Working Collaboratively with O365, but why?!
Understanding where each service is hosted helps how to develop a very co-created work.
We have noticed that one of the root causes of tickets related to OneDrive, SharePoint and Teams happen due to the lack of background information.
Services Storage and Ecosystem
The Office 365 Environment was designed to cover many organizational and personal needs inside one same platform. And to have a wider idea it is important to see how each service cover specific needs.
Once the idea of several specific services was designed to play together, it is possible to understand that each component runs, and it is hosted in different engines of Office 365. That happens due to the diverse types of storage files, limits, and specifications.
With this briefing in relation to the design in mind, the idea of hosting similar files or resources that are used together becomes clear. And it is reinforced with the tools specific goals that corroborate to that.
According to Microsoft we have the following definitions:
Project-oriented teams to have a conversation, work together in files, call, and meet right where the work is happening.
Storing files in the cloud and sharing them with your team or organization, using robust permission management, and creating feature-rich available to be added to your Teams channel.
Storing and syncing files in the cloud and accessing them from anywhere on any device. Ideal for work in progress and sharing with specific individuals.
2. Integration
Personal Work.
Since the 3 products are sharing the same Data Store, Microsoft promotes the idea of collaboration to bring the best experience possible while creating or delivering.
So, all starts with personal work, that used to be stored on a local server, local computer or even an old Pen drive. To access it was needed to be in one place, send a version by email or many other highly creative ways were used.
However, with Office 365 and OneDrive available, a whole new level of possibilities appeared. From sharing in few clicks to limit the access as read-only to one file to a group of colleagues (that will be accessing the last version). In addition, the service has backup and versioning features that make it safer to store and keep track of your personal files.
Teamwork
Since the collaboration theme and need to work in groups that have the same goal, Office 365 introduced the Microsoft Teams. A toll that promoted Real Time and collaborative work in Teams, based on a chat and online meetings environment. Where the files can be shared in a call, in a project or in a shared folder.
Even personal work can be copied or moved to your team to explore co-creation experience and deliver work to distinct levels.
Organizational work
The last phase of a collaborative work, or the first, exists when the intention or need is to keep a wider circle aware of specific themes or organizational news. For that, SharePoint is the resource that promotes communication between teams and stakeholders, making the information flow with an elevated level of management and integration with other Office 365 resources.
Working together
Once we understand the ecosystem, the data structure, and each design — We can play with the resources and explore a very collaborative experience in a digital environment. And here we can find some examples:
· Post a file from OneDrive to a Teams channel for review.
· Share individual files from a folder with specific individuals directly from Teams, Email, Planner, etc.
· Develop work with a team in a wider or specific small group inside of a team by using channels, online meetings, and asynchronous interactions (due availability or time zone differences).
· Create pages, use a shared notebook or other resources to bring together conversations, calendars, and tasks.
· Share ownership and permissions with other people, to make faster and easier the site or team management, so we avoid necks in the process.
· Grant permissions on a site basis, instead of on individual documents.
· Create site pages to organize information, post news, provide contact information, and provide navigation to documents, media, and other types of information.
A full collaboration example would be: one colleague from the Marketing team develops some work in a Word Document, and it need to be shared with the Online marketing group.
The traditional way to do it would be sending an email, moving it to a Fileserver, sending in skype or any other creative way. However, if the colleague goes in MS Word´s Share button and add the email or the name of the Online marketing, the file will be shared with the whole team easier. And a notification will be sent to all colleagues, allowing them to co-create.
Beside the fact, all the Online Marketing Team will be able to work in the same version f the document and do collaboratively.
All these examples are based in the routine of most colleagues Working with O365, and we want to share it to promote this Digital mindset to push the teams with a great digital experience.
