Microsoft Teams Connector

Collaboration & Unified Communications | Connector for Microsoft Teams

What Is the Shield Connector for Microsoft Teams?

Microsoft Teams has become the dominant enterprise collaboration and unified communications platform across the global financial services industry. Used daily by traders, advisors, analysts, relationship managers, compliance functions, and support teams at regulated firms worldwide, Teams has consolidated internal messaging, client-facing communication, voice calling, video conferencing, and file collaboration into a single platform — displacing email for many internal interactions and complementing Bloomberg IB, Symphony, and other financial messaging channels for a growing proportion of client and counterparty communication.

Shield’s connector for Microsoft Teams provides comprehensive capture across the full Microsoft Teams communication estate — including Teams chat messages, channel communications, voice calls and meetings, file shares, and associated metadata — delivering everything into Shield’s compliance platform for AI-powered surveillance, investigation, regulatory archiving, and eDiscovery, all within a single unified platform.

Teams data does not exist in isolation. Shield understands the full context of Teams communications, enabling compliance teams to detect genuine risk rather than chasing false positives.

Why Microsoft Teams Compliance Is Complex

Microsoft Teams is not a straightforward channel to capture and surveil at the fidelity required for financial services compliance. Several specific challenges arise consistently across regulated firms:

• Multiple distinct communication types requiring unified capture. Teams generates several fundamentally different categories of communication — chat messages (direct messages and group direct messages), channel messages (standard, private, and shared channels), audio and video calls, scheduled and ad hoc meetings, and in-meeting chat — each produced by different components of the Teams platform with different metadata structures, different retention configurations, and different compliance characteristics. Many firms that deploy Teams compliance archiving discover that their solution captures some Teams communication types while silently missing others. A complete Teams compliance programme requires consistent capture across all communication types.
• Voice treated as separate from messaging. Teams Voice and Teams Audio calls are not captured by Teams messaging connectors. The two are generated by different platform components and require separate compliance configurations. Firms that have deployed comprehensive Teams messaging archiving without also implementing Teams voice capture have a material gap in their voice compliance coverage — a gap that may not be immediately apparent and that regulators increasingly expect to have been addressed.
• Edited and deleted messages. Teams permits users to edit and delete messages after sending — a capability that can be used to conceal misconduct. A compliant Teams archive must capture original message content, all edited versions, and deletion events as part of the immutable compliance record. Solutions that capture only the current state of messages at a point in time cannot meet this requirement.
• Private and shared channels alongside standard channels. Teams channels are not all the same. Standard channels are visible to all Team members; private channels restrict visibility; shared channels extend participation to external users and guest accounts. Firms that capture standard channel messages while missing private and shared channel communications may have significant, undetected gaps in their Teams channel compliance coverage.
• Cross-channel continuity. Teams sits within a broader communication landscape that also includes Bloomberg IB, email, Symphony, voice, and mobile. Compliance architectures that treat Teams as a standalone archive — separate from other channels — cannot reconstruct the complete picture of a business interaction or detect misconduct that spans multiple platforms.

Key Features of the Shield Microsoft Teams Connector

Comprehensive Teams Communication Capture. Shield captures the full range of Microsoft Teams communication types — direct messages, group direct messages, standard channel messages, private channel messages, shared channel messages, Teams Voice calls, Teams audio and video meetings, in-meeting chat, and file shares — including full message content, call recordings, thread replies, and every metadata field generated by the Teams platform. All data is ingested in full, with zero data loss across all Teams communication types.

Full Metadata Preservation. Shield retains and enriches the complete Teams metadata layer — including channel and workspace identifiers, thread timestamps and parent-reply relationships, user identifiers, external and guest participant attribution, edit and deletion records, meeting identifiers, participant lists, call duration, and message IDs. This metadata is preserved in its original form, made fully searchable, and stored as part of the immutable compliance record.

Edit and Deletion History. Shield captures the complete edit and deletion history for every Teams message — preserving original message content, all edited versions, and deletion events as part of the immutable compliance record. This ensures the archive reflects what was actually communicated, not only what currently appears in Teams, and that attempts to conceal misconduct through editing or deletion are captured and detectable.

AI-Powered Transcription and Voice Surveillance. For Teams audio calls and meetings, Shield applies AI-powered transcription specifically trained on financial services voice communications — including the financial shorthand, instrument terminology, and informal language of trading desk and client-facing calls. Transcripts are passed through Shield’s surveillance models, delivering significantly higher accuracy than Microsoft’s native Teams transcription for financial services content.

Immutable, Audit-Ready Archive. All Teams data captured by Shield is stored in a tamper-evident, WORM-compliant archive with a complete audit trail of every access and action taken on the record. Data is indexed for rapid search and retrieval, supporting regulatory examination responses, eDiscovery requests, and internal investigations. Retention periods are fully configurable to meet jurisdiction-specific requirements — including the six-year standard under SEC Rules 17a-3 and 17a-4, the five-to-seven-year requirements under MiFID II and MAR, and the five-year requirements under CFTC Regulation 1.35.

Out-of-the-Box AI Surveillance Models. Shield ships with pre-configured AI surveillance models for Microsoft Teams, targeting behaviours including market manipulation, MNPI sharing, information leakage, front-running, and personal misconduct — calibrated to the specific language patterns of financial services Teams communications. Models can be customised to reflect a firm’s specific risk appetite, restricted lists, and internal policy requirements.

