See Which Tool Provides Additional Value:
Besides any must-have features, look out for innovative capabilities to help improve performance and service, like speech analytics that scan conversations for keywords, emotions, and script adherence. Furthermore, integrations with other Microsoft tools like Dynamics CRM or Insights will also prove useful.
Why Do We Recommend Choosing Clarify?
TELECO has been helping businesses improve and capture internal and external communications through its range of products, including phone systems, VoIP and call recorders, etc. Clarify satisfies both essential compliance requirements and also delivers added-value features:
• Records incoming, outbound, and internal communications
• Secure 256-bit AES encryption
• Single logon with Active Directory
• Infinite storage
• Permission-based levels of access
• Voice analysis for sentiments and keywords
• Omni-channel recording for screens, meetings, and voice
• Dodd-Frank, GDPR, FCA, MiFID II, HIPAA, PCI, etc. compliant
• Automated start/stop PCI recording
• Integration with Microsoft Insights for call transcription
• Can be integrated with Dynamics CRM
Furthermore, we recommend Clarify for Teams as having the most user-friendly UI out there and for its flexibility of deployment, including cloud, on premises, Teams-only recording and a hybrid model that captures calls on both Teams and your traditional phone system.
