Presented at NE Bytes (2017) Microsoft have provided some great tools to enable us to collaborate in Office 365. We can use calendars, files, distribution lists, Skype, files … the list keeps growing. With the release of Teams, we have a new way to work with these different tools. In this presentation I will compare and contrast the capabilities of Office 365 Groups and Teams, and even some of the capabilities found in more traditional SharePoint team sites. You will learn what the differences are, what the benefits are and even what some of the teething pains are, and be enabled to choose the most appropriate tool for your teams to use.

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Groups vs. Teams
“What you should be aware
of”
North East SharePoint User Group
Alan Eardley
21st June 2017

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About Me
• @al_eardley
• 20 Years in IT
• MCSA: Office 365
• MCSE: SharePoint
• MCSE: Productivity
• Prosci Change Practitioner
• Scrum Master
• PRINCE 2
• Office 365
• Azure
• Data Platform

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What will I cover?
• What are Office 365 Groups and Teams for?
• What features do they have?
• How do they compare?
• What does the future hold in store?

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What are they for?

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Who?
Individual OneDrive
Team Teams
Department Groups
Organisation SharePoint

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Purpose
Groups
• Content
• Calendar
• Email
• News
Teams
• Content
• Email
• Chat
• Skype for Business

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What features do they have?

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Technology stack
Teams
Office 365 Groups
Azure AD Exchange SharePoint Planner

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Features
Communication
News
Yammer
Chat
Distribution list
Content
Files
OneNote
Wiki
Collaboration
Site
Channels
Calendar
Skype
Planner
Integration
Connectors
Bots

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Features - Groups
Communication
News
Yammer
Chat
Distribution list
Content
Files
OneNote
Wiki
Collaboration
Site
Channels
Calendar
Skype
Planner
Integration
Connectors
Bots

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Features - Teams
Communication
News
Yammer
Chat
Distribution list
Content
Files
OneNote
Wiki
Collaboration
Site
Channels
Calendar
Skype
Planner
Integration
Connectors
Bots

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Access to features
Groups Teams
Outlook Calendar, Files, Notebook Notebook
Office 365 – Mail Calendar, Files, Notebook,
Planner, Site
Notebook
Office 365 – SharePoint Site
Office 365 – Planner Calendar, Files, Notebook Files, Notebook
Office 365 – Group Site Files, Notebook, News Files, Notebook
Teams - Web Files, Notebook, Calendar,
Planner, Conversations
Teams – Desktop Files, Notebook, Calendar,
Planner, Conversations

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Demo

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How do they compare?

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Features
Groups Teams
Distribution List Yes Yes
Files Yes Yes*
OneNote/Wiki Yes Yes*
Calendar Yes Yes*
Landing Page Yes Not visible
News Yes Not visible
Planner Yes Yes*
Yammer Group Yes** No
Persisted Chat No Yes
Channels No Yes
Connectors Yes Yes

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Visibility
Groups Teams
Private Yes Yes
Public Yes Yes
External Yes No – Coming in June

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Auditing
Teams
• Added channel
• Changed channel setting
• Changed organisation setting
• Changed team setting
• Created team
• Deleted Team
• User signed into Teams
Groups
• Group activities are covered under
standard SharePoint auditing

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Groups - Drawbacks
• Interface
– Disjointed navigation
experience
• Skype for Business
– Very little integration
• Conversations
– Outlook conversations add
nothing new
• Yammer
– Restrictions on integration
• Landing Page
– Does not offer links to all
features of a team (Calendar,
Planner)
• News
– Immature feature

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Teams - Drawbacks
• Calendar
– Can’t invite anyone outside of
Team
• Skype for Business
– Joining meetings from Outlook
does not use Teams
– Cannot use voice with S4B
• Planner
– Tasks in Teams planners are
not visible in the Groups
– Team Planners are not visible
in the Web interface for Planner
• News
– This is not available at all
• Chat
– This is restricted to the Team

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Benefits
Teams
• Single interface
• Skype for Business integration
• Windows App
• Android/iOS App
• Regular updates
Groups
• External access
• Android/iOS App
• New site templates

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What does the future hold?

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SharePoint Summit
• Improved integration
• Improved user experience
• Bring Pages and Sites into the Chat experience

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User Voice
• External access to Teams –
June
• Same presence as S4B
• Planner parity
• Group calendar in Teams
• Support for private channels
• Complete S4B integration
• Reuse of existing OneNote
• Use Group Planner

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Summary
• Groups provide lots of features that teams need
• Teams provides the consolidated interface to access the features
• Lots of updates coming in quick succession

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Links
• https://teams.microsoft.com
• https://www.successwithteams.com/
• https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com

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Office 365 | SharePoint | Project Server | CRM | Recruitment
Thank-you
Twitter: @al_eardley
LinkedIn: Alan Eardley
https://docs.com/al-eardley