Naming convention
With a naming convention, all teams of a template get consistent names. Users still create their teams themselves, but the names automatically follow your rules. This keeps Microsoft Teams, Outlook and Microsoft Entra ID organised, and teams are easy to find and assign.
You can define how these three names are built:
| Name | Where it appears | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Display name | Name of the team in Microsoft Teams, Outlook and SharePoint | 260215.001 - Project Atlas |
| Email address | Address of the Microsoft 365 group | prj-260215.001@contoso.com |
| Site URL | Address of the team's SharePoint site | contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/prj-260215.001 |
Naming conventions only apply to teams created in the Seamless app. They are not applied via the API.
Set up a naming convention
You define the naming convention per template. As an example, we use the template Project of the organisation Contoso.
Open the Naming tab
In the Admin Center, open Groups > Templates, edit the organisation Contoso and then the template Project. Switch to the Naming tab.
Create custom fields
With custom fields, you ask for any details when a team is created, for example a project code, a cost centre, a customer or a location. You then use these details as placeholders in the names.
Under Custom fields, click Add field and enter:
| Field | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Name | Name of the field as users see it. | Project code |
| Hint | Help text that explains what to enter. | Project code in the format 260215.001 |
| Validation | Optional: regular expression used to check the input. Without an expression, nothing is checked. | ^\d{6}\.\d{3}$ |
Click Add field. The field appears in the table. The Key column shows the placeholder you use to include the field in the names.
You can create several fields, for example an additional Customer field for teams with external partners.
Define the display name
Under Display name format, you define how the display name is built from text and placeholders. Placeholders are written in double curly braces. {{name}} is the name the user enters. You use custom fields with their key. The available placeholders are shown below the field.
| Pattern | Result |
|---|---|
{{projectCode}} - {{name}} | 260215.001 - Project Atlas |
{{name}} ({{projectCode}}) | Project Atlas (260215.001) |
PRJ {{projectCode}} - {{name}} | PRJ 260215.001 - Project Atlas |
Separate the code and name with a space and hyphen or with brackets. Don't attach the code directly to the name, for example {{projectCode}}_{{name}}. Otherwise, search in Microsoft 365 won't reliably find the team when only part of the name is searched for.
Define the email address and site URL
Under Group email and site-url format, you define how the group's email address and the SharePoint site URL are built. If the field is left empty, the display name is used.
| Pattern | Email address | Site URL |
|---|---|---|
{{projectCode}} | 260215.001@contoso.com | …/sites/260215.001 |
prj-{{projectCode}} | prj-260215.001@contoso.com | …/sites/prj-260215.001 |
A separate rule for email address and site URL is worth it:
- Short URLs: Long site URLs hit the maximum path length sooner when syncing with OneDrive.
- Easy assignment: A prefix such as
prj-shows immediately in the Microsoft admin centers which template a team comes from. This lets you target scripts at these teams. - Unique addresses: With a project code, you can find the site directly by its number.
For the email address and URL, use only lowercase letters, numbers, hyphens and full stops where possible, without spaces or umlauts.
Save
Click Save. The naming convention applies immediately to all new teams from this template.
Validation examples
With a regular expression, Seamless checks whether an input matches the required format. Copilot or ChatGPT can help you write your own expressions.
| Expression | Meaning | Valid |
|---|---|---|
^\d{6}\.\d{3}$ | 6 digits, full stop, 3 digits | 260215.001 |
^[0-9]{5}$ | exactly 5 digits | 24001 |
^[A-Z]{3}-[0-9]{4}$ | 3 capital letters, hyphen, 4 digits | ABC-1234 |
^[0-9]{4}/[A-Z]{2}$ | 4 digits, slash, 2 capital letters | 1234/AB |
^PROJ-[0-9]{6}$ | prefix PROJ-, then 6 digits | PROJ-123456 |
^[A-Z0-9]{8}$ | exactly 8 capital letters or digits | A1B2C3D4 |