Forum Discussion
Linking the files tab of a Teams channel to a different SharePoint site?
- Jul 25, 2019It’s not possible to link the files tab to any other library than the teams teamsite and the corresponding channel folder in that root library! What you can do is setup a sharepoint library tab in a channel going to any library you like! Or set that library as cloud storage in the standard files tab, making that library a folder in the files tab
GAScott I ran into a very similar issue today: when I had renamed a SharePoint documents folder, its link to the Teams "Files" tab was broken. Here is how I changed the name after all.
Context:
I had originally created a new Team team called "MIS", the name of our business unit. Within the new team I had created a new channel called "MIS management meetings". This resulted neatly in the creation of a SharePoint site "MIS" and a folder "MIS management meetings" within the "Documents" section of the SharePoint site.
Then, wanting to drop the "MIS" bit from the name, I renamed the Teams channel from "MIS management meetings" to "Management meetings", and all was fine.
But when I renamed the SharePoint folder from "MIS management meetings" to just "Management meetings", the "Files" tab in Teams showed up empty.
There seems to be no way in Teams to point the channel "Files" tab towards a new folder name. In other words, it seems impossible to access the metadata for the "File" tab and type a new path.
On helpdesk fora, two other options are given: to select "Add cloud storage", or to add a new tab linking to SharePoint site. These were not what I wanted. I wanted to simply keep one single "Files" tab but redirect it to the new folder. Neither did I want to keep the old original folder name.
What I did to solve the problem:
1. I temporarily renamed the SharePoint folder as well as the channel to their old name "MIS management meetings". This restored the content of the channel "Files" tab.
2. I created a new empty folder on SharePoint called "Management meetings"
3. In Teams, I created a new channel called "Management meetings". This creation led to the automatic detection of the SharePoint folder, which correctly showed up as the "Files" tab.
4. In SharePoint, I moved all documents from "MIS Management meetings" to "Management meetings". As a result, the subfolders and files now showed up in the "Files" tab of the new channel "Management meetings".
5. I deleted the old channel "MIS Management meetings", accepting the loss of a few conversations within it. (Luckily we had run into this issue quickly so nothing much valuable was lost).
The best solution would be that Teams admins could simply open the metadata for the channel "Files" tab and point it towards a different folder.
NickVanMaele Having the exact same issue, seems like folder renaming is not possible ? Even worse, it is possible but breaks the system without warning. I use the sync function , then renamed the channel and the local folder, same issue as you describe.