Naming Conventions allow you to fully control Team Naming across your entire organization by adding Prefixes and Suffixes to each Team that's based on a certain Template.
They're great if you want to add extra information to Team names by default. You can even disallow users from specifying their own Team names and force the Naming Convention that you've implemented.
With proper Naming Conventions, you'll be able to:
Find teams faster: Clear, consistent names make it easier to locate teams.
Avoid duplicates: Prevents redundancy or confusion during team creation.
Create clarity: The Team's purpose is immediately visible, improving collaboration.
Let's take a look at how Naming Conventions are created and apply them to real-world scenarios for more context.
⚙️ Naming Convention Options
Naming Conventions present you with different options for Name Generation, Prefixes, and Suffixes.
Any changes made to these options will be visible in the Preview Teams section.
Prefixes and Suffixes can contain:
Custom Strings - Act as regular text fields where you can enter a predetermined string, which will be placed in front of or at the end of the Team name.
Requested Name - The Team name specified by the customer during request creation.
Metadata Fields - Allow you to utilize (some of) the existing Metadata fields that you've created to automatically add the information specified by the employee to the beginning or the end of the Team name.
Attributes - Allow you to select between Template name, Classification, and Sensitivity label. Selecting either one of these will pull the corresponding Attribute and add it to the Team name as a Prefix/Suffix.
✍️ Creating Naming Conventions
As an example, let's create a "Project" Naming Convention to see what this feature is capable of.
Navigate to ≡ > Settings > Naming conventions and click on + Create a naming convention.
Specify a Name and Description for your Naming Convention and review the rest of the available options.
Add a Prefix and Suffix. In our case, we're adding a "P_" Custom String as a Prefix to designate the fact that it's a project. For the Suffix, we're adding a "Client Name" Metadata Field and a "Template Name" Attribute to give more information to anyone observing the Team.
Once you're satisfied with your new naming convention, simply click Create to finalize it.
Just creating a Naming Convention rule won't actually apply it to any Templates. In order to make the Naming Convention active, you'll need to create a Policy Execution.
💡 We recommend adding an underscore "_" before/after each new Prefix and Suffix because Naming Convention rules do not add spaces or separators by themselves.
🏅 Final Results
Once you've made your Naming Convention active via Policy Execution, it will be applied to the Templates that meet the corresponding criteria.
In our case, you can see that the employee specified "Medea" as the Team name; however, since we've added a Naming Convention Policy that applies to this Template, the system adds "P_" as a prefix, while adding "VCL Capital" (Client Name) and "Marketing" (Template Name) as suffixes.
💡 Additional Tips & Tricks
Prefixes and Suffixes don't add any separators by themselves, so it's highly recommended that you add an underscore or any other symbol of your choice after each new Prefix/Suffix line.
Naming Conventions can apply to several Templates depending on your Policy Configuration.
🎯 Best Practices
Now that you know exactly how to set up Naming Conventions, we can get into the administrative side of things and explore some best practices that will help you elevate your governance to the next level.
1. Use a Consistent Scheme
Establish a uniform naming pattern to maintain clarity and structure, like:
[Department]_[Project]_[Topic]
Example: Marketing_Website_Relaunch
2. Keep Team Names Short
Use concise names (ideally under 30 characters) so they are fully visible in the Teams sidebar. Microsoft Teams has a technical limit of 30–36 characters, depending on character case.
3. Use Prefixes
Prefixes will help you categorize Teams by function:
DEPT_ for department teams (e.g., DEPT_Marketing_Campaigns)
P_ for project teams (e.g., P_Website_Relaunch_2024)
WG_ for working groups (e.g., WG_Digitization)
4. Use Suffixes
Suffixes can provide additional context:
Region: _DE, _EU, _APAC
Status: _ACTIVE, _ARCHIVE, _TEMP
Priority: _P1, _P2, _P3
Example: Sales_DACH_Q1_2024
5. Avoid Special Characters or Emojis
Avoid using special characters and emojis since they can cause technical issues later down the line (e.g., in SharePoint URLs) and hinder searchability. Stick to letters, numbers, hyphens, and underscores instead.
6. Ensure Uniqueness
Make team names unique by adding various elements like a location, year, or department.
Example: Sales_DACH_Q1_2024
7. Use Terms and Abbreviations Consistently
Define and enforce company-wide abbreviations (e.g., HR for Human Resources) to avoid confusion and improve recognition.
8. Regularly Review Naming Conventions
Reevaluate your naming rules every few months to ensure they still align with your organization’s structure and are being followed by your employees.
👣 Next Steps
Now that you've created your Naming Conventions, you can start applying them via Policy Packages or set up Lifecycle Policies.
We recommend starting here:
⛑️ Need more help?
Get further assistance with Teams Manager through our support chat widget within the app, or reach out to us at [email protected]