Forum Discussion
The Office 365 Groups Disconnect
On a mobile phone you don't normally see this as too much of an issue, Facebook, Messenger, Twitter, Email, WhatsApp, Instagram, SnapChat, LinkedIn, Pintrest all service different purposes, but as they notify me, show message counts etc I don't really care that they are different. I *think* that's Microsoft model, all tools in their native and optimised form keeping you notified through a common interface. I guess what I don't understand is why Outlook, Teams, Skype create their own notifications rather than use the one built into Windows 10.
In general I tell my users to discuss as a team and select the tools that suit them best, generally it seems that most end up using 2 of the 3, rather than all tools. We also encourage them to try and be prepared to change if it's not ideal.
I dont see how a fully fledged email showing in teams would be that much different than what we have today. I don't see what the issue is, slack accomplishes this just fine. And I could see a couple tweeks to the slack UI that teams could do to make it work pretty well. I mean are the Outlook Group chat is not really that different than the channel chat.
On mobile it isnt an issue becasue those tools are thought to be different and usually using them you are interecting with technically different team. For example, you post to facebook, twitter, and intagram to reach a different audience. It is a painpoint for someone who want to reach all three audiences to post sepertly to each which is why there are apps chreated that bring all these things together into a single communication spot.
If this is microsft plan it is simply anti-productive. Someone who spends all there time in outlook will see the Outlook group there and start posting. When the rest of the team is posting away in Teams. Conversations will be missed. Even if MS makes it to were you can force team conversation to a specific platform. The person who spends most their time in Outlook now had to use 2 tools.
I am not claiming there is an simple fix. Teams puts a large wrench in things becasue the place where the conversation happens (channels) is not what is tied specifically to a group. The lack of the 1 to 1 relationship is problomatic.
I personally much prefer the teams app as do most our team owners. The makup of the teams are about 50/50. Thankfully no one seem to like yammer. Well I should say becasue we never told anyone about it. So as of right now we have split conversations.
Anyway, I dont think there is much that can be done now, but I think this was a big miss that could have been a big win. There would have been less of the which one do I use when, and there would be easier adoption of the tools. As well as leaving it trully open to allow workers to use the tools they are most comfortable with.
On mobile it isnt an issue becasue those tools are thought to be different and usually using them you are interecting with technically different team. For example, you post to facebook, twitter, and intagram to reach a different audience. It is a painpoint for someone who want to reach all three audiences to post sepertly to each which is why there are apps chreated that bring all these things together into a single communication spot.
I wouldnt see a point at which people want to reach all three audiences existing, or at least not a problem. To reach the widest audience I would use Yammer, it's the tool for talking to large groups, talking to people you don't directly know etc. Outlook Groups and Teams support a rich connector from Yammer.
In my company different groups of users elect to use different tools, many of which aren't ones we can support and govern, for example WhatApp, Slack, iMessage, Facetime, Appear.in etc. They're asking for different models of communication and are less bothered about unity of comms channels, file locations and single sign on. If I ask people they say there are too many tools, but it's not really stopping them start using others.
Microsoft are trying to provide enough different experiences that I can govern, secure and support to let me try and wean people away from public tools.
Maybe other companies experience is different, and your staff only use the tools you give them ?
- Steve your missing the point on think. You said it wasn't a problem because people are used to it on mobile. Except it is more likely the groups of people using the different apps you referenced are not the same group of people. But in office 365 group they are the same group of people. You make a team, you get a group. That group will also show in outlook. Same files, same onenote, same planner (although technically they don't show tasks from each other right now that is already slated to change). The only thing not the same is the conversation.
It is very difficult to say to everyone, "okay for this group let's all use teams". When one of the members is in outlook and see the group and the files and the notbook. They just use the group, they send a message. Other team members are in outlook they see it and respond. Some members stick in Teams. They carry on there. The group is now split and maintaining two conversations.
The group is now disconnected. Maybe even temporarily but still disconnected.
Now let's take the user who has 10 different groups they are in. For all these groups they are outlook group based. Except for 1 it is team based. That user now has to break from outlook and go to teams to participate in 1/10 of there job duties. This is a productivity issue and a pain point for the worker to adopt which will likely cause less participation in the group.
The truth of the matter is MS could have handled this better. They could have keep 1:1 relationships across all products. Leaving the perfected tool to use up to each individual worker not at the team level.
The current situation the group creator decided where the group should be having there conversation. Then they have to try to endorse this, and try to get users to use tools they may not be comfortable with or even enjoy using.
Let's put this example to files. You can access the dane group files from Outlook, teams, yammer, sharepoint, office web apps, delve, sway, onenote, planner. This was the point of groups.
You truly have the choice of tools, no matter where you happen to be within the ecosystem you can participate with the group. But for to send a message/conversation you have to stop think to yourself "which app are people using for this". Then switch to that app to interact. This seems to be the complete opposite of what groups was introduced for. This is why I consider the one major disconnect of the system.
I think Jeff has a point and to be frank, when Teams came out, I thought Microsoft will kill the conversations feature in Groups and move it over to Teams. That was my prediction, considering the business users with my clients, and how I predicted these tools will shape the workplace.
Or may be that was just my hope that replacement will happen so what Jeff mentions wouldn't show itself as issue. I think I am wrong at this point.