Unified Cross-Channel Surveillance. Teams does not exist in isolation. The same employees communicating over Teams are also using Bloomberg IB, email, Symphony, and other channels — often about the same trades, clients, and decisions. Shield ingests Teams data into the same unified compliance platform as every other channel, enabling compliance teams to correlate Teams activity with all other sources. This cross-channel context is essential for accurate misconduct detection, complete trade reconstruction, and defensible regulatory responses.

Data Governance and Chain of Custody. Shield’s Teams connector preserves a complete, verifiable chain of custody from capture through archiving and retrieval. Every stage of data handling is logged, auditable, and reportable — giving compliance officers and legal teams the confidence that Teams records are admissible, complete, and unaltered throughout their lifecycle.

Regulatory Coverage

Microsoft Teams communications are classified as business records subject to capture, retention, and surveillance requirements across multiple regulatory frameworks. The Shield Microsoft Teams connector supports compliance with:

• SEC Rules 17a-3 and 17a-4 — requiring broker-dealers to capture, preserve, and produce records of all communications related to their business, stored in WORM-compliant, non-rewriteable format with an audit trail, for a minimum of six years — applicable to all Teams communications conducted in connection with regulated activity.
• FINRA Rules 4511 and 3110 — requiring member firms to archive all communications relating to their business as such — including instant messages, collaboration platform communications, and recorded voice — with written supervisory procedures, supervision requirements, and full audit trail capability in place.
• MiFID II Article 16(7) and Article 25 — requiring investment firms to record and retain electronic communications and telephone conversations related to orders and transactions for a minimum of five years, with trade reconstruction capability within three days. Both Teams messaging and Teams audio calls are in scope under MiFID II.
• Market Abuse Regulation (MAR) — requiring firms to monitor communications for indicators of insider trading, front-running, and market manipulation — applicable to Teams messaging, channel communications, and voice calls.
• CFTC Regulation 1.35 and 17 CFR § 23.202 — requiring swap dealers, major swap participants, and futures commission merchants to retain records of all communications relating to commodity interests and swap transactions as part of a complete audit trail for trade reconstruction.
• FCA Rules (SYSC 10A and MAR) — requiring FCA-regulated firms to record and retain relevant electronic communications and telephone conversations for a minimum of five years, and to implement effective surveillance arrangements to detect and prevent market abuse.
• GDPR and applicable data privacy regulations — Shield’s architecture supports data residency requirements and privacy-compliant data handling across jurisdictions, including the specific requirements around voice recording consent, data subject access rights, and retention limitation applicable to Teams communications under GDPR and equivalent frameworks.

Other Related Connectors

Shield’s connector portfolio spans the full range of eComms channels and trading platforms used across regulated financial institutions. All connectors feed into a single unified compliance platform, so Teams data is always reviewed in the context of every other channel your workforce uses.

• Microsoft Exchange
• Bloomberg IB and Bloomberg Mail
• Symphony
• ICE Chat
• FX Connect
• WhatsApp Business
• WeChat
• Slack
• Zoom
• Voice and Turret
• Mobile (SMS/MMS)
• Gmail

Frequently Asked Questions

What Teams communication types does Shield capture?

Shield captures direct messages, group direct messages, standard channel messages, private channel messages, shared channel messages, Teams Voice calls, Teams audio and video meetings, in-meeting chat, and file shares — including full message content, call recordings, thread replies, edit and deletion history, and the complete metadata layer. All Teams communication types are captured consistently across all channels, teams, and workspaces.

Does Teams messaging capture also cover Teams voice and audio calls?

No. Teams messaging and Teams voice and audio are generated by different components of the Microsoft Teams platform and require separate compliance configurations. Many firms that deploy Teams messaging archiving assume — incorrectly — that Teams calls and meetings are also covered. A firm without specific Teams voice and audio capture has a material gap in its voice compliance coverage. Shield captures both Teams messaging and Teams audio in the same unified archive.

Does Shield capture edited and deleted Teams messages?

Yes. Shield captures the complete edit and deletion history for every Teams message — preserving original content, all edited versions, and deletion events as part of the immutable compliance record. This ensures the archive reflects what was actually communicated, and that attempts to conceal misconduct through editing or deletion are captured and available for investigation.

Which regulations does the Shield Teams connector help firms comply with?

The Shield Teams connector supports compliance with SEC Rules 17a-3 and 17a-4, FINRA Rules 4511 and 3110, MiFID II Articles 16(7) and 25, Market Abuse Regulation (MAR), CFTC Regulation 1.35 and 17 CFR § 23.202, FCA SYSC 10A, and applicable data privacy regulations including GDPR.

Can Teams data be reviewed alongside Bloomberg IB, email, and other channels during an investigation?

Yes, and this is central to effective Teams compliance. Misconduct rarely stays on a single channel — a conversation may begin on Teams chat, continue over Bloomberg IB, and conclude via email or voice. Shield ingests Teams into the same unified compliance archive as every other channel, enabling compliance teams to reconstruct the complete sequence of a business interaction in a single workflow.

How should firms approach GDPR and privacy requirements for Teams voice recordings?

Recorded Teams audio communications are subject to specific GDPR obligations — including lawful basis for recording, notification to call participants, data subject access rights, and retention limitation. Shield’s architecture supports privacy-compliant handling of Teams data across all communication types, including configurable retention periods and data residency controls.